A total of 139 cruise ships carrying 1,62,660 passengers visited India in 2017-18 at six major ports namely, Mumbai Port, Mormugao Port, New Mangalore Port, Cochin Port, Chennai Port and Kolkata Port. These major ports of the country have been developed to attract cruise ships with dedicated terminals and other related infrastructure for berthing of cruise vessels and embarking and disembarking of cruise passengers. The Ministry of Shipping has brought out a Vision Document with a view to develop India as a cruise shipping destination. The document envisages to develop supporting infrastructure for cruise tourism at ports, to give special focus on developing the domestic cruise industry through policy supports, incentives and port infrastructure development. Separately, Ministry of Shipping & Ministry of Tourism has jointly appointed a consultant for ‘Preparation of Action Plan for Development of Cruise Tourism in India. The cruise tourism operations augment local economic activities as business opportunities arise for supply for provisions, transport, hotels, bunkering, etc to cruise ships which generate direct and indirect employment and help in growth of local economy.

Air Italy and Vistara have signed an interline commercial agreement to offer single tickets for all customers from Italy to a range of Indian destinations with effect from January 7. Under the agreement, Air Italy will offer its customers the opportunity to fly to and from Chennai, Goa, Amritsar, Bengaluru, Kochi, Kolkata and Hyderabad, in connection with its Milan Malpensa-Delhi and Milan Malpensa-Mumbai flights launched respectively on December 6 and 13, 2018. Rossen Dimitrov, Chief Operating Officer (COO), Air Italy, said, The commencement of our partnership with Vistara is great news for passengers of both airlines. We are glad to strengthen our relations with our Indian partner which has rapidly expanded its network and services in a very short time. Our India-bound customers departing from the US and from Italy can now benefit from a wider selection of cities in addition to Delhi and Mumbai within a single ticket. Our aim is to ensure our passengers a smooth and enjoyable flight and along with our commercial partner to enable them to discover every part of this magnificent country.

Facilitating the movement of passengers during Kumbh Mela (January 15 to March 4), Air India has announced the launch of new flights to Allahabad from Delhi, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. The new flights will operate from January 13 to March 30, according to an official statement. Air India said the new flight on Delhi-Allahabad route will operate on five days of the week–Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, while flights on Ahmedabad-Allahabad route will operate on Wednesday and Saturday. The flight on Kolkata-Allahabad route will operate on three days of the week–Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, the airline said. Source: PTI

The Fern Hotels & Resorts is all set to open 20 Fern and Beacon Hotels across India and Nepal in the year 2019, said Suhail Kannampilly, COO, The Fern Hotels & Resorts. Out of these 20 hotels, two will be opened in Nepal – one in Kathmandu and second in Bharatpur, he informed. This will take the tally of the hotels managed by the group to 76, on our target to open 100 hotels by the year 2020, Kannampilly said. The 20 new hotels expected to open in the current year are located in Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Bharatpur (Nepal), Bhopal, Goa (Verna), Indore, Karad, Kathmandu, Kolhapur, Kumbhalgarh, Lonavala (2 hotels), Manali, Morbi, Polo Forest (Gujarat), Sarnath (Varanasi), Satara, Shivamogga, Solapur and Surat. The year 2018 witnessed The Fern successfully foraying into cities like Belgaum, Bhuj, Dwarka, Jamnagar, Madhavpur (Gujarat), New Delhi, Parbhani (Maharashtra), besides taking over the operations of a hotel in Kathmandu. The footprint of the brand was further established in locations like Goa, Jaipur, Rajkot and Udaipur, where the company opened second and third hotels in the same city.

Zen Cruises will launch India’s premium cruise line called ‘Jalesh’ on April 17, 2019 in Mumbai with the purchase of its first ship, the Pacific Jewel – a 70,285-ton, 1,900 passenger ship from P&O Australia. Jurgen Bailom, President & CEO, Zen Cruises, says, “She is a beautiful vessel and looks gorgeous. She will be refurbished by March 2019 and and will be christened on April 19, 2019. We are already taking bookings for sailings from Singapore and more guests will join from Colombo after which she will sail up to Mumbai. We already have a loadfactor of 50 per cent. Each sailing can hold up to 1,900 guests. We have so far sold over 50,000 cabins already.” The company has already started taking bookings for this ship directly via Zen’s website as well as through its sales business partners that have been appointed. “We have already started working with several sales business partners and many more will be added. We want to make it a level-playing field and anyone can become our partner. There are many cruise veterans in the business and we have given pre-allocations. We plan to sell approximately 100,000 cabins in 2019 and are very happy with the results so far. The cruise market in India is so big that there is space for many more cruise lines,” Bailom adds.

Meet The Folks Events (MTFE) has announced its first-ever consumer tourism fest and exhibition ‘Meet 2 Travel’ to be held in Delhi from April 5-7, 2019. Sharing the highlights of the event, Vineet Gopal, Founder, Meet The Folks Events, said, “MTFE has covered four major aspects of industries, where everyone can meet, connect and network with new people and transact business – ‘Creating Business Network’ is our tagline. “Meet 2 Travel  – M2T is providing a platform for travel companies to showcase their brand, services and products directly to their clients. In today’s time, one of the biggest challenges that organisations face is to source new clients when OTAs are taking a major market share. With our state-of-the-art B2C exhibition, M2T aims at providing helpful and successful solutions”, added Gopal. Megha Mittal, Project Head, Meet 2 Travel further mentioned, “M2T travel exhibition brings travel companies, tour operators and others on a single platform under the same roof. Exhibitors get a chance to meet and network with potential clients and customers and spearhead their business in the right direction of success. This exhibition is organised at some of the high footfall location of the city making it more accessible for the common people. The event will take place on weekends to ensure higher footfall. It is a win-win situation for tour operators and travel companies to be a part of this highly targeted exhibition. You get to meet clients and customers directly, highlight your services, and grow your business.”

More than 12 crore pilgrims are expected to visit Prayagraj Kumbh Mela 2019 starting January 15 at Prayagraj (formerly known as Allahabad) in Uttar Pradesh, including 10 lakh foreign tourists. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has joined hands with the Government of Uttar Pradesh in promoting the one-of-its-kind event. Suresh Kumar Khanna, Urban Development Minister, Uttar Pradesh announced the details of Prayagraj Kumbh Mela 2019 in Mumbai recently, saying, “This event is organised at four places in the country. The event held at Prayagraj itself is a subject of attraction and curiosity for the country and the world. Following the efforts made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UNESCO has included Kumbh in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” Programmes based on ancient cultural heritage will be organised, in addition to cultural programmes, food, festival etc. To seek support for Kumbh 2019 from Maharashtra, Khanna met Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister, Maharashtra, and handed over an invitation to him on behalf of Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister, Uttar Pradesh. The team also discussed the preparation by the state for this sought-after event. The Government of India has made a historic increase in number of flights by constructing a new air civil terminal in Prayagraj, which is now connected to the country’s several main cities like Bengaluru, Indore, Nagpur, Patna etc. A heliport is also being set up here and arrangements are being made to provide the facility of helicopter joy ride to tourists. Also, to provide high-quality facilities to tourists, a premium tent city is being developed in the Kumbh Mela area.

In an earnings conference call for Q2 FY2019 of the Jet Airways management with analysts, Vinay Dube, CEO, Jet Airways, has said that the airline remains focused on its airlines business turnaround. He said, “Instead of witnessing an increase in fares to recover cost increases, the industry fares and yields are in fact down. Such a low-fare environment is neither sustainable for the industry nor good for the consumer in the medium term, and it is imperative that fares rise in the short term. However, hope is not a strategy, and we remain focused on our airlines business turnaround, which we are happy to report, is on track.” Underlining some of its efforts, he added, “Our operational reliability and on-time performance is the best we have seen over the last three years. The airline’s arrival on-time performance for this quarter was 84 per cent, which is a substantial 15 per cent point higher than Q2 of last year.” Sharing the results of the second quarter for fiscal year 2019, Dube said, “This quarter, we reported a loss of Rs 1,261 crore at a consolidated level. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange losses due to the depreciation rupee, the loss was Rs 823 crores.” Speaking about the challenging times the industry in general has been witnessing, Dube said, “While aviation in general is not an easy business globally, in India both the opportunities and challenges faced by the sector are at a totally different level. The opportunity is staggering because of our highly underpenetrated aviation market with a fast-growing economy and a growing population. But the challenges are equally staggering, as airlines battle for market share, not profitability, by dumping capacity …

Airport Authority of India (AAI)’s 94 airports incurred losses in the financial year 2017-18, informed Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha recently. “The losses are mainly due to low revenue generation to meet the total expenditure of the respective airports,“ said Prabhu while citing the reason. AAI owns and manages 129 airports around the country. He further said that the authority has taken steps to enhance aeronautical revenue in the form of increase in tarrif at non-major airports and measures for commercial exploitation at some airports to increase the revenue and to reduce losses.

Ten out of eleven markets registered stability or increase in average daily rate (ADR)s in the first half of 2018, according to recent report by leading investment firm, JLL. Mumbai is the leader in absolute RevPAR and Delhi is the leader in RevPAR percentage change in H1 2018 over the same period last year. Raj Rana, Chief Executive Officer- South Asia, Radisson Hotel Group said, “The overall business sentiment in the hotel industry has been high in 2018 and it may well be marked as the beginning of a sustainable upswing. Buoyed by occupancies touching 70 per cent in many markets and average rates registering improvement, the industry seems to be headed in the right direction. Having braved some early headwinds last year, the industry seems to have regained strength on the back of growing demand, slowing down of supply and various initiatives taken by the government.”