Durban’s tourism sector has geared up to welcome more than 6,000 delegates to Travel Indaba 2018, Africa’s top travel trade show. The annual event (which the city tendered for and won last year) will be held in Durban for the next five years and each year the benefits are more widely felt. “We are excited as KwaZuluNatal to host Africa’s Travel Indaba for the 27th consecutive year. This tourism showpiece has brought major spin-offs for the tourism industry and associated businesses, big and small, in KwaZulu-Natal. We expect this year’s three-day show to inject to KwaZulu-Natal’s GDP a whopping R89 million,” says Sihle Zikalala, MEC, Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental affairs. “One of the strategic thrusts for Africa’s Travel Indaba going forward was to ensure that the platform drives more local jobs and opportunities and we know that this has been achieved with our committed partners and service providers,” says Sisa Ntshona, CEO, South African Tourism. The theme for this year’s show is about telling African success stories, and a big part of this will be celebrating the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth with the tourism delegates from all over the continent and the world. The show will also be used to launch the improved Mandela Journey App which has been especially updated in celebration of the centenary year. The exhibition will be held from May 8-10 at the Durban Inkosi Albert Luthuli Convention Centre.

The 44th Germany Travel Mart (GTM) opened in Dresden, Germany and saw the presence of tour operators and journalists from around the world. After a short welcome of the delegates at the Church of Our Lady of Dresden, the inaugural ceremony took place at the Kulturpalast Dresden. Petra Hedorfer, CEO, German National Tourism Board addressed the delegates and said that Germany is the second most popular destination for Europeans for the 8th year running and recorded 83.9 million international overnight stays. The Indian delegation had 11 agents and 6 media people. The number of overnight stays from India increased by 13.8 per cent to Germany in the last one year.

The Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) has announced that it will conduct its next annual convention in Cape Town from August 11-14, 2018. These details were shared by Mahendra Vakharia, President, OTOAI, who said, “The convention will be followed by a three-night post-convention tour for our members and we urge them to block these dates at their earliest.” Responding to the issue of the water crisis that the mainstream media had reported, he added, “There is absolutely no problem with water there. Tourism has not been affected at all and the industry is more than equipped to handle this situation. We have a local partner helping us with the logistics for this.” Vakharia added that the team will finalise the convention theme and agenda soon.

Pakyong Airport in Sikkim has got licence for scheduled operations, paving way for direct connectivity to Sikkim, which will boost tourism and economic growth in the norteastern state. Suresh Prabhu, Civil Aviation Minister announced the development via Twitter. “The Pakyong (Gangtok) Airport at Sikkim got license on May 4, 2018 for scheduled operations. It is an engineering marvel at a height of more than 4,500 ft in a tough terrain. It will pave a way for direct connectivity to the state of Sikkim, giving boost to tourism & economic growth”, Prabhu said. Pakyong airport, 30-km from the state capital of Gangtok, will be the 100th operational airport when it begins operations, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said. Low-cost airline SpiceJet has been granted permission to fly to Pakyong from Kolkata under the Civil aviation Ministry’s regional connectivity scheme.

A Northeastern cultural and information centre, showcasing the vibrant culture of the region, will come up in Delhi soon, Union Minister Jitendra Singh has said. Singh disclosed this during a meeting on the ‘Roadmap for Implementation of Cabinet Approval of Schemes for North East Council’ in Delhi. The meeting reviewed the progress of various on-going projects in the Northeast region, an official statement said. Singh, Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), said the central government has been giving priority to the Northeastern region and the cultural and information centre will be a new gift to the people of the region. It is being built on 1.32 acre land in Dwarka and will act as a cultural convention and information hub of the region in Delhi, the minister said. Singh said it will have a library-cum-reading room with material on Northeastern region, an art gallery showcasing the region, an exhibition hall, a research centre, sale outlets as well guest houses. At present, the architecture, design and planning for the project are in process. The project is expected to be completed soon at an estimated cost of Rs 50-55 crore and it will be one of its kind in the country and will be a state-of-the-art project, he said. Source PTI

Manoj Mathew, General Manager, Vivanta by Taj has been recently elected as the new president of SKAL International Bangalore. He will lead Skal Club for the next two year years and succeeds Rajendra Singh Bhati. Mathew is an established leader in the hospitality space and brings over three decades of professional experience, all of which has been with Taj Hotels, Resorts & Palaces in overseas destinations and in various properties in India. SKAL International Bangalore is a professional organisation of tourism leaders around the world, promoting global tourism and friendship. It is the only international group uniting all branches of the travel and tourism industry. Its members, the industry’s managers and executives, meet at local, national, regional and international levels to ‘Do Business among Friends’. It has over 15,000 members in 83 countries. SKAL International Bangalore will be hosting the SKAL International Asia Congress 2019 in June 2019. Over 200 international delegates are expected to participate in this Congress. It will be a great opportunity to showcase tourism in India especially for Karnataka.

According to data from Bureau of Immigration, Government of India, Bangladesh, USA and UK were the top three countries in terms of FTAs in India during February 2018. The top 10 source countries accounted for 61 per cent of the total inbound tourist flows in the year 2017. The introduction of e-Visa has led to a strong surge in Foreign Tourist Arrival resulting in a Y-o-Y growth of 62% in February 2018 compared to February 2017. UK, USA and France were the top three source countries availing e-Tourist Visa facilities during February 2018.

According to a latest report by Horwath HTL, Vietnam recorded the strongest growth in domestic tourism in Asia Pacific between 2013-16, driven by the growing middle class. The low cost carriers have also been a growth catalyst with Vietjet Air increasing its fleet size from 18 to 45 aircraft between 2014-16. Besides the world’s largest outbound tourism market, China is also leading the world in terms of domestic tourism, recording 4.44 billion trips in 2016. In the first half of 2017, growth of outbound tourism slowed and an increasing number of Chinese tourists travelled domestically. The growth is driven by improved transportation with high-speed railways, flights and other traffic systems, together with innovated and upgraded travel products.

The Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI) has inaugurated its Punjab and Haryana Chapter today. Manmeet Singh, Proprietor, Sky High Tours and Travels is the new chapter chairperson, as informed by P P Khanna, President, ADTOI. In total, the chapter will comprise 20 active members and also expects another 15 to 20 members. Delhi-NCR is not going to be included in the chapter. This is exclusively for the Haryana segment. The chapter is going to get launched exclusively for the places left unexplored. It will encourage rural, village, agro based areas of the state and make people aware about unexplored places. The association will work with the government and local state tourism boards to promote these places. Khanna also plans to open the North East chapter to showcase the rural and tribal areas and promote them before the country.

Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs) during 2017 were USD 27,742 mn with a growth of 17.0 per cent over 2016, according to a latest FICCI-Yes Bank Report. This growth trend is dependent on many external factors including exchange rate and socio–political scenario, however, despite global undulations, FEEs have consistently contributed a significant share to the Tourism GDP of India. The rising flow of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) is clearly a function of the stellar growth performance of emerging tourism trends like MiCE along with spiritual travel and medical tourism. Furthermore, it goes without saying that FTAs have been able to garner considerable resources for the country and started contributing significantly to the economy. Foreign tourists tend to spend more in India than almost any other country worldwide due to its size as well as diversity of culture and geography. These are positive signs for the industry, and indicate significant potential going forward.