Air India plans to start a direct flight from Chandigarh to Bangkok from December 11, 2017, which will operate thrice a week, informed R K Negi, Local Manager, Air India. He said, “The direct flight from Chandigarh to Bangkok will commence on December 11 this year and the round trip initially will cost Rs. 22,000, while the rest of the cost will depend on the demand.” Negi also added that the airline’s latest aircraft – Airbus A320 Neo, will operate on this route and will offer 12 Business Class seats and 150 Economy Class seats. This aircraft will operate every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The Chandigarh-Bangkok flight will be the third international flight operating from the Chandigarh International Airport. At present Indigo’s Chandigarh-Dubai and Air India Express’ Chandigarh-Sharjah flights are the only two international flights operating from Chandigarh. Source: Hindustan Times

Emirates, the world’s largest A380 operator, is set to receive its milestone 100th A380 aircraft on November 3, 2017. Over 80 million passengers have flown on the superjumbo in the nine years since it first joined Emirates’ modern fleet. Today, Emirates flies the A380 to over 45 destinations spanning Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. Everywhere it operates, the Emirates A380 attracts consumer demand for its industry-leading inflight experience in all cabin classes and is welcomed by local economies as a contributor to tourism and visitor growth. Sir Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline said: “The A380 has been, and continues to be hugely popular amongst our customers, many of whom deliberately plan their travel so that they can fly on it. But we don’t rest on our laurels and continually invest to enhance our product so as to continue offering our customers the best possible in-flight experience. “Our frequent flyers will have noticed countless improvements onboard over the years, ranging from minor updates such as the addition of in-seat USB and HDMI ports, to bigger cabin overhauls where for instance we relocated the central overhead luggage bins to create more spacious cabin on the upper deck, and when we introduced bigger and better in-flight entertainment systems, amongst many other initiatives.” On the ground, Emirates had also worked closely with stakeholders to launch and operate an A380-dedicated airport concourse with 20 gates offering direct boarding from the airport lounge, and one of the world’s most advanced engineering centres which include six heavy maintenance hangars, paint shops, and the capability to completely overhaul an A380. With its inaugural A380 flight in 2008, Emirates introduced several industry firsts including …

The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, in collaboration with other central ministries, state governments and stakeholders has organised a nationwide celebration of tourism from October 5-25, 2017, called ‘Paryatan Parv’. As a grand finale to the 21-day celebration, a three-day event is being organised at the Rajpath Lawns, New Delhi (between Rafi Marg and Janpath) from the 23rd to 25th October 2017. The event will be open to the public from 12 noon to 10 pm on all three days and will include cultural performances, a crafts bazaar, multi-cuisine food court and other interactive activities to keep visitors engaged at the event venue. The food court will have 50 stalls set up by the states/UTs, each showcasing their distinctive cuisine, the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) with street food from different regions as well as by the Institutes of Hotel Management and ITDC. The crafts mela with 50 stalls will showcase the diverse handicrafts and handlooms of the country, arranged by the state governments and Ministry of Textiles through the Office of the Development Commissioners of Handicrafts and handlooms. There will be 15 Theme State Pavilions where each state will showcase their tourism products and destinations. Cultural performances by troupes from the different states/UTs of the country will be staged from 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm on all three days. In addition to the cultural performances by the states/UTs, special cultural events will be staged from 6:00 pm onwards on all three days. These will include ‘Purani Dilli Ki Dastan’ presented by Begum Zakia Zaheer, Syeda Hameed and Rene Singh on 23rd October 2017, “Dhrupad Vocal” by Prashant & Nishant Mallick (Mallick Brothers) on 24th October 2017, …

Odisha tourism department plans to start a special drive to encourage its citizens in Bhubaneswar to provide homestay facilities to the tourists from the first week of November. The tourism department will accord licence to house owners, who register themselves with the former. Under the scheme, the house owners can offer up to 5 rooms or 10 beds with good facilities. The house owner will be required to provide Indian breakfast to the guests and display the room tariff. Tourism officials will regularly visit the houses and take feedback of the tourists. “We will carry out awareness campaigns through advertisements so that people come to know about the homestay facility. From November first week, we will start direct registration of homes at our department. Earlier, people were applying to the Ministry of Tourism. Now the ministry has asked us to receive applications from people and conduct verification before permitting them to start homestay facility,” said Nitin Jawale, Director-Tourism, Government of Odisha. He further stressed that this move would help augment rooms for tourists in the city and other places. The state tourism department will also train the house owner, family members, caretakers and other staff on how to deal with tourists. Preferably those houses will be selected which is not crowded. Location of the houses, hygiene and safety aspects will also be considered during the inspection. Source: Times of India

Having already established itself firmly in the Indian market, the South African Tourism (SAT) has now further expanded its product offering to include newer regions that offer newer activities. This includes the Garden Route and the Eastern Cape which it started promoting during its Learn SA multi-city roadshow to the Indian travel trade. The new regions include the towns of Knysna, George, Oudtshoorn, Plettenberg Bay, Port Elizabeth and East London that are poised to become strong selling points on the new itineraries. To this end, SAT’s India office organised an educational tour to these new regions for a few travel agents from Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Nagpur and Bengaluru in September. The 11-day itinerary saw them visit a range of tourist attractions and holiday experiences in the Garden Route towns of Knysna, George, Plettenberg Bay and Oudtshoorn, and in the nearby cities of Port Elizabeth and East London in the Eastern Cape. Hanneli Slabber, South African Tourism’s country manager for India, explained that the aim of the trip was to showcase South Africa’s diverse tourism offering beyond the usual ‘big three’ destinations of Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. “A large section of the Indian market includes second- and third-time visitors to South Africa, and to maintain their interest, we need travel agents to be equipped with expertise on different locations within the country. The six ‘new’ South African destinations offer a cross-section of the wildlife, adventure, lifestyle, entertainment and shopping experiences that are most in demand by the outbound Indian travel market. What is particularly appealing about the Southern Cape-Eastern Cape region, Slabber pointed out, is that it offers everything from casinos to beaches, safaris to nightlife, all within close proximity …

With the aim to increase the geographical spread of arrivals to the state, Kerala Tourism plans to promote its Malabar region aggressively through a Rs 325 crore project. This includes unexplored destinations such as Kozhikode, Wayanand, Bekal and Kannur. This was revealed by P. Bala Kiran, IAS, Director, Department of Tourism, Government of Kerala. He says, “To promote river cruise, the Government of Kerala has envisioned a Rs 300-crore project for nine rivers in Kannur and Kasaragod. In order to ease travel for international tourists, Cochin International Airport has been entrusted to execute the cruise tourism project by forming a Special Purpose Vehicle. In addition, the state government is planning to develop a few adventure parks as well. The government has allocated Rs. 45 crore for the Prasadam project in Kasaragod and Rs 120 crore for Green Carpet scheme for Alappuzha, Enranjil, Neyyar and Thenmala.” The state government also plans to develop 10 eco-tourism circuits to connect various forests in order to promote green tourism.  

Rahul Lall has been appointed as the Secretary General for FHRAI (Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India). He completed his Post Graduate Diploma in Hotel Management from The Oberoi School of Hotel Management, New Delhi. He is from the Management Trainee batch(1985-1987). Prior to this he did his Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from Delhi University. He is an alumnus of St. Xavier’s Collegiate School, Kolkata and Don Bosco School, Chennai. He brings with him over 30 years of progressive hotel experience spanning renowned hotel chains across the country. He has extensive operational, administrative and bottom line management experience. Coupled with a strong leadership and financial skill sets, he is ideally suited to take on the responsibilities of running the day-to-day administration of FHRAI. A Professional hotelier, he has worked with the Oberoi Group of Hotels for 15 years and thereafter with Sarovar Hotels. He has been in various capacities as General Manager, Area Director and Vice President Operations. He has over seen pre-opening and successful openings of various hotels. Prior to joining FHRAI he held the role of the Vice President Operations for the Dangayach Group of Hotels (Marriott Jaipur, Ramada Jaipur, Chomu Palace Hotel Jaipur, Four Points by Sheraton Agra and Park Plaza, Jaipur).

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has elected Christopher J. Nassetta, President, and CEO of Hilton, as the Council’s next Chairman. Nassetta joined Hilton in 2007 and since assuming the role of CEO he has brought Hilton hospitality to 27 new countries by adding 2,200 hotels to a network of more than 5,000 properties in 103 countries and territories. He has been a Member of WTTC’s Executive Committee since 2011 and Vice Chairman for North America since 2014. Nassetta will take over from current Chairman, Gerald Lawless, following the Council’s Annual General Meeting, which will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina on April 17, 2018. Lawless said, “It has been an honour to serve as Chairman of WTTC for the past two years and I am delighted to be handing over to Chris Nassetta to steer the Council into its next phase of development. I am sure that he and Gloria Guevara, WTTC’s President and CEO, will form a strong team to advocate for the economic and social benefits of Travel & Tourism.” Nassetta said, “I would like to thank Gerald for his tireless advocacy on behalf of the global travel and tourism industry. I am also honoured to accept the role as WTTC Chair at a time of amazing opportunity and growth. I believe the Council can play an important role to bring governments and the industry together to deliver smart plans that support both security and international travel. I also believe that the unique scale and reach of WTTC members can be used to tackle significant global issues, including climate change and global youth unemployment.”

Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) has announced a multi-year distribution agreement with British Airways (BA) and Iberia Airlines (IB), enabling CWT customers to avoid the airlines’ proposed surcharge on bookings created within participating global distribution systems (GDS) that agree to these terms with IAG. The agreement, effective November 1, 2017, applies to CWT business travel and leisure clients. CWT continues to work with all key parties to provide further surcharge-free BA and IB content for its customers. “This agreement further strengthens our long-standing partnership with BA and IB and highlights our mutual commitment to the concept of new distribution capabilities (NDC) to drive improved product differentiation. While we believe GDSs provide the best technology platform available for CWT to enable best-in-market user experience and operating efficiency, we will continue to monitor and assess new technologies and capabilities,” said Brian Mogler, Senior Vice President, Global Supplier Management, CWT.” Ian Luck, Head of Distribution at British Airways, said, “We are delighted with this new agreement which will bring both immediate and longer-term benefits. We are particularly pleased with the strong undertaking CWT has made to work collaboratively with us, GDSs and other technology partners in delivering NDC content and other benefits to our customers.” In May 2017 International Airlines Group (parent company of BA and IB) announced it would add a US$10 ‘distribution technology charge’ on each airline fare component of a booking, effective November 1, 2017.

Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has announced the 41st PATA Travel Mart at Langkawi, Malaysia, from September 12-14, 2018. This event has been held at a variety of venues across Asia Pacific bringing global tourism to the doorstep of a new country every year. Langkawi promises to be a very interesting destination located in the heart of Asia. PATA India Chapter has been officially appointed as the nodal office for all PATA events. PATA Travel Mart has successfully attracted international buyers and sellers to a common platform year on year. It is amongst the few international travel and tourism marts where buyers and sellers meet with pre-arranged appointments, making the event extremely productive and mutually beneficial. In 2017, PTM recorded 293 hosted buyers while delegates from 281 organisations and 51 source markets attended the mart. Out of these delegates, 32 per cent belonged to Northeast Asia; 29 per cent to Europe; 13 per cent to Southeast Asia; 10 per cent to North America; 7 per cent to South Asia; 5 per cent to the Pacific while 4 per cent where from other regions.