Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI) will host its 13th annual convention at Backwater Ripples Resort in Kumarakom, Kerala, from September 18-21, 2017. The theme of the convention-Emerging Pathways will focus on making India as the adventure capital of the world. The convention will provide a platform for key stakeholders of the industry including representatives of the government, tourism boards and other players, to deliberate upon adventure tourism policy, capacity creation, responsible tourism and marketing of this segment.

The Department of Tourism, Government of Odisha in collaboration with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry  (FICCI) is organising the first Odisha Travel Bazaar (OTB) on October 15-17, 2017, at Bhubaneswar. According to Sanjeev Kumar Mohanty, Head, FICCI-Odisha State Council, there will be around 40 foreign tour operators, 10 top of the line inbound operators, 20 leading domestic tour operators from across India and 5 leading airlines participating as hosted buyers. The Tourism fraternity of Odisha comprising of hotels and tour operators will be promoting the tourism products of Odisha as sellers. “There will be an inaugural session and a day of B2B and B2G meetings to allow interaction between the buyers and sellers and showcase the tourism potential of Odisha,” said Mohanty. The objective of this event is to create a platform to aggressively promote the tourist destinations of Odisha to its buyers from India and across the world. Consequently the strategic focus would be on inbound and domestic tourism. OTB also plans to address investment opportunities in tourism infrastructure of the state to its target investors.

Vietnam’s low-cost airline, VietjetAir has appointed Bird Travels as its GSA in India. Vietjet has been expanding its flight network in Vietnam and will continue to spread its wings to new destinations in the Asia Pacific region and around the world. Vietjet’s flight network covers Vietnam extensively and includes connections to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Myanmar and eight destinations in China. It is operating a fleet of A320s and A321s having an average age of 3.3 years.

Indian travellers will now be able to enjoy Indian cuisine at the Sabor Indian Cuisine, the premium restaurant in Royal Caribbean International’s cruise ship Navigator of the Seas. Sabor, which originally featured a Mexican cuisine. Sabor will be available for 2017 European sailings only and can only be booked onboard. In recent months, the number of Indian guests on the Royal Caribbean sailings has increased exponentially which motivated RCI to change Sabor’s menu. Commenting on the decision, Ratna Chadha, Chief Executive, TIRUN said, “The number of Indian travellers onboard Royal Caribbean International has increased considerably. RCI decided to have a menu that comprises dishes reflecting the culinary heritage of India. Inspired by the flavors of the country, cuisine at Sabor has been kept as diverse as the region’s expansive culture.” All sailings of the Navigator of the Seas will leave from Southampton till October 2017, with itineraries distributed across different durations from five days to 14 days sailings, which are popular with Indians. The cruise ship will sail though England, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Italy and more.

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has announced the appointment of Gloria Guevara Manzo as its new President and CEO. She served as Secretary of Tourism for Mexico and CEO of the Mexican Tourism Board from 2010 to 2012, minister in the cabinet of President Calderón. Prior to that, she worked for global distribution system Sabre where most recently she was CEO of Sabre Mexico, reporting to the board of directors of a joint venture between Aeroméxico, Mexicana and Sabre Holdings. She is currently Special Advisor on Government Affairs for the Centre on Health and the Global Environment at the School of Public Health, Harvard. Announcing Guevara’s appointment, Gerald Lawless, WTTC Chairman, said “Gloria is a proven leader who is well known and well respected within the global Travel & Tourism sector. I am delighted that she will lead WTTC into the next phase of its development. She was chosen from a competitive field of international candidates. With a career encompassing senior roles across private sector, government and academia, she brings a unique combination of experience and expertise.”

The Tourism Office of Spain in Mumbai along with Pullmantur Cruises, represented by its GSA in India Griffon, conducted a workshop in Mumbai for a few select travel agents. While Ignacio Ducasse, Director and Tourism Counsellor, Tourism Office of Spain in Mumbai, spoke on the Canary Islands of Spain, Vivek Jain, Managing Director, Griffon, gave a presentation on the winter sailings of Pullmantur’s Horizon and Sovereign cruise liners starting this November. The Canary Islands are the seven islands of Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro in Spain.

More than 1200 delegates are expected to attend the 33rd annual convention of IATO, scheduled to be held from September 7-10, 2017, in Bhubaneswar, informed Lally Mathews, Honorary Secretary, IATO and Co-chairman of IATO Convention. Speaking at a luncheon organised by IATO at Eros Hotel New Delhi, Nehru Place, Mathews further added that the theme for the convention this year is ‘India Tourism- Time to reinvent ourselves,’ and Mayfair Bhubaneswar will be the host for the convention. “Odisha offers everything, be it beaches, pilgrimage, hill station, wildlife, shopping, Ayurveda and medical tourism etc. and these are our main consideration to have our convention in Odisha and see these products. Concurrently with our convention, there will be an India Travel Mart which is an opportunity for exhibitors to showcase exciting and diverse range of destinations and conference venues,” said Mathews. Ashok Chandra Panda, Minister of Tourism and Culture (I/C), Government of Odisha, said, “We hope to offer all support to IATO to make their convention a success. There has been a lot of development on the tourism front in Odisha from the last time when IATO held its convention in Bhubaneswar in 2008 and we hope to showcase the state’s various tourism circuits to the delegates through the post fam tours.”

AirAsia has introduced two new routes between India and Thailand with a Bangkok-Jaipur connection and a Bangkok-Tiruchirappalli connection respectively. While both routes will ply four times a week, the former will run on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday while the latter will run every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday starting September 28, 2017.  Aiming to attract Indian shoppers to Thailand, the new routes come with promotional fares available. Tassapon Bijleveld, CEO of Thai AirAsia said that AirAsia plans to continually penetrate the Indian market in the latter half of 2017 as it is a major market with great growth potential.  Indian travellers rank sixth among the most frequent visitors to Thailand while the Kingdom responds to all kinds of lifestyles from shoppers and night-time entertainment seekers to travellers looking for hospitality and wellness retreat.  The airline is confident that the two new routes will stimulate tourism for both countries. Thai AirAsia presently flies direct from Thailand to four fascinating Indian cities of Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Kochi, maintaining a Load Factor average of 80 percent with 80-85 percent of passengers coming from India, indicating determined strength of the market where travellers have consistently showed excellent feedback toward AirAsia.

TAAI Southern Region has elected K. Shahul Hameed (Director, Al-Awhad Travels) as its new Chairman for the period 2017-2019. S. Sakthi Vadivel (Managing Director, Sansar Tours) has been elected as the Secretary, while N. Karunakaran (Managing Director, Vaigai Wings) is the new Treasurer of TAAI-SR. Meanwhile, TAAI South Tamil Nadu Chapter has elected G. Ravichandar (Executive Director, Trichy Airshine Tours & Travels) as their Chairman for the term 2017-2019. The new secretary for South Tamil Nadu Chapter is N. Ravichandran (Managing Director, Sky To Sea Tours & Travels) and G. Ravindran (Managing Director, Sky Wing India Tours & Travel) is the Treasurer.

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, and the International Chamber for Service Industry (ICSI) will jointly organise an International Conference on Strengthening Aviation Network between North East Indian Region and Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (BCLMV countries) at Radisson Blu Hotel Guwahati in Assam today. The mega event aims to bring nations closer by augmenting and improving travel, trade and people to people contacts through a stronger aviation network. It will be attended by dignitaries from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Airports Authority of India, as well as Indian and international carriers and other leading aviation business entities. Over the past few years India’s trade with the BCLMV countries has grown exponentially with the total trade with CLMV countries growing seven-fold from $1.4 billion in 2005 to $10.3 billion in 2015 and current trade volume with Bangladesh at about $6.6 billion. The key points of deliberation at the conference were the need of direct connectivity of airlines between NER and BCLMV countries, infrastructure development and capacity building along with the liberalisation of ASEAN open sky policy for NER (I). The initiative shows that the NER figures very high in the list of priorities of not only the government but also of the air transport sector which sees immense unrealised potential in this part of the country.