Air India scripted history by flying an all-women crew flight around the world. The flight AI 173 that took off from IGI Airport in Delhi on Feb 27 to San Francisco covering a distance of around 15300 km in 15 and a half hours over the Pacific route and on the return journey from San Francisco over the Atlantic. The flight was in the safe hands of Capt. Sunita Narula, Capt. Kshamta Bajpai, Capt. Indira Singh and Capt. Gunjan Aggarwal. The all-women cabin crew was led by Seema Baberwal and Nishrin Bandulwala. The entire flight was operated by the women staff of eight departments. These departments included Cockpit crew, Cabin crew, Check-In staff, Doctor, Customer Care Staff, ATC and the entire ground handling from operator to technician, Engineer and flight dispatcher and trimmer. Line operation safety audit was done by Harpreet A De Singh, ED Flight Safety, Air India. This is the first time that this audit was done by a female officer for around the world trip.

Biji Eapen, National President, IATA Agents Association of India (IAAI), has written a letter to Emirates addressed to its Vice President – India & Nepal, Essa Sulaiman Ahmad, requesting him to reconsider the airline’s decision to cut agency commission. The letter reads, ‘…the proposed action clearly contradicts your statement in the opening paragraph of the referred letter – that the travel agents are your “prime strategic distribution channel.” Especially as it is only their market support over the years that has placed Emirates in a dominant position above the national carrier.’ The letter then outlines the hardships that agents go through to sell Emirates, ‘Agents have over the years taken care of your sales and marketing, generating thousands of crores of rupees worth of business by risking huge amounts in the market, maintaining well-manned offices, canvassing for clients and servicing all their travel requirements, obtaining overdrafts to make the airline payments and paying interests at high rates on such borrowings.’

Looking to boost tourist traffic from Tier 2 Indian cities, Israel Ministry of Tourism conducted their first roadshow of 2017 in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad on 18th, 20th and 22nd February, respectively. The roadshow was conducted in a networking workshop format with two DMCs from Israel and was attended by over 100 travel agents in each city. Commenting on the occasion, Hassan Madah, Director – Israel Ministry of Tourism India said, “Israel is an emerging destination for the Indian traveller and tourist arrivals has been growing from India to Israel over the last couple of years. We wanted to tap new markets, so we decided to conduct roadshows in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad this year. The response we received in all three cities has been encouraging and promising. We are working towards increasing our leisure and MICE travellers while continuing our focus on existing segments using different mediums, including investing in advertising campaigns, and continuing to build and strengthen our travel trade relationships in the Indian market.” Israel achieved a growth of 13% in 2016 over the previous year creating a new record with 44,672 Indian tourists visiting the destination. The Ministry is hoping to maintain its double digit growth figures in 2017 as well. The country attracts worldwide tourists and is an explorer’s paradise. With archaeological sites, a rich culture, museums, culinary delights, modern attractions and friendly people it has something to offer every kind of traveller. El Al provides direct connectivity between India and Israel with 4 weekly flights from Mumbai to Tel Aviv. Air India is expected to begin direct connections to Israel this year. Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Eilat, Nazareth, Haifa, Akko, Masada, Negev Desert are …

Soon, Portugal tourism ministry will be making a direct presence in India, in Mumbai, by opening a tourism office. Luis Araujo, President, Turismo De Portugal, reveals, “We will open a new tourism office in Mumbai this year which will interact with the travel trade and to work with them. We will have someone from Portugal stationed here. We will also appoint a local representative as it is important to have someone who already understands the market and will know what works here.” Portugal has Europe’s first Prime Minister who is of Indian descent – Antonia Costa whose father was of Goan, Portuguese, and French descent. This is among the many cultural connections that Portugal has with India.

VFS Global has launched its Visa Application Centre for the Czech Republic in Jaipur. Applicants for visas to the Czech Republic from Jaipur can now visit the centrally-located centre to submit visa applications and enrol for biometrics in a spacious and comfortable environment. The centre was inaugurated by Martin Smolek, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and H.E. Milan Hovorka Ambassador of the Czech Republic in India, and Mayor of Municipal Corporation in Jaipur, Dr. Ashok Lahoty. The new centre in Jaipur is located inside Mangalam Ambition Tower, Subhash Marg (Malan Ka Chauraha), C Scheme, Jaipur. Over the last few months, VFS Global has set up centres in nine other cities in India to increase accessibility to visa services for applicants across the country. Applicants earlier had to travel to Mumbai or Delhi to apply for Czech Republic visas. Over the next few days, VFS Global will launch more such centres for the Czech Republic in India, in a phase-wise manner.

Kohinoor International Management Institute (KIMI) has collaborated with United Kingdom’s hospitality management institute ‘University College Birmingham (UCB)’ to offer its students an opportunity to earn a degree from the foreign university. At an event held recently at the Hotel Kohinoor Continental, the two institutes signed an MoU that entails KIMI’s students getting an advanced entry onto a related undergraduate degree programme at UCB, after having successfully completed two years of study at KIMI. The management course comprises of eight semesters of which four semesters will be covered in India and the rest will be covered in the UK. At the end of the course, the KIMI students will receive a British degree and will also have the benefit of interning in an international environment.

FICCI and Avalon Global Research (AGR) joint publication of the knowledge paper ‘Travel 2.0 – The Next Generation of travel’ is slated to be unveiled at Digital Travel, Hospitality and Innovation Summit on March 22 -23, 2017, at  FICCI, Federation house, New Delhi. The proposed knowledge paper would focus on the evolution of travel, tourism and hospitality industry through digital adaption and the role of new technologies and automation in streamlining the business processes across value chain, highlighting the speed and convenience of the business in this industry from an end-user perspective. “We are in a digital era and travel and hospitality is not an exception. The rampant penetration of smartphone has transformed travel consumption pattern of the end user. The FICCI -Avalon Knowledge report will highlight all these with pointers to the future of travel in India,” informed Rahul Chakravarty, Director and Head–Tourism, FICCI. The report would also emphasize on adaption of big data analytics and the influence of social media on service providers and aggregators to address the challenges such as intensive competition and requirement of direct interaction with the end users. “Technology and  enhanced economic and aspirational activities have impacted how travel is perceived , reviewed , distributed and consumed .Therefore a mature research aspect allows the travel ecosystem to innovate to make itself future proof and ready for Travel 2.0. This report sets out in this direction,” added Ashish Kumar, Member, FICCI Travel Technology Committee.

According to statistics revealed by Ministry of Tourism, a double digit growth rate of 16.5% in Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) has been witnessed correspondingly in the month of January 2017 over January 2016. This was much higher than the growth rate of 6.8% in Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) observed in January 2016 over January 2015.

The second edition of Phocuswright India 2017 held from Feb 28-Mar 2 saw leaders from travel technology and travel-related segments gather in Gurugram where the latest trends in the industry were discussed, new talents nurtured and networking opportunities forged. Simon Lehmann, President, Phocuswright informed that over 400 participants were welcomed and added, “We saw a great turnout that could have been better, but it was a good response nonetheless. The sessions on Centre Stage that featured the likes of Google, Yatra and Paytm were effective crowd pullers and saw a lot of valuable exchange of ideas and information on the new travel technology trends.” Some of the highlights of the event include discussions on the future of business travel, alternate stays and the growth of budget accommodation, along with interviews with Expedia, Uber, Makemytrip & Ibibo, Booking.com, to name a few.

N. K. Sinha, Secretary, Ministry of Culture, has been given the assignment of additional charge of the post of Secretary, Ministry of Tourism with immediate effect and until further orders. He is an IAS officer of Bihar cadre, 1980 batch. This announcement came after the superannuation of former Secretary-Tourism, Vinod Zutshi.