The fifth edition of the Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) has added a new city – Pune – which helps it cover the Vidarbha as well as the Marathwada region of Maharashtra. Madhu Saliankar, Director, EntReps Solutions, that promotes GPS, says, “We are adding a new city this time – Pune – which will be the sixth city to GPS. So in Maharashtra, we will be touching the Vidarbha region which also has a lot of potential as well as the Marathwada region. So two different regions in Maharashtra will be addressed in this edition of GPS. We will also be announcing the prices for the six cities. People can start booking their space. The participation price for one city is Rs 1 lakh, which includes accommodation for one person for two nights, participation fee, setting up of the booth, and networking dinners. We also have extra delegate charges. We are not doing the airfare this time as there are a lot of last-minute changes. For participation in all six cities, the fee is Rs 5,30,000 plus taxes.” The B2B travel event will start with Nagpur from January 19-21, 2017, and then go on to other cities starting from July and through August 2017.

The Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) has crossed the 400 members mark till now and is aiming at 30 per cent growth in membership. The association that 407 registered members called on them to stand united on the issue of Goods and Services Tax (GST). “We would like to stand together for GST. I would request all our members to come together and make suggestions regarding that. We don’t have much time in hand for this and GST is a big deal,” said Guldeep Singh Sahni, President, OTOAI, said during the 4th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of OTOAI. The main agenda of the AGM was to present the accounts for this year.  The association also discussed that it is going to work closely with its partner DMCs and NTOs. Sahni said, “We will try to benefit our partner NTOs and enhance their product development for our customers.”

Legoland Malaysia Resort has announced that it will launch a new ride called Lego Ninjago in November 2016, to co-incide with the holiday season in India. It is based on the popular Lego series Ninjago and will have 4D effects. Here, guests will be able to enjoy interactive elements with heat, smoke and wind incorporated throughout the ride and use teamwork to battle the Great Devourer. Thila Munusamy, Director of Sales & Marketing, Legoland Park, says, “It’s a cutting-edge technology which has never been seen before in any other theme park in the world. Legoland Park has already launched this at its parks in Denmark and California and it has been very well-received in these two parks. We are now bringing this to Malaysia. This is a unique cutting-edge technology using hand gestures sitting in a car that can fit four people with a screen in front. So it’s perfect for families but we are also promoting this to corporates.” The ride is located in the newly-constructed Ninjago World.

Both runways at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport will not be available for landing and take-off from October 31 to November 28, 2016 on Mondays and Thursdays from 1200 to 1700 hours due to runway maintenance work. Hence, flights schedules to and fro Mumbai will be affected during this period. All passengers flying during that time are requested to check their respective flight status online during this period.

SpiceJet will start its direct flight between Delhi and Jodhpur from October 30, 2016. In Rajasthan, SpiceJet is already operating daily flights to Jaipur and Udaipur. Shilpa Bhatia, Sr. VP, Commercial, SpiceJet, said, “Regional connectivity has always played an important role in strengthening our network strategy. In our endeavour to continuously reach out to underserved destinations we are excited to initiate our services to Jodhpur. The new flight will present passengers with more travel options especially during the peak season.” Jodhpur is a popular tourist destination and with introduction of this flight it will be connected with Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata.

Air India’s direct New Delhi to Madrid flight will launch from either December end or first week of January, reveals Ashwani Lohani, CMD, Air India. The national carrier’s direct New Delhi to San Francisco flight was introduced last December, following which two other international destinations – Delhi-Austria and Ahmedabad-London-New York – were connected by the airline. These flights are being operated using Air India’s two-class Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Lohani revealed this on the sidelines of the 32nd IATO Convention in Chennai.

The 33rd IATO Convention will be held in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, next year. This was announced during the opening ceremony of IATO Convention in Chennai, being held from Sept 18-20. Ashok Chandra Panda, Minister Tourism and Culture, Government of Odisha, revealed that the proposal is in final stages and all details will be finalised in the next 2-3 days.

Paytm has partnered with Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) that will allow Paytm users to book train tickets online on Paytm’s App and website. The flights booking service on Paytm has been growing at 4x rate month-on-month since its launch in May. In line with its vision to build the country’s largest travel booking destination, the company has now launched online train ticket bookings in partnership with IRCTC. Speaking on the partnership, Abhishek Rajan, Vice President, Paytm said, “At Paytm, our endeavor is to solve for every need of a traveller. Our alliance with IRCTC is a major leap as it completes the spectrum of air, road and rail ticket booking solutions available on Paytm. This is a significant milestone in our efforts to build India’s largest travel marketplace.” The Indian travel market has seen exponential growth over the past many years. The Indian travel market is estimated to be worth $40 billion by 2020, according to an IBEF study. Paytm is determined to leverage the power of mobile to fuel this growth.

IndiGo has announced that it will continue to waive off cancellation and change fees for all its passengers flying to and fro from Srinagar till September 30, 2016, due to the ongoing unrest in the city. Despite the current situation, IndiGo is operating five flights to and fro Srinagar. It has requested all passengers to check their respective flight status online before flying.

Around 1,200 agents have registered for the IATA workshop on the IBSP billing system that is being jointly conducted by the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) and the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) in co-ordination with IATA. The workshop which started from Delhi from September 14 will be held in 16 chapters across India until September 29, 2016. This will not just be for its members but for all IATA agents as well. These three-hour sessions aim to improve the participant’s overall understanding about the latest development and impending changes in the billing and settlement reports used in BSP. BSP India is scheduled to migrate its billing software to IATA’s single global software – IBSPs. This joint effort is aimed at getting all IATA-accredited agencies in India to get familiar with the new BSP reports.