The Ministry of Tourism (MOT) is celebrating the 2nd International Day of Yoga on June 21, 2016, by hosting a FAM tour for a group of 50 foreign delegates consisting of Tour Operators/Travel Agents/Media Persons/Opinion Makers/Scholars from 20 countries which are source markets and the markets that matter for promotion of Yoga and Wellness. This group of 50 delegates will split into two group, which will participate in Delhi and Chandigarh on 21st June, 2016, separately. Both the groups will then follow a tour program including visit to the wellness & spiritual centres in Haridwar, Rishikesh, Trivandrum, Cochin, Neyyar (Kerala), Pondicherry & Chennai.

The Union Cabinet under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the signing of Air Services Agreement between India-Taipei Association in Taipei (India’s representative office in Taiwan) and Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India (Taiwan’s representative office in India). Presently there is no formal Air Services Agreement between India and Taiwan and the Air Services are governed by an MoU exchanged between Air India Charters Limited (AIRL) and Taipei Airlines Associations (TAA). The Air Services Agreement signifies an important landmark in the civil aviation relations between India and Taiwan, and has the potential to spur greater trade, investment, tourism and cultural exchanges between the two parties.

Buoyed by the success of its roadshow this February, The Department of Tourism (DOT), Philippines is back with yet another four-city roadshow for the travel trade in India during August 2016. The roadshow will commence from Taj Bengal, Kolkata on August 8, The Raintree Hotel Anna Salai, Chennai on August 9, Vivanta By Taj, Bengaluru on August 10 and conclude at The St. Regis Mumbai on August 11. The objective of such B2B sessions is to interact and establish commercial ties with Indian trade in these cities. Representatives from DOT Philippines along with a 20-member delegation will interact with over 400 key travel agents and tour operators, MICE and up-market leisure operators. SanJeet, Tourism Attaché, Philippines Tourism said, “The year 2016 is witnessing a strong start for Philippines Tourism, especially from the India market. We believe in putting our best efforts to make every roadshow more promising than the last one. The Indian travellers’ palate has become experimental and therefore, through our numerous trade initiatives, we envisage the influencers of the Indian travel market to sell the destination more effectively to the end consumers.” The program for the roadshow will include presentations by officials of DOT Philippines, DMCs and hotels from the Philippines in addition to Q&A, detailed networking sessions and a special lucky draw for the participants.

SITA, the airline solutions and technology provider, is researching on the potential of what is called blockchain technology to provide travellers with a secure single token to travel through airports and across borders. The breakthrough technology was previewed at this year’s Air Transport IT Summit in Spain. The revolutionary technology provides the opportunity to allow secure biometric authentication of passengers throughout the journey across borders. This could eliminate the need for multiple travel documents without passengers having to share their personal data. SITA’s technology research team, SITA Lab, is researching how using virtual or digital passports in the form of a secure single token on mobile and wearable devices could reduce complexity, cost and liability around document checks during the passenger journey. Jim Peters, CTO, SITA, said, “Our vision is for seamless secure travel. But the underlying design of today’s computer systems means that there are multiple exchanges of data between various agencies and multiple verification steps, which reduces the ability to have a single global system. Now blockchain technology offers us the potential to provide a new way of using biometrics. It could enable biometrics to be used across borders, and at all airports, without the passenger’s details being stored by the various authorities.” SITA’s researchers are investigating a versatile and secure system to make the single travel token work globally, across all borders. Blockchain technology allows privacy by design so that passenger data can be secure, encrypted, tamper-proof and unusable for any other purpose. It also eliminates the need for a single authority to own, process or store the data. The crypto-led computer science of blockchain provides a network of trust, where the source and history of the …

Starting July 11, people can travel from Delhi and nearby NCR cities all the way to Pokhara in Nepal from the Anand Vihar bus terminal, without any breaks. The Uttar Pradesh Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) has joined hands with agencies in Nepal to ply direct AC buses between Ghaziabad and Pokhara. According to reports, the initiative is an outcome of an agreement signed between India and Nepal for regulation of passenger traffic between the two countries in November 2014. The bus service will undertake a journey of around 1,300km in 28 hours.

According to a state report, almost 12 million tourists visited Telangana last year. And the major part of this number is of religious tourists—almost 3.6 million tourists visited the popular Buddhist, Jain and other religious sites in the state, the report reveals. In 2015, the state attracted double the number of pilgrims as compared to that of 2014. And a huge part of the tourist footfall last year is because of the Godavari Maha Pushkaram, which is observed once in 12 years and received plenty of pilgrims and travellers alike. According to the report, almost 10 lakh domestic and international tourists had taken a dip in the Godavari during the festival.

Products worth more than Rs300 cr were approved in-principle in Uttar Pradesh under Ramayana and Krishna circuits under the Swadesh Darshan scheme. 11 destinations spread across six states under the Ramayana circuit and 12 destinations across five states under the Krishna circuit have been proposed at the first meeting of the National Committee on Ramayan & Krishna circuits. It was held under the chairmanship of the Minister of Tourism & Culture Dr. Mahesh Sharma in the presence of Secretary – Tourism Vinod Zutshi, experts and senior officers of MOT. The destinations proposed under the Ramayana Circuit are Ayodhya, Nandigram, Shringhverpur & Chitrakoot (Uttar Pradesh); Sitamarhi, Buxar & Darbhanga (Bihar); Jagdalpur (Chattisgarh); Bhadrachalam (Telangana); Hampi (Karnataka); and Rameshwaram (Tamil Nadu). Expert committee suggested to include Chitrakoot (Madhya Pradesh), Nashik & Nagpur (Maharashtra) and Mahendragiri (Odisha). Under Krishna circuit, the destinations covered are Dwarka (Gujarat); Nathdwara, Jaipur & Sikar (Rajasthan); Kurukshetra (Haryana), Mathura, Vrindavan, Gokul, Barsana, Nandgaon & Govardhan (Uttar Pradesh); Puri (Odisha). The destinations were approved by the expert committee.

The new Civil Aviation Policy gives a boost to the domestic aviation sector by offering auctioning of unilateral traffic rights and tax incentives. Under the new policy, domestic airlines will be free to enter into code-share agreements with foreign carriers for any destination within India on a reciprocal basis. In fact, the policy has completely liberalised international code share between Indian and foreign carriers. Government will also liberalise the regime of bilateral rights, which in turn would lead to greater ease of doing business and wider choice to passengers. The policy also proposes real time safety tracking. The Civil Aviation Policy is aimed at creating an eco-system to handle 300 million domestic passengers by 2022 and 500 million by 2027, and 200 million international travellers by 2027. India recorded around 139.32 million domestic and over 50 million international air travellers in 2014-15.    

The new Civil Aviation Policy, which got the Cabinet’s clearance today, has made many provisions to boost regional connectivity in India. The policy has proposed increasing connectivity to the country’s smaller towns and cities by offering sops and incentives to airlines to fly on these routes. According to the new policy, a 2 per cent cess in domestic and international tickets for the regional connectivity fund will be set up. Air strips will be refurbished, depending on demand, as no-frills airports. This will be done at a cost not exceeding Rs 50 crore, mostly through AAI. There will be a window system for all aviation related transactions and complaints by aviation regulator DGCA.

The policy proposes a cap in fare of Rs. 2,500 for one-hour flights as the government plans an ecosystem that will lead to an increase in air travel by making it affordable. A cap of Rs 1300 is also put on 30 minute flights. According to the new policy, the centre will refund 80 per cent of the losses incurred by airlines due to the cap in fare on such routes. The policy has a slew of passenger friendly measures, offering respite to frequent flyers. The new policy comes after the tourism secretary had promised last month that the new policy will address issues of regional connectivity aggressively and in a fulfilling manner.