In a strategic equity partnership, Travel Boutique Online and FxKart.com, an online market place for money-changers have come together to offer foreign exchange facilities to travel agents. Abdul Hadi Shaikh, CEO, FxKart, explains, “We have done a deep integration with the TBO portal. TBO agents can log on to their existing TBO platform, access the forex tab and get the best rates for forex in the city. Fxkart’s innovative instant forex deal discovery platform lets authorised money changers in the market bid for the best price in real time offering agents the best deal. Once the order is booked, the customer service finalises the deal and a seamless forex delivery takes place.” Shaikh further informs that travel agents can get commissions on every deal booked through options like per deal basis or percentage mark-up. Ankush Nijhawan, Co- Founder, TBO Group, informs that within two days of the launch of the product, there were 300 travel agents who searched for forex requirement on the platform, transacting business volume worth over a million dollars without any marketing of the product. “Our vision with the product is to disrupt the way the foreign exchange business is done in the B2B space,” says Nijhawan.

A total of 36,982 tourists arrived in June 2016 on e-Tourist Visa as compared to 15,557 during the month of June 2015 registering a growth of 137.7 per cent. During January-June 2016, a total of 4,71,909 tourist arrived on e-Tourist Visa as compared to 1,26,214 during January-June 2015, registering a growth of 273.9 per cent . USA turned out to be the top source market availing e-Tourist Visa facilities during June, 2016 at 23.22 per cent followed by UK (14.16%), China (6.91%), Australia (5.59%), France (4.10%), Germany (4.03%), Canada (4.02%), Singapore (2.62%), Malaysia (2.53%) and Spain (2.40%). New Delhi Airport turned out to be at the top when it came to airports with 42.15 per cent tourist arrivals on e-Tourist Visa during June, 2016, followed by Mumbai Airport (22.94%), Bengaluru Airport (9.95%), Chennai Airport (9.80%), Hyderabad Airport (3.76%), Kochi Airport (3.52%), Kolkata Airport (2.72%), Ahmadabad Airport (1.16%), Tiruchirapalli Airport (1.15%) and Trivandrum Airport (1.08%).

RwandAir has appointed Bird Travels, the Airline Management Services arm of Bird Group as its new General Sales Agent for the Indian market. RwandAir is planning to commence operations to Mumbai, India in the last quarter of this year, and the appointment of Bird Travel as its GSA comes in line with that. “Bird Travel is happy to be associated with RwandAir as their exclusive GSA in India. RwandAir is one of the fastest growing airlines on the African continent and has aggressive plans to connect India and Africa through their hub in Kigali, Rwanda. We look forward to a great working association with RwandAir and are optimistic of making their online operations a success,” commented Praful Khosla, Executive Vice President, Bird Travel. John Mirenge, RwandAir’s Chief Executive Officer stated that, “ we have selected Bird Travel to position our brand, create awareness of our products and sell our services in this important new market.” The new GSA, Bird Travel will use its vast experience and will be the immediate liaison for the airline’s sales development in India, including ticketing and direct support services to the travel trade. RwandAir will be operating four weekly flights to Mumbai with its brand new A330-300, a state of the art triple class 274 wide-body seater equipped with full flat beds in business class and unmatched leg room in premium economy, with inflight entertainment and Wi-Fi as well as GSM connectivity across all three classes.

The Minister for Civil Aviation, Ashok Gajapathi Raju held a meeting on July 11 to review the functioning of Air India, where he advised the national carrier to use the best IT practices to bring efficiency in the airline. During a presentation made by Air India, the Ashwini Lohani, CMD, Air India, explained the initiatives taken recently and the various challenges that the airline was facing in the domestic and international market. Aspects about the performance of Air India in comparison with other domestic airlines and the industry as a whole were analysed. Strategies for improvement of various parameters were also looked at. The Minister reviewed the status of monetisation by Air India so far and the hurdles if any. He keenly sought information on operationalisation of MRO for advanced aircrafts at Nagpur and Hyderabad. The Minister reviewed Air India’s strategy to increase its market share of the domestic and international market as well as improve its financial performance by reducing losses in any segment of the company. The Minister promised Air India that the Ministry on its part would look into their demands and will provide all possible support.

India is the fastest-growing business travel market in the world along with Indonesia and will average double-digit growth in business travel spending over the next five years, According to the GBTA BTI™ Outlook – Annual Global Report & Forecast, a new report released today by the GBTA Foundation, sponsored by Visa. However, at $291 billion, China has surpassed the United States as the largest business travel market in the world in 2015.

Tourism New Zealand’s Kiwi Link India is more focused this year with only Mumbai on the agenda. The annual travel trade event, scheduled to take place from July 11-13, opened in Mumbai with the Kiwi delegation including 35 operators, four airlines, and Immigration New Zealand who met 80 pre-registered Indian buyers. Steven Dixon, Regional Manager South & South East Asia, Tourism New Zealand, who is leading the New Zealand delegation, says, “Kiwi Link is aimed at educating our trade partners about the destination and understanding their clients’ requirements. Last year, we held it in Mumbai and New Delhi but this time we will focus only on Mumbai.” Tourism New Zealand will also be hosting key buyers from around India in Mumbai for the first two days of the event. He added that the tourism board is looking to invest heavily in India. “We will invest more with our travel partners which means we will be having a lot of communication with them, educate them about New Zealand and understand the requirements of Indian travellers. This year ending May 2016, we recorded tourist arrivals of 48,000 from India, which is an increase from 45,000 Indians we received last year. But our research says that there are a lot more people in India who want to visit New Zealand,” Dixon says. He revealed that Tourism New Zealand has a total budget of USD 8 million but refused to comment on the number that has been directed to India.

The Civil Aviation Ministry is all set for a green makeover and has thus planned 146 MW of solar-power generation at airports, with 30 MW already in the pipeline. Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, has reviewed the progress of energy and water conservation measures at Airports Authority of India (AAI) airports across the country. The important review meeting was attended by Jayant Sinha, Minister of State, Civil Aviation and Secretary of the Department, besides Chairperson AAI and other senior officers. Airport Directors of 12 important airports also attended the deliberations so that they could be sensitized to implement these initiatives at their respective airports. AAI has already installed solar power plants at 16 airports with a total capacity of 5.4 MW. So far, 51 lakh energy units have been generated from these plants leading to a reduction of 4,600 metric tonnes in carbon emissions. By December 2016, additional 24.1 MW of solar power plants will become operational at 11 more airports. Infact, the perspective plan of AAI targets augmenting the solar power generation to 116 MW by including 16 more airports. During the meeting, the Airport Director, Jaipur dwelled at length on the energy conservation measures recently undertaken at the airport. These include maximum use of LED lighting, installation of efficient air-conditioning equipment, provision of energy efficient pumps and motors, a roof top solar power plant of 1 MW capacity and a 1.8 MW ground-based solar power plant under implementation. All Airport directors were encouraged to adopt similar initiatives, some of which have a payback period of as low as two years. The status and scope of water conservation, water-recycling and sewage treatment plants at the airports …

Tourism Australia’s arrival statistics for May 2016 revealed the highest ever visitation in any given month from India to Australia. 27,400 tourists from India visited Australia during the peak school holiday period, an increase of 18 per cent vis-à-vis May 2015, signifying Australia’s rising popularity as a leisure holiday destination amongst outbound Indian travellers. Total arrivals for the year ended (YE) May 2016 were recorded at 238,000, an increase of 8 per cent relative to the same period last year, making India the 9th largest inbound market for arrivals to Australia. For the year ended March 2016, Indian tourists spent A$ 1.14 billion on their Australian sojourn, that saw an increase of 19 per cent over the previous year. A majority of Indian tourists (67 per cent) visited Australia for the purpose of leisure. The average spend for Indian visitors increased by 10 per cent to A$ 5,215. In addition, the average length of stay for all visitors from India was recorded at 65 nights, with a 47 per cent repeat visitation. Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager, India & Gulf, Tourism Australia, said, “We are delighted to announce our highest ever arrivals from India. It is a significant and momentous occasion for Tourism Australia to see such a great response from the Indian market. Our marketing activities in collaboration with our key distribution and airline partners, with an increased thrust on digital initiatives, improved air connectivity between the two countries, stability of the Australian dollar, introduction of the pilot electronic lodgement of visa applications program, have been key factors in boosting travel to Australia. By 2025, we expect India to be among the top five markets for Tourism Australia.” The Tourism …

The Ministry of Tourism has partnered with CII for the Global Travel Mart and have changed the dates of the event from January to now February 1-4, 2017, according to an engagement letter by Federation of Associations of Indian Travel and Hospitality (FAITH) sent to its members. The letter reads that FAITH was in discussion with MOT and had prepared a concept statement for the global travel mart with them. Two key highlights of that, were, if that mart were not in partnership with FAITH, then it would be competitively bid out to PCOs who have created & run world scale tourism events, so as to start off with a Big Indian Tourism Bang. The other key requisite was the hosting date of the mart, to be in the shoulder period of 10th-14th January 2017. However, as of 30th June MOT has joined hands with CII and the dates have been now shifted to February. FAITH has addressed its concerns to the ministry regarding partnering with them and its member associations, and will be discussing it again.

India’s first travel wedding show was held from July 9-10. The show welcomed agents who are wedding specialists. Punam Singh, Associate, Pacific Leisure Group, said, “we have been successful in conducting the meetings. I think over the two days we have been able to do about 1200 meetings. Both exhibitors and buyers have found value from it. We had 30 buyers in each category. Everyone has gone back with at least 50 meetings.” Sarika Bhambani Rawal, General, Manager, Travel Wedding Show, said, “The show was very successful and all the buyers and sellers were satisfied. We will soon come out with Travel Experiential Show in October. We are equally excited about it.”