Aditi Bhende of Aarohan Tours & Travels is the new National General Secretary of TAFI. Her nomination was proposed by Ashok Travel World and seconded by Kass Travels. She was elected unopposed to the post. She earlier held the post of TAFI Treasurer. After examining the nominations that were received by the TAFI Secretariat in Mumbai, a list of names have been announced of those who have been elected unopposed and those who will be contesting the elections on June 30 at Hyatt Regency in Ahmedabad.

Pradip Lulla of Cupid Travel & Tours has been elected unopposed as the Vice President of Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI). His nomination was proposed by Trust Travel & Tours and seconded by Shrishti Tours & Travels. He earlier held the post of General Secretary, TAFI. The last date for receiving nominations for TAFI national elections for 2016 was 1700 hours on June 15, 2016. After examining the nominations that were received by the TAFI Secretariat in Mumbai, a list of names have been announced of those who have been elected unopposed and those who will be contesting the elections on June 30 at Hyatt Regency in Ahmedabad.

Praveen Chugh of Business Travels has been elected unopposed to the post of President of Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI). His nomination was proposed by Sheraton Travels and seconded by Golden Phoenix Travel. The last date for receiving nominations for this year’s TAFI national elections, held biennially,  was 1700 hours on June 15, 2016. He previously held the post of Vice President, TAFI. After examining the nominations that were received by the TAFI Secretariat in Mumbai, a list of names have been announced of those who have been elected unopposed and those who will be contesting the elections on June 30 at Hyatt Regency in Ahmedabad. Rajat Bagaria, previous Member of TAFI National Managing Committee, said, “Zakkir Ahmed will now be the Immediate Past President of TAFI. He has been our President for two continuous terms that is four years and will continue to be part of the MC meetings.”

Keys Hotels has announced its expansion plan with asset-light strategy and has already launched three new hotels – Keys Hotels in Vishakhapatnam, Keys Hotels Malabar Gate in Calicut and Keys Lite Om Niwas in Jaipur. While Vishakhapatnam is an owned hotel the other two are franchisee hotels. The company also plans to open 8-10 new management contract hotels in the next 12-18 months by adopting assest light strategy. Speaking about the expansion strategy, Anshu Sarin, CEO, Berggruen Hotels Pvt. Ltd. said, “Keys Hotels is committed to expand its footprint across smart cities and we will adopt assest light strategy to support this growth.  We are pleased to launch three new hotels as a part of this expansion plan. Calicut, Vizag and Jaipur are very important markets for us as all three cities attracting a large volume of tourists and business travelers. Apart from these cities we are looking to be present in major smart cities and we have aligned our growth plans accordingly.” While the Keys Hotel Malabar Gate, Calicut is ideal for nature lovers as it is situated 2kms away from the Calicut beach and 52 kms away from Thushagiri waterfalls, Keys Hotel Vishakhapatnam is best suited for history lovers as it is located at an optimal distance from the Visakha Museum, Submarine Museum and the Kailasa Giri. Keys Lite Om Niwas in Jaipur is best suited for people who are fond of architecture as it is strategically located near the iconic Pink City, Hawa Mahal, Jantar Mantar and Amber Fort.

GoAir claims to be the first airline to offer late evening/night operations to Srinagar. Effective June 15, 2016, the GoAir flight G8-228 and G8-229 took off from Srinagar at 18:40 pm to Mumbai and Delhi, respectively. One-way fare for this journey costs Rs 9000 + taxes. The carrier flagged off the first flight of this schedule at the Srinagar International Airport in the presence of Mehbooba Mufti, Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir and GoAir CEO, Wolfgang Prock-Schauer. The newly introduced evening flights from the carrier were announced soon after the IAF, AAI, and DGCA gave their nod to evening and night flights from private airlines at the Srinagar International Airport. The offering will help keep up with the demand from tourists, and the increase in flights will aid in keeping the prices competitive and ensure that Srinagar remains accessible to both business and leisure travellers.

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.