Category Archives: Agents

Sharing his views on how adventure tourism in India can be developed, Mandeep S Lamba, MRICS, President (South Asia), HVS Anarock, says, “The government’s adventure tourism guidelines should be implemented and executed uniformly across the country to ensure consistency. It is imperative to establish high standards of safety by leveraging the best practices from popular global adventure travel destinations such as New Zealand, Australia, and Brazil.”

Calling tourist guides the backbone of tourism in India, Tapan Kumar Mishra, National Tourism Awardee for Best Tourist Guide (Odisha), says, “If taxi drivers are eligible for a monthly Covid allowance of Rs 5,000 by the Delhi government, why not tourist guides from the Ministry of Tourism? Kerala has provided one-time help of Rs 10,000 to 328 guides. Why is MoT asking them not to take up any other job without providing them any help during off-season or during a pandemic?”

Prabhulal Joshi, President, Maharashtra Tour Organisers Association (MTOA), believes the industry is looking at another year of losses due to the second wave of infections. “Post October, things had picked up, bookings had started for the April-May holiday season. But everything now has again come to a standstill. The combined loss to the industry is estimated to be nearly Rs 200 crore,” he says.  

Regional carrier TruJet has secured Andhra Pradesh Government nod for viability gap funding (VGF) to continue its Chennai- Kadapa-Vijayawada and Vijayawada-Kadapa-Chennai routes for one more year starting from May 1, 2021. The State Cabinet approved a move to provide about Rs 20 crore per year as VGF by the state government.

Winner of Amazon voucher on participating in all the webinars organised by the Tourism Office of Spain – Mumbai recently, Sonal Swamy, MD, Syrisa Travels, says, “The webinars were amazing, interactive, incredibly interesting, very useful and packed with great content. I enjoyed every bit of it especially the part of Seville which got back pleasant memories of my trip around the coast of Spain. I can’t wait to get back to Spain!”

The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) has introduced AlUla in Saudi Arabia as a heritage and cultural destination to the Indian market. Melanie de Souza, Executive Director, Destination Marketing, said, “We see great potential in promoting tourism to AlUla from India. Besides high-value, leisure travellers, we will promote AlUla as an extension to an Umrah tour.” Sharing details of their promotional strategy, she adds, “We have started our promotional activities with trade to promote and showcase AlUla as a leisure and MICE destination through our India partner, Beautiful Planet Destination Marketing. We have been working with travel trade to create awareness and interest in AlUla and build visitation. We have been engaging with travel trade through webinars, trainings and presentations. We will closely work with key travel trade partners on joint promotional activities. In addition, we will continue to participate in trade shows to showcase the destination. Furthermore, we will continue to disseminate monthly newsletters to travel agents across India to keep them updated about AlUla. Once the borders open, we will implement roadshows and travel trade famils.”  

Osaka Group, Travel and Tour Management company based out of Kerala have opened their new branch, Osaka Connect.com in Bengaluru. The inauguration ceremony was conducted virtually by J Alexander, Former tourism minister and former Chief Secretary, Karnataka. PB Boss, Founder and Chairman, Osaka Group and Bissy Boss, Director, Osaka Group and expressed gratitude to the valuable clients and staff. Jayaraj P S, Business Development Manager, Osaka group, explained the company’s 2025 vision. E M Najeeb, Senior Vice President IATO, expatiated the special message. Felicitations of the day were given by Adv.K V Sabu – (National General Secretary, Indian Christian Movement), Anup Manjeshwar Bhat – (Head – Sales & Distribution, Air Asia India), Amish Desai – (Chairman, TAAI Karnataka Chapter) and K Reji Kumar – (President, Air Passengers Association, Kerala)

As part of virtual activities for commemoration of 75 Years of India’s Independence, India Tourism recently organised an online presentation for the travel and tourism students of Shri MD Shah Mahila College of Arts & Commerce in Mumbai. Participants were informed about the on-going ‘Dekho Apna Desh’ webinar series of the Ministry of Tourism and were encouraged to join the same. The specially edited video from the Dekho Apna Desh webinar series   “Lesser known stories of India’s struggle against the British” was also shown. This was attended by around 100 students and faculty members.

According to a study done by the university using data from India and five other countries, using domestic travel bans to control COVID-19 infections may be inadvisable. It found that imposing travel bans can counter-intuitively increase the total spread of coronavirus disease, creating a ‘lose-lose situation’. The national lockdown in the first wave trapped millions of migrants inside big cities like Mumbai that were fast-growing coronavirus hotspots.

In order to provide timely assistance to its members and the fraternity at large, ADTOI has formed a task force from among its members. Rajiv Arora of Phoenix Holidays, New Delhi has been made in-charge of this task force along with some volunteers who will coordinate and collecting the authenticity of information which will then be circulated to all members pan India. Its main task will be to collect authentic information on availability of oxygen cylinders, ventilators, beds at hospitals, medicines, etc.