Category Archives: Agents

EbixCash has launched the ‘Phir Se Ghoomega India’ campaign and offering value-for-money deals to the consumers looking to travel in the festive season. The offers will be available on its portal, Via.com. “I am excited at the campaign and equally optimistic about its success as we are experiencing a great response post-lockdown,” said Naveen Kundu, MD, Ebixcash Travel Group. The airline partners for this campaign are Vistara, AirAsia and GoAir, and the hotel groups having joined this campaign are Taj Group, Marriott, The Park, Radission Hotels, ITC Hotels, Sterling Holidays and Accor. The cab partners for this campaign are EbixCash Cab – AHA Taxis and EbixCash Gift Card.

Yatra.com, leading online travel portal conducted its annual festive survey amongst 5000 respondents, highlighting what the travel trends look like in the new normal. The survey indicated an uptick in demand for travel as almost 75% of respondents said they are planning to take up a vacation compared to 2019 where 61% of respondents were willing to go on a holiday during the festive season. The trend of advance booking continues with 39.3% of respondents planning leisure trips for more than one month in advance to rest, relax, and recuperate. Safety and hygiene take priority while planning a holiday as travelers are looking at the number of cases in the vicinity, sanitization measures adopted, government guidelines, amenities in case of emergency, among other factors. The survey revealed that about 52.5% of respondents are seeking medical/travel insurance for the sake of security and more than 50% of respondents said that they would be prefer ordering room service rather than visiting restaurants and bars. Taking extra safety precautions, about 72.1% of respondents said that they will be going through sanitization processes followed by monuments and tourist spots before planning a visit to them. This assurance is important as about 48.2% of respondents are planning their holiday with the family.  Interestingly, beating beaches as a preferred location for holiday goers, 37.9% of respondents said they would like to visit the hills, to escape the monotony and stress brought by the pandemic. Budget travel continues to see a spike as 35.4% of respondents are keeping Rs.10,000-Rs.25,000 per person as set targets for their budget during vacations. Commenting on this survey Sabina Chopra, Co-Founder and COO, Corporate Travel & Head Industry Relations, Yatra.com, said, “Over the years, consumers have given priority to various aspects of travel while planning a trip …

Kerala Tourism has launched a project to create Miyawaki-model micro forests at 22 tourism spots in 12 districts across the state. Inaugurating the project by planting a sapling at Shanghumukham Beach, State Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran said that more than 30,000 saplings would be planted in about two acres of land identified for the scheme. Creation of micro forests that compare well with natural forests would make the tourist destinations in the state, especially those in urban areas, environment friendly, the Minister noted.

During a webinar organised by IATO and TravTalk on redesigning wellness itineraries, Rajeev Nambiar, Director, National Teachers Desk, Art of Living said that 2 week-long itinerary is ideal for visiting India for wellness tourism. He further said that the Art of Living International Center in Bengaluru offers various programs for wellness, recreation and yoga.

With easing of restrictions, Thomas Cook India and its group company, SOTC Travel, have announced the first physical holiday roadshows since lockdown – Thomas Cook India’s Freedom Month Celebrations and SOTC’s Freedom Month Carnival. The series of roadshows, in association with Accor and Marriott hotels, will be held on Sunday, November 8, 2020 from 11am to 5pm across key source markets of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Pune, Kochi, Jaipur and Baroda. With a range of domestic and international destinations on offer, customers can avail of special deals/discounts and attractively priced flight-inclusive holidays starting at Rs. 10 790.00* – with a free holiday to Dubai* to be won. To ensure customer health and safety together with a personalised experience, an online pre-registration enables customers to book their preferred time slot. Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head – Holidays, MICE, Visa, Thomas Cook (India). said, “To assist our customers plan their perfect holiday and guide them through the new/updated travel protocols, we have simplified the booking process by bringing our Freedom Month Celebrations right to our customers’ doorstep! Held at Accor and Marriott hotels across India, we intended to provide Indians with a safe and smooth holiday booking experience and the assistance of our holiday experts, while availing of great offers.” He added, “Our Assured Program in partnership with Apollo Clinics ensures meticulous health & safety protocols. To further assist our customers, we have tied up with ICMR accredited labs to offer end-to-end COVID-negative certification services with contactless facilitation – across India. Our Safe Holiday Helpline is yet another meaningful consumer initiative – a free service to support customers in safe holiday planning.”

Mou Mukherjee, one of the PSAs for Thomas Cook India located in Dhanbad, shares her experience of being part of the Thomas Cook India family. She says, “After the setback caused due to the pandemic, I’m very happy to say that we have been able to bounce back to business. The ‘Assured’ programme has been a great initiative by Thomas Cook India to help agents like is win back the confidence of our customers, who are also happy with the on-ground services that was provided to them. Times are tricky but with the opportunities that Thomas Cook India has provided us through several of their online roadshows for the Thomas Cook Assured initiative, I am positive that we will be able to generate business and provide our customers complete satisfaction while promoting safe travel.”

With an established background in B2B travel, TBO Group has diversified into cargo business with its first office in New Delhi operational since October 17. Ankush Nijhawan, Co-Founder, TBO Group, said they want to change the way cargo business is done in India, with different ideas, better technology and make the industry more organised. The Group plans to expand to western India in the next 6 months followed by footprints in South India as well. The company will act as a facilitator for agents to get the best prices for shipping cargo via airlines for now, and later plans to get into ocean cargo as well.

Upendra Kumar from International Travels in Patna, has been using Tripjack’s website for his agency bookings since the last two years. Sharing his experience, Kumar says, “Before that, I would use other B2B portals for my bookings. But the service provided by Tripjack is very good and I have never looked back since using them. Their website is very user-friendly and their flight and hotel fares are very competitive. I keep referring them to all my travel agent friends. Even their recent Fantasy League contest that I have participated in, lets you play as well as earn Tripjack coins at the same time. I won the first prize of 15,000 Tripjack coins for the match played between Mumbai v/s Rajasthan.” Top winners get air tickets sponsored by AirAsia and hotels stays every week. Visit tripjack.com now!

B2B hotel booking portal, GRN Connect has won the prestigious TravTalk-WTM World Travel Leaders Award for having a positive impact on tourism and hospitality industry in India. The B2B operator with access to around 400,000 hotels and 200,000 villas and more than 30,000 on- and -offline agents in 108 countries access its inventory was announced winner during a virtual ceremony where businesses were nominated by WTM Official Media Partners. Getting recognised for embracing the mantra- recover, rebuild & innovate, Deepak Narula, Managing Director, GRNConnect said, “Our business ground to a halt at the peak of the pandemic, and we quickly started to rebuild our business for the future by identifying areas where we could make a difference to our suppliers and partners.”

Eyeing the pent-up demand for travel, Thomas Cook (India) and its group company, SOTC Travel have introduced Crazy Deals in partnership with IndiGo with a range of options and value add-ons. On offer are domestic destinations such as Goa, Udaipur, Jaipur, Kerala, Himachal, North East, Ranthambore, Mussoorie, Rishikesh, Chittorgarh, Andaman, among others, and international short haul destinations such as Dubai and Maldives.   Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head – Holidays, MICE, Visa, Thomas Cook (India) said, “These great-value air-inclusive holidays are easy to book. With our pricing and inclusions, we aim to catalyse demand across India. Our Assured Program in partnership with Apollo Clinics ensures meticulous health and safety protocols across every touch-point and to further assist our customers, we have tied up with ICMR accredited labs to offer seamless, contactless end-to-end COVID-negative certification services – across India. Our Safe Holiday Helpline is yet another meaningful consumer initiative – a free service to support customers in safe holiday planning.”   Daniel D’souza, President & Country Head, Leisure, SOTC Travel said, “While Indian travellers are price conscious, they also seek value in their holiday package. SOTC has launched Crazy Deals in partnership with IndiGo. Travellers with pocket friendly budgets can now avail the best deals that offer air-inclusive value packages to domestic and international destinations. As customers recognise the value and peace of mind of booking with reputed brands, we have introduced a range of assured, insured holidays in line with our Safe Travel programme.”   Sanjay Kumar, Chief Strategy & Revenue Officer, IndiGo said, “We are pleased to partner with Thomas Cook India and SOTC to introduce air inclusive holiday deals. We also introduced products like 6E double seat, …