Category Archives: Agents

Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) will be held virtually across the world this year. GPS Virtual will be held at a global stage in July or August, instead of physically going to different Tier II, III cities because of the COVID-19 crisis. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, revealed that the event will be attended by around 10,000 people and that it will be an annual feature apart from the physical event, which will be further fine-tuned. “We have developed the technology to host the virtual event. In fact, we already had the tool in place. There will be around 200 exhibitors, which would come from India and across the world. The prices will be competitive and GPS members would also be benefit,” he shared.

Bharat Bhushan Atree, Managing Director, Caper Travel Company during the 3rd TravTalk Digital Conclave said that with new technology in the industry, new virtual reality products should be introduced for tourism. “Sustainability is the biggest issue right now. Spending wisely should be the only smart plan B. We should look at curating innovative products to promote inbound tourism and strategize our marketing and promotional approach. There should not be a lot of expectation from the government. A lot of people will also look at consolidation in the industry,” he said.  

“Corporates will not buy travel the same way as before, that’s for sure. The entire travel industry is going to move to IT. They will also have to learn how to close deals on the phone,” said Rajdev Bhattacharya, GM, Global Travel & Hospitality Services and Way2go, Digital Operations & Platforms for Wipro, when speaking at TravTalk’s third Digital Conclave on May 15. The session, where Bhattacharya spoke at length about how travel companies also needed to relook at the mix of people they were to hire based on skill sets, aimed to highlight the timelines when the Indian travel industry could start looking at weddings as well as corporate and M!CE travel in the road to tourism’s recovery.

In the foremost session of 3rd TravTalk Digital Conclave, titled ‘The Reality of No Tourism’, Debjit Dutta, Director & CEO, Impression Tourism Services (India), highlighted the advantage enjoyed by East India when it came to tourism’s recovery. He said, “For eastern India, the biggest opportunity will be cross-border tourism with East Asian countries. Lockdown has come as a form of opportunity for the industry to learn and adapt to a better world.” He added that while indirect support from the government will be needed, stand-alone properties will be more popular and in demand once everything normalises, as people would like to travel to less-crowded places that serve their specialised needs.

The DDP Group, to support travel and hospitality companies affected by the COVID-19 crisis, has created a media fund of Rs1 crore under its ‘Standing with the Trade’ initiative. The move will help support businesses by providing targeted advertising campaigns, free of cost. Advertisements will be provided on a first-come, first-serve basis. Interested businesses can contact the DDP team through gaganpreet@ddppl.com. This initiative is supported by all of DDP Group’s premier publications, including TravTalk, Tourism Breaking News, TravelTV.News, M!CETalk and Hospitality Talk. Together, these publications reach 600,000 travel and hospitality professionals daily. “The timeliness and effectiveness of our actions as a united industry are more important than ever before and we are hoping that our initiative can assist stressed businesses till the market begins to strengthen again. Although it is difficult to predict how long this might continue, history has enough examples to show that after a time of economic difficulty, industry and countries have always bounced back,” says SanJeet, Director, DDP Group.

The travel and tourism industry, unarguably, is one of the most affected sectors since the onset of COVID-19. With country borders sealed, cities brought to a standstill and all transportation stationary, it is difficult to imagine the recovery trajectory of travel. Industry experts suggest that while travel will eventually recover in stages, a shift in both travel norms and traveller behaviour is expected. Addressing some common questions on every traveller’s mind, VFS Global has shared guidelines to assuage their concerns and help navigate their holiday plans once international borders open again. • What happens to passports submitted before services were suspended? Following the national lockdown in India, Visa Application Centres had to shut down operations in adherence to directives from central and local authorities and diplomatic missions. When the Visa Application Centres are allowed to re-open, VFS Global will be able to evaluate at which stage of assessment each application is and resume the applicant return process accordingly. If you have a query about your passport that was submitted with your visa application, please write to customercare@vfsglobal.com. • Will Visa Application Centres open for appointments once the national lockdown lifts? Visa Application Centres in any city/country operate according to the directives of the central and local authorities and the diplomatic mission / the country being applied to. In some cases, even if central/local authorities lift the lockdown, the country you are applying to may not be accepting visa applications. In this scenario, an open Visa Application Centre might not serve your purpose. Make sure you’re checking regulations by not only your government but also that of the country you plan to visit. • What are health and safety precautions implemented …

Luxury takes many forms in New Zealand. Clients can tailor their holiday to suit their needs, whether enjoying some pampering, tucking themselves away in a secluded paradise or packing in loads of adventurous activities. For more inspiration on how to include ‘New Zealand Luxury – Relaxation & Wellness’ in your itineraries, sign up for the webinar today at 1430 hrs (2:30 pm). To participate, contact Jaspreet Kaur at jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call 9650196532.

After the overwhelming response for the first and second editions of its Digital Conclave, TravTalk is all set to bring the third edition of the online conference on May 15 from 10 am to 1:30 pm, which would discuss pertinent issues in the industry at the time of COVID-19 crisis. There will be 3 sessions of 1 hour each and will see experts from different segments of travel, deliberating on the way forward. The panelists for first session, titled ‘The Reality of NO tourism!’ will be Rajiv Mehra from IATO, Bharat Atree from Caper Travel Company, and Debjit Dutta from Impression Tourism Services. Second session, titled ‘Hotels in the age of social distancing. Where are the robots?’ will have Mandeep Lamba from HVS ANAROCK, Dilip Puri from Indian School of Hospitality and Jatin Khanna from Marriot Hotels. For the third session, titled ‘Big ticket business! When do we start looking at weddings, corporate and M!CE travel?’, the panelists include Rajeev Jain from Rashi Entertainment, Rajdev Bhattacharya from Wipro Limited, and Rajeev Kale from Thomas Cook India.

Opening the second session titled ‘Where is the money? Selling domestic luxury’ in the second series of the Digital Conclave spearheaded by TravTalk, was Arjun Sharma, Chairman, Select Group, who believes that there is a great scope and need to develop tourist circuits on specific themes to attract the tourists having special interest in visiting such places. “Why is it that the circuits or packages available for the inbound tourists are not available for the Indian domestic traveller? There is a need to bring our circuits back to the forefront. Domestic tourism should not be positioned just as a weekend package. We should make it a five or six-day package, whether it is religious, wildlife, or experiential in nature. We need to mix and match, add standalone hotels in the itinerary. Trust me, we don’t have to fear the online giants. We have to work with them,” he says. In fact, the Government of India, Ministry of Tourism had launched the Swadesh Darshan Scheme for integrated development of theme based tourist circuits in the country in 2014-15.

As Delhi opened for private establishments with 33 per cent staff strength, Minar Travels started working with permissible staff strength and following sanitising and social distancing norms. The office cleaning and sanitising were completed recently under the supervision of HS Duggal, Managing Director, Minar Group.