Category Archives: Agents

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.

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 upcoming webinar on Thursday, May 14, 2020 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.

In order to give a boost to M!CE Tourism and attract more M!CE events to the country, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India has decided to extend the benefits to M!CE organisers in the form of certain incentives under the Champion Sector in Services Scheme (CSSS). For this purpose, a M!CE fund has been set up under CSSS. Under this initiative to encourage M!CE operators to bring more conferences/meetings/seminars to India, they will be entitled to avail certain financial incentives in the form of GST reimbursement. The incentive would be made available for a period of three years. A prior approval from MOT will be required to avail incentives under the scheme along with a NOC from the concerned travel trade association. MOT has made India Convention Promotion Bureau (ICPB) as the nodal agency for steering and promoting the scheme who in turn would motivate Indian Travel Planners / Societies / Associations towards publicising the scheme.