Category Archives: Agents

Globus family of brands introduces Cosmos Lite — world’s first á la carte tour style. Combining the essential features of award-winning Cosmos tours with a personalised approach to daily itineraries, Cosmos Lite offers hassle-free travel with the freedom to tailor an itinerary to interests, budgets and pace. New for the current year, Cosmos Lite is unveiling 10 innovative itineraries that combine major cities with undiscovered, lesser-known destinations across Europe. Cosmos Lite vacation packages include city-to-city transportation, comfortable hotels, daily breakfasts, professional tour director, MyCosmos optional excursions and CosmosGo mobile app. Scott Nisbet, President and CEO, Globus family of brands, said, “With the introduction of Cosmos Lite, we’re giving travellers an independent touring option: a new way to see, explore and experience the world around them. We get them to each destination and coordinate comfortable accommodations but their days – and the activities they plan – are up to them.” In 2019, Cosmos Lite is introducing 10 new vacation packages in Europe: Spanish City Explorer (9 days, priced from $899) Spanish Heritage Explorer (8 days, priced from $699) Portugal Explorer (7 days, priced from $749) Italian Explorer (8 days, priced from $899) Northern Italy Explorer (8 days priced from $899) Veneto Explorer (7 days, priced from $899) Danube Explorer (8 days, priced from $899) England Explorer (7 days, priced from $899) Ireland Explorer (7 days, priced from $849) Scotland Explorer (7 days, priced from $899) Varesh Chopra, Regional Director –India, South Asia & Middle East, said, “Free of commitments and full of possibilities, Cosmos Lite’s á la carte touring invites travellers to design each day with free time, me time or see time. A Cosmos Lite vacation frees up days so travellers can …

The Sikkim Hotels & Restaurants Association (SHRA) recently convened hoteliers’ meeting in Gangtok during which it was unanimously agreed to not continue conducting business with Go-MMT until the concerns were addressed and resolved. Effective January 16, 2019, hotels in the state have indefinitely closed inventory to the OTAs and have decided to not honour any new bookings that might come through. During the meeting, SHRA member hotels also decided to terminate their contracts with Go-MMT immediately. Pema Lamta, President, SHRA, said, “We are in solidarity with the country’s apex hospitality body – Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) and also our regional body – Hotel & Restaurant Association of Eastern India (HRAEI) in uniting against the OTAs’ unfair and discriminatory business practices. We have made an official appeal to all our members to not honour Go-MMT bookings from January 16, 2019, and have requested them to terminate their contracts with the OTAs immediately. However, we will accommodate guests who have already been booked through Go-MMT even after the 16th. We do not want our guests to be harassed or inconvenienced. However, they will be requested to make payments directly to the hotel instead of to the OTAs.” Many other hotel Associations across India have accused the said OTAs of charging exorbitant commissions, unfair accounting practices and unauthorised and further discounting of hotel prices set by hoteliers. The boycotting of the two online portals gained momentum after Ahmedabad Hotel Association had first raised the issue, which many other associations and hotels followed on later. “SHRA had earlier written to OTAs with concerns raised by local hotels and even held meeting with them. The association had raised specific concerns …

The inaugural Travolution Asian Summit, held on January 15 in Delhi, brought together all stalwarts and key stakeholders of the travel and tourism industry for sharing knowledge and powering partnerships. Welcoming delegates at the event, Lee Hayhurst, Editor, Travolution said, “We are happy to be here and are hoping to make this a regular event. We started 13 years ago with an idea to bring the travel and technology industry together to discuss ideas, trends and observations in the industry. I think the world of technology is bringing us closer. At this event, we’ve got keynotes, interviews and sessions for the attendees,” he said. The keynote speaker was Deep Kalra, Chairman & Group CEO, MakeMyTrip, who gave an overview on ‘Indian Market Growth and Opportunity’.

IRCTC has partnered with Bharti AXA General insurance company to provide free-of-cost travel insurance to customers who book air tickets through the IRCTC’s air ticketing website. IRCTC Air is set to offer free air travel insurance worth up to Rs 50 lakh for the customers. It is a first-of-its-kind initiative and the travel insurance will provide passengers with financial protection against accidental deaths as well as total permanent disability, according to a statement by IRCTC. The premium for the insurance will be borne by IRCTC to secure the passengers from any untoward incident during any journey. The aim behind this partnership is to make air travel hassle-free. The travel insurance cover will be for both one-way trips and round trips of air travel, when booked on the IRCTC air ticketing portal.

Desaru Coast, Malaysia has appointed ‘Knack’ Marketing as its sales representative in India. The appointment will support Desaru Coast in building brand awareness, execute ongoing public relations, implementing trade programmes, providing packaging solutions to the partners in India and increasing the number of visitors from the Indian market to Malaysia. Medha Sampat, Director, Knack Marketing, said, “We are excited about this new collaboration with Desaru Coast. This is a carefully planned development to woo the tourism sector. The easy accessibility, massive infrastructure with its beautiful beach, consists of stays in luxury accommodations, its extravagant conferencing facilities, state-of-the-art theme park, stunning golf course, bundled with amazing gourmet options making it a perfect getaway for the Indian traveller.” Desaru Coast is a premium integrated destination resort and one of Malaysia’s most anticipated new tourism developments. It offers a premium experience for everyone from families and couples to business travellers and golf enthusiasts. The resort is anchored by four world-class hotels and resorts namely The Westin Desaru Coast Resort, Hard Rock Hotel Desaru Coast, Anantara Desaru Coast Resort & Villas and One & Only Desaru Coast for premium travellers and a Conference Centre fitted with modern facilities. Philip Whittaker, Chief Commercial Officer, Themed Attractions Resorts & Hotels (TARH), added, “We are looking forward to this partnership with Knack Marketing and are confident that together, we can strategically position Desaru Coast as the brand that will elevate the tourism industry in Malaysia.”

In a major setback to state-run Air India, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana has overruled the national carrier’s decision to shift domestic ticket-booking business exclusively on Travelport, asking it to continue using the services of Amadeus and others to book domestic and international flights. Air India had discontinued services of all other global distribution system (GDS) portals from December 5, 2018. The judgement of the HC read, “An interim direction is issued to Air India Limited to continue to allow using GDS of Travelport, Sabre and Amadeus, as was being used prior to Decemeber 4, 2018 and till further orders, Air India inventory will be made available to Amadeus also, as was being done prior to December 4, 2018.” The court has given Air India three weeks’ time to respond to the judgement with relevant documents. The court noted that under Article 12, the Air India was duty-bound to invite bids before giving exclusive rights to any agency for GDS. It is further contended that Air India was duty-bound to call bids in the form of tenders and that Amadeus could not be arbitrarily excluded from sale of tickets for domestic flights. Source: Moneycontrol  

Yatra Online has announced the acquisition of the corporate travel business of PL Worldways Limited (PLW), a Chennai-based corporate travel services provider. This acquisition will help strengthen Yatra’s foothold in the southern India region along with adding over 100 corporate clients to its existing client base of over 700. Commenting on the acquisition, Dhruv Shringi, Co-Founder and CEO, Yatra Online, said, “PL Worldways has an unparalleled reputation in corporate travel in the southern part of the country due to its strong customer focus and unmatched service. With this acquisition, we not only strengthen our position in the growing corporate travel market in India but also in Southern India, which has been in our cross-hairs for some time. Our endeavour will be to deliver best-in-class service to PLW’s existing customer base, through our self-booking platform and expense management solution software. We look forward to welcoming PL Worldways team to the Yatra family.” Anil Pathak, Chairman, PL Worldways, said, “We are excited for PL Worldways to join Yatra family. PL Worldways’ local connect and customer service expertise will complement Yatra’s technology platform and leverage the largest hotel network in the country; helping clients optimise their travel spend and improve their travel processes.”

U&I Holidays has launched a mobile app for the end customer, enabling them to travel without their vouchers along with giving instant feedback. Shyam Upadhyay, Director, U&I Holidays, revealed, “Innovation is most important today, and every wholesaler or retailer has an online portal now. The latest addition for our portal is mobile application, to be used not by the operator but by the end user. We will start this from Bali. A guest travelling to Bali now need not carry any hard copies. He can simply download the application and have all his itinerary and vouchers on the mobile phone. At the same time, we have connected the driver and the client directly, just like in Uber or Ola cabs, allowing guests to track the location of the driver. At the same time, most of the Indian restaurants, shopping places have been marked and mapped in the application. Hence, wherever the guest is, he or she can see which is the nearby Indian restaurants or shopping area in the app.” Upadhyay further added that it is advantageous for them to get instant feedback as well. “Most important for us as a DMC is real-time feedback. If clients get convinced on tour, it’s fantastic. But if anything is wrong and he comes back to India, one can probably lose the client or bear a compensation. Now with this real-time feedback, everyday once the tour gets over, client will automatically get a pop up, and if they have a complaint they will definitely put it. That will straightway goes to the Bali office or head office and all the senior management at U&I Holidays. We have a dedicated quality control team who’s going to …

Ebix has announced that its EbixCash World Money subsidiary in India has entered into an agreement to acquire 100 per cent assets of India-based Essel Forex for approximately US$8 million. Ebix will be funding the entire transaction in cash, using its internal cash reserves. The acquisition of Essel Forex following the recent announcement of the Weizmann acquisition, further strengthens EbixCash’s position as the largest financial exchange in India, besides being the undisputed leader in the inward remittance, outward remittance and foreign exchange markets in India. With a national network of 44 branches in 31 cities serviced by 400+ employees, Essel Forex has been one of the five largest foreign exchange providers in India with a wide spectrum of related products including sales of all major currencies, travellers’ checks, demand drafts, remittances, money transfers and prepaid cards primarily for the Corporate clients. Besides being a foreign exchange business partner to leading banks such as ICICI, Axis, Indus Ind, Yes and HDFC Bank, Essel Forex has been associated with Western Union and MoneyGram for inward money transfers. Essel Forex will be tightly integrated into the EbixCash Financial Exchange offering in India and abroad. The retained Essel Forex executives will become an integral part of the combined EbixCash remittance and forex leadership team headed by EbixCash World Money Managing Director TC Guruprasad. Ebix believes the Essel Forex business can generate operating margins of 40% or more, once fully integrated. Ebix expects the acquisition to be immediately accretive to its earnings. Robin Raina, Chairman, President and CEO, Ebix said, “Essel Forex has a rich focus on the corporate clientele with strong partnerships with many leading banks. Their geographical, product and client overlap with EbixCash made the …

Zen Cruises has announced its collaboration with The Apollo Group, an American custom cruise-hotel operator. Jurgen Bailom, President and CEO, Zen Cruises, said, “Zen Cruises has partnered with global experts from the cruise, entertainment, port and marine industry to bring closer home the grandeur experienced by Indians onboard foreign ships. With their vast knowledge of serving global cruise industry, our strategic partners will offer quality services to domestic passengers, both in terms of innovation and experience.” Zen Cruises’ maiden cruise will sail in Indian waters in 2019 on a 70,285-ton, 2,000 passenger ship. The ship, currently in service under a leading cruise line, globally will be renamed ‘Karnika’ post change of ownership and is set for its first domestic sail from Mumbai under the brand name ‘Jalesh Cruises’ in April 2019. The Apollo Group will be spearheading an array of on-board operations ranging from food and beverage, house-keeping, guest services, payrolls, public health, vendor management and revenue collection, among others. Zen Cruises has also announced its collaboration with a leading ship manager as a marine technology partner for providing on-board environment management, itinerary distance planning, fuel forecasting, compliance and class regulations, supply chain and budgeting, among others. For onboard IT and hardware services, broadcasting, satellite and shoreside link, Zen Cruises has collaborated with IPM Solutions, which specialises in providing seamless connectivity, services and project management for cruise ships across the world. Harding Brothers & Flemingo will offer on-board high-street retail therapy from international brands as part of its collaboration with Zen Cruises. The ship will undergo revitalisation in Singapore with Sembcorp Marine.