Category Archives: Agents

New research released by Booking.com, the world’s leading online travel company, highlights Indian travelers Indians are eager to make their travel dreams a reality in the next few months while keeping health and safety in mind, with 88% of Indian travellers willing to share their medical history, current medical fitness and location tracking in order to potentially receive customized alerts on health concerns in the locations they are traveling to. Personalization in the post-pandemic world One of the biggest trends to emerge in the post-pandemic world is personalization. Traveller preferences are intimately personal, and a one-size-fits-all approach no longer works with 80% of Indian travellers who are okay to provide more of their personal information to their travel partners in exchange for a more personalized travel experience. The insights have been drawn from Booking.com’s inaugural APAC Travel Confidence Index, which provides a snapshot of how confident consumers feel about exploring the world again and their motivation to travel. The commissioned research, which polled 11,000 travellers from 11 countries and territories¹ across Asia Pacific, combined with the company’s proprietary data and insights as a digital travel leader for the past 25 years, offers insights into the region’s travel confidence. Top considerations and motivators for travellers while travelling The Travel Confidence Index explores the overall considerations, motivators, and concerns of consumers across Asia-Pacific and how this varies across the region. According to the research findings, the desire to travel remains strong amongst Indian travellers, with safety (67%), cost (44%) and the variety of destinations and hotels/resorts (42%) being the top three considerations. When asked about their biggest motivators to travel, ‘assurance on health and safety’ emerged as one of the top motivators …

With an aim to fuel growth from the Indian market, One Above Global DMC joined hands to create more awareness about Maldives hospitality brands in Delhi and Bengaluru in collaboration with Cora Cora Maldives and Centara Maldives recently. Close to selected 100 top outbound travel companies from each city were invited for the product presentation and cocktail event. Representing Cora Cora Maldives at Delhi event Karishma Kazi, Director, BlackTurtle said, the idea was to showcase the product and provide complete knowledge about the resort’s features and offerings to tour operators. I’m really happy with the response we received at the event. Speaking about the Bengaluru event, the representative from Centara Maldives added One Above offered a platform for Centara Maldives to establish direct contact with the top potential agents and to further increase its market share from Bangalore and other parts for South India Market. Speaking about event collaboration, Rahim Alsam, Founder, One Above DMC said, “Our major business leads are generated from the North and South India market, hence targeting Delhi and Bangalore cities which have immense potential for all the products we sell and promote. We look forward to more such engaging events with our partners in coming months.

Travel companies from Maharashtra conducting tours within and outside the state will have to upload details of their trips and travellers on the tourism department website. These details will be shared with district disaster management teams. Supriya Karmakar, deputy director, state tourism department, said it will soon make this mandatory. “We are currently in the process of registering all tour operators online.”

Explaining why TAFI did not choose India as its convention venue, Ajay Prakash, President, TAFI, says, “It is very important to do something within the country. But we could not do it as planned because the domestic air fares and hotel rates were very high. And honestly, the support that one receives from an international destination is far more than any state government is normally willing to offer.”

Fiji Tourism has just launched its revamped Fiji travel specialist programme called Matai 2.0 and it’s more in-depth and interactive with quizzes and more video content! Kathy Koyamaibole, Regional Director (Asia & The Pacific), Fiji Tourism says, “The revamped version has three tiers– Gold, Silver and Bronze – with different incentives. There are exciting prizes for those who complete the Matai 2.0 programme before July 31, 2022. They then qualify for a famil to Fiji.”

Michael Goh, President, Resorts World Cruises, says, “The response of the launch for Resorts World Cruises in India has been overwhelming. Within two months of opening bookings, we secured over 20,000 cabins from the India market. We are highly optimistic that the fly-cruise demand will continue to be strong in the following years, as we continue to push our offerings to a wider market segment, including MICE.

Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday announced that Jharkhand is set to get three more airports. He also said that 14 new air routes will be made available in the state to increase connectivity. “Jharkhand will soon have five airports. After Ranchi and Deoghar, we will set up airports in Bokaro, Jamshedpur and Dumka. Also, 14 new air routes will be introduced in the state to increase connectivity,” Scindia said.

Sachin Kurve takes charge as Secretary of Tourism, Government of Uttarakhand and CEO, Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board. Kurve is a 2003 batch IAS officer of the Uttarakhand cadre and has held several senior key positions spanning close to two decades including key positions in the Government of Uttarakhand and Maharashtra. During his tenure, he took responsibility as the District Magistrate of Rudraprayag, Tehri-Garhwal in Dehradun, and Haridwar and as the Director and Additional Secretary, Panchayati Raj Department, and also as the Additional Secretary to the Governor. In early 2015, he moved to Maharashtra on deputation wherein he held several key positions including District Collector, Revenue and Forest Department in Nagpur and Mumbai Sub Urban. Other prime positions include his role as the Secretary to the Chief Minister, Secretary to the Governor, and Investment Commissioner, Industries. In the middle of September 2020, he shifted back to Uttarakhand and took up the charge as Secretary, Industries and Excise, positions which he still holds along with food, civil supply & consumer affairs with his current role as secretary of Tourism and CEO of Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board.

Sandeep Raghav has been appointed as the Director (Business Development) for the India market. He has over 20 years of experience with international hotels. Working with brands such as Taj Group, Radisson UK Hotels, Jumeirah Group, Frasers Hospitality Singapore, Starwood Hotels, Marriott Hotels and Conrad Maldives has given him immense exposure to the luxury segment to handle FIT and group business from India. He is a seasoned hotelier specialising in luxury leisure and MICE segment for various outbound destinations. He has been a key element for their team goals. Raghav loves cricket, music and travel. He is a team player and goal-oriented in his actions.

Addressing the various stakeholders present at the 7th National Tourism Investors Meet 2022, Usha Padhee, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, stressed on collaboration between tour operators and airlines for marketing Indian destinations. She said, “The government is working to increase the number of airports in the country to 200 by 2024 from 140 airports. Aviation and tourism are complimenting sectors. Air connectivity needs to be in tandem with what the tourism sector is doing.”