Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

As part of ongoing efforts to streamline, liberalise and ease the process of securing Indian visas, the High Commission of India will allow all Bangladesh travellers with confirmed air, train or bus tickets to submit their tourist visa applications without e-token or prior appointment dates from January 1, 2017. This was informed by the Indian High Commission in Dhaka. It was informed that the date of journey should be after seven days but within one month of submission of the visa application form. The Indian Visa Application Centre in Mirpur will receive walk-in tourist visa applications from confirmed travellers and senior citizens from 1 January instead of the centre in Uttara. Those who already have appointment dates can continue to submit their tourist visa applications in centres at Gulshan, Uttara, Motijheel, Mymensingh, Barisal, Khulna, Jessore, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Chittagong and Sylhet. (Source:Firstpost)

Tour operators from across the country visited Kashmir recently as part of a three-day familiarisation tour organised by the state tourism department with an aim to revive tourism in the valley. The visiting team expressed satisfaction over the return of normalcy in the Kashmir Valley and hoped that the tourists would return as the situation is conducive for sightseeing. Representatives of travel companies like Cox and Kings, Pooja Holidays, Raja Rani, Kaisri Travel, Thomas Cook, etc. were taken to Srinagar, Gulmarg and Pahalgam. The travel agents came from West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. Mahmood Shah, Director of Tourism, J&K Government, says, “People would often ask if Kashmir is safe. Now that the situation is getting better, we invited leading tour operators here. We hosted them around Christmas.” (Source: ANI)

The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, observed that demonetisation did not have any impact on the Foreign Tourist Arrival and Foreign Exchange Earnings. In November, 2016, 8.91 lakh FTAs were recorded as compared to 8.16 lakh in November, 2015, registering a growth of 9.3 per cent. An official statement from MOT claimed, “after demonetisation, the Government has taken a number of steps to ensure that no hardship is faced by the tourists and the industry is not affected. Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) smoothly transitioned to cashless mode of payment by simplifying process of e-tickets. Government efforts have paid dividend as there has been a notable growth in the comparative figures of Foreign Tourists Arrival (FTA) Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs) and online sale of e-tickets after demonetisation.” It may also be noted that the number of e-tickets sold during November 09, 2016, to December 08, 2016, increase to 28,176 from 2807 during October 09, 2016, to November 08, 2016, with corresponding amount being Rs 181.49 lakh and Rs 3.10 lakh respectively. It can therefore be seen that sale of e–tickets and earnings from have increased significantly by 10 and 58 times respectively as people are buying tickets for ASI monuments online through cashless payments.

Goa is all set to have the sixth edition of its two-day tribal festival, which will be organised by the Adivasi Sangatna, Quepem on January 7-8, 2017. The festival aims at reviving, promoting and preserving the state’s traditional games, culture and cuisine, especially the customs of the tribal population. There will be various events, competitions, folklore programmes and special programmes for children. The festival is being organised at the Village Panchayat Ground, Xeldem, Quepem.

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) is planning to organise a day-long symposium in Mumbai in the third or fourth week of February 2017. The symposium will focus on issues like e-visas for inbound traffic, visa challenges for outbound traffic from India, GST and other topics that the Union Budget will touch upon. Sharing more details, Pradip Lulla, Vice President, TAFI, said, “We will get experts to address our members who will be not from Mumbai but also from Pune and surrounding areas. We will also invite stakeholders like airlines and consulates. Topics are yet to be firmed up.” TAFI had conducted a similar symposium in New Delhi in October 2016 where it had also launched its new logo. “We want to replicate this in other metro cities as well and discuss topics that are relevant for that particular region,” Lulla added.

Dubai-based airlines will not be allowed to add more flights to Indian cities until the Gulf emirate allots commercially and operationally feasible slots to Indian carriers at its airport, as per a media report. This clause will be part of a bilateral seat entitlement agreement that the two sides are set to sign soon, a senior official at the civil aviation ministry reportedly said. “We will agree on increasing seat entitlements between the two countries as carriers from both sides have exhausted their quota which allows each side to operate up to 65,200 seats a week,” he added. The government decided on this condition after Dubai rejected India’s request to provide commitment on slots for Indian carriers in the bilateral air services pact. India-Dubai is a busy route, and both Indian and Gulf carriers have been demanding increasing the seat capacity in the sector as they have exhausted their current quota, which allows each side to operate up to 65,200 seats a week. (Source: The Economic Times)

Mauritius recorded a growth of about 16 per cent in Indian arrivals this year and expects this to increase to 20 per cent in 2017. Vivek Anand, Country Head, Mauritius Tourism, India, says, “We have seen a growth of nearly 16 per cent and a lot of high end tourists are visiting Mauritius and there are a lot of MICE movements and a lot of big Indian weddings happening there.” In 2017, Mauritius targets 100,000 Indian tourists which is a growth of 20 per cent. According to Anand, the growth will primarily come from the high end FITs, MICE and weddings.

ITC is all set to launch its new property in Kolkata by 2017. ITC Hotel, Kolkata adjacent to ITC Sonar, will be symbolic of the rich history of Bengal and Kolkata, being built with the colonial theme on the lines of the ‘British Raj’ and Calcutta as the ‘Imperial Capital of the British India’. The 490 key hotel would be among the tallest buildings of Kolkata with a commanding view of the entire city.

Yatra.com has tied up with Truecaller allowing new users to sign up on Yatra’s Android mobile application using their Truecaller account. Through this integration of TrueSDK, Yatra now offers phone number based onboarding and verification, which significantly reduces friction in user on-boarding. Any user having the Truecaller app and signing up to Yatra for the first time, will have a completely seamless experience with their user details being auto-filled in the Yatra app. Integration of TrueSDK on Yatra’s mobile app will make mobile number verification a simple and easy process. Speaking on the partnership Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com, said, “At Yatra, we are constantly thinking of new and innovative ideas to make user interface simple and convenient for our customersand the partnership with Truecaller is a firm step in that direction. Truecaller’s TrueSDK will help in instant user verification, hence simplifying the app onboarding experience. It will make the authentication more swift and secure for our users.”

Jet Airways will deploy its higher seating capacity aircraft – 254-seater Airbus A330 in place of the existing Boeing 737- on two domestic and two international routes from January 2017 in order to cater to the growing passenger demand. While the wide-body service between Mumbai-Chennai-Mumbai is slated to begin from January 15, the airline will commence its Mumbai-Jeddah-Mumbai and Mumbai-Bangalore-Mumbai services from January 16 and the Mumbai-Kuwait-Mumbai service is scheduled to start from January 18. “The introduction of wide-body services on our key domestic routes allows Jet Airways to scale up capacity in response to increase in demand. The A330 aircraft is designed with a spacious cabin, greater leg-room, lie-flat beds in premiere,” said, Jayaraj Shanmugam, Chief Commercial Officer, Jet Airways. The rolling out of the wide body aircraft with its two-cabin configuration of 18 seats in premiere (business) and 236 in economy class will also increase capacity on the key routes by as much as 50 per cent. Source: India Today