Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Minister of Culture, Tourism & DoNER, G Kishan Reddy, has said that India needs private investments in a big way to develop tourism. Referring to the first Global Tourism Investor’s Summit to be held in May, he said, “We have asked the states to present their required investments for tourism development in their areas. The aim is to promote our tourism industry as an investment destination.”

According to the government’s provisional estimates, the foreign exchange earnings from tourism in the country increased by 107% from ₹65,070 crore in 2021 to ₹1,34,543 crore in 2022. Latest data from the Bureau of Immigration show that India received 6.19 million FTAs during 2022 as compared to 1.52 million during the same period of 2021.

The latest report by Noesis titled ‘India Hospitality Overview 2022’ says that period, the Indian hotel industry is showing signs of gaining momentum. In 2022, the industry experienced a critical year with unique opportunities, and domestic businesses seized the chance with 66% of hotel signings. Meanwhile, international brands signed 44% of the total keys, resulting in the opening of 10,138 keys. This exciting future is set to continue with a pipeline of 7,163 keys being added from 2023 onwards.

Global airline capacity will be lower than expected this year and stay constrained until 2025 at the earliest, warned IATA director general Willie Walsh, due to delays in new aircraft deliveries and a lack of availability of spare parts. “I can’t see anything really improving or significantly improving probably until 2025 at the earliest and it may even go beyond that,” Walsh said.

Arvind Singh, Secretary, Tourism, will be superannuating on 31 May, 2023 and the position will be taken up by V. Vidyavathi, lAS, who is currently serving as Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, Ministry of Culture. She has been appointed as Officer on Special Duty, Ministry of Tourism in the rank. Vidyavathi is an IAS officer of Karnataka Cadre, 1991 batch and joined as DG-ASI in May 2020.

Educational trips are a great learning tool for travel consultants and first-hand experience gives them a better understanding of the destination. Keeping this in mind, ETAA organized an educational trip to Nepal in association with The Travel Cube Bangalore and Nepal office head. The Travel Cube have their own set up in Nepal and ensure that itineraries are designed as the requirements of the clients and deliver quality service. About 33 members from India joined the trip. Team ETAA is thankful to The Travel Cube for their efforts in taking good care of members and making the trip a memorable one.

Rajni Hasija, CMD, IRCTC, has said that many times in PPP model, private players don’t have much technical knowledge of the subject. “Thus, handholding of the private partner is must, which IRCTC has been doing and we have been able to perform well also by delivering,” he said.

SMA Sheeraz, Director, Sheeraz Tours, has said, “Travellers from Tier II & III cities want to explore places with longer itineraries for this summer, eg. Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, ALULA in Saudi, or destinations like Hua Hin & Chiang Mai in Thailand & Malaysian Kota Kina Balu, Radang. Regular itineraries are not trending anymore.”

Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO, thanked the membership for voting his Dream team at the elections and said that their focus going forward will be to serve them in the best way possible. “We will do our best to fulfil the needs of tourism fraternity,” he said.

Manisha Saxena, DG, Tourism, has said that digital presentation of strengths is very important as a destination and a lot of states have done some good work on it. “Almost everyone has a website and a tourism app. However, challenge of digitalization is how to combine all of it with the places where all the action is,” he said.