Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Rakesh Verma, Additional Secretary, Tourism, has said that the Nidhi 2.0 platform is now maturing. “We have now tested it with almost all state governments and about 20 state governments have now been brought on that platform.”

Zubin Karkaria, Founder & CEO, VFS Global, has said that they are still capable of processing 32 million applications eventoday as we did in 2019. “We are still at 60 per cent of 2019 numbers,” he added.

Cross Hotels & Resorts, along with TravelBullz is conducting a webinar today at 12pm. Representatives from both the brands will update the trade about their offerings. Participants also have a chance to win exciting prizes. Register at jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com, +91 9650196532.

Speaking on the occasion of Paryatan Parv recently, Rajiv Jalota, Chairman, Mumbai Port Trust, said, “Earlier we used to be fascinated by international vessels making calls on Indian coasts, especially Mumbai. But of late, river and domestic cruising on the coastal waters and the inland waterways is growing by leaps and bounds. Three years prior to the pandemic, the growth of cruise tourism in India was at 39% annually. Today, there is a high-level taskforce in place under various ministries that has been taking some pathbreaking decisions towards developing cruise tourism in India.”

Asia Pacific is at the centre of growth in the travel industry and Sabre is seeing very rapid acceleration in the recovery, says Brett Thorstad, VP (Travel Solutions), Agency Sales, Asia Pacific, Sabre. He says, “India is the third-largest travel market in the world just behind the USA and China. We are seeing rapid growth in the India market with high single-digit GDP growth every year. This is also translating into the travel market as the demography of the Indian population is changing. India is a very important market for Sabre and that is why we are planning to make some significant investments in India in the next several years and take advantage of the travel recovery here.”

Abdullah AlAbdouli, CEO, Marjan, was recently in India to explore opportunities with investors, developers and institutional funds who would be interested in participating in the real estate development in RAK. He says, “We would like them to explore the success story of Al Marjan island in RAK with us. Al Marjan island is an iconic real estate development where we are looking for investors and developers to develop own real estate model whether it is a hotel, resort, service apartments, or F&B products.” Marjan, RAK Hospitality Holding and Wynn Resorts are working together to develop the first Wynn Resort in the Middle East

VFS Global is organising a webinar on ‘How to make the most of the Visa At Your Doorstep (VAYD) service on 11 Oct at 11am. It will elaborate how the travel trade and customers can benefit from it. Register at https://event.webinarjam.com/register/452/n7kngam6.  

Jagan Mohan Reddy, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh has declared 2023 as the year to visit Andhra Pradesh, and the campaign will be called ‘Visit Andhra Pradesh 2023’. The campaign kickstarted on World Tourism Day and a grand launch will be done in the first week of December.

Sharing his observations and concerns over the star categorisation criteria for hotels in India, G Kishan Reddy, Union Minister for tourism, culture & DoNER, said, “The current categorisation system doesn’t really differentiate between a 100+ room hotel and a 10-20 room hotel. It ruins the whole India experience for a traveller.” He also said that he’s in talk with the government to change criteria for hotel classifications.

With strong focus on strengthening ‘Wedding Tourism’ in India, the bespoke two-day Wedding Travel Show’22 witnessed participation of over 35 top wedding planners in the country and more than 30 hotels,  interacting & sealing deals right at the onset of wedding season this year. An exquisite table-top event, the show was held at Hyatt Residency Dehradun and saw the biggest names of the wedding and hospitality industries like Rajeev Jain, Chetan Vohra and Arif Patel, etc discussing revenge buying by the wedding clients and post covid challenges.