Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

The Delhi High Court has stayed the recent guidelines prohibiting hotels and restaurants from levying service charge automatically on food bills. Justice Yashwant Varma, while dealing with petitions by NRAI and FHRAI challenging the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA)’s guidelines, said the issue requires consideration and directed the authorities to file their reply.

The Ministry of Tourism has stated that the Swadesh Darshan 2.0 is aimed to enhance the experience of the tourists through a tourist-centric and destination-centric development approach to project planning and development. Its key principles are identified to achieve the vision of sustainable and responsible tourism. The intent is to enhance the contribution of tourism to the local economy and jobs.

Continuing with its series of exclusive webinars to help the travel trade discover Spain, the Tourism Office of Spain – Mumbai, along with Andalucia Tourism, will conduct an exclusive one-hour webinar titled ‘Self Drive in Andalucia’ on Saturday, July 23 at 3pm IST. Sign up today for the Spain Specialist Program (SSP) and register now to attend the webinar. The webinar will conclude with an exciting quiz on the destination and the winner will leave with a 7-day trip to Andalucia in November 2022. For more information, write to jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or 9650196532.

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 …

Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO, has said that after the cancellation of their convention in Bengaluru, Karnataka, they are now looking at Rajasthan for organising the 37th IATO Convention in December 2022.

All taxis in Goa must come on a single app so that tourists get a better experience, state tourism minister Rohan Khaunte. “We need to protect the business of existing taxi operators and also adopt technology. That is why I support the concept of getting all taxis in Goa on a common app. The state government and the sector must design a common app for the tourist taxi service,” he said. 

According to the latest poll of GBTA members, business travel is projected to reach pre-COVID 19 levels of US $1.4 trillion in revenue by 2024, business travel bookings are seeing an increase rebound month on month. However, travel managers cite staffing shortages and government policies and restrictions as having a significant impact on corporate travel programs. 

The Rajasthan Domestic Travel Mart (RDTM) slated to be held from 22 to 24 July will witness around 9,000 B2B structured meetings between buyers and sellers. These meetings will be held between buyers coming from pan-India and exhibitors. Almost 400 buyers (domestic tour operators) from across the country will also participate. Around 200 exhibitors will showcase the prowess and potential of their tourism products like hotels, resorts, amusement parks, etc.   

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.

Russia has introduced a universal single-entry electronic visa for 52 countries, including India that will simplify the process of obtaining a permit, allowing a foreign citizen to stay in Russia for up to 16 days in a period of up to 60 calendar days. In order to apply for an electronic visa, a tourist will only need to fill out an online application, which will be reviewed by the Foreign Ministry within four days.