Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

As Abu Dhabi starts welcoming fully vaccinated travellers from India, rediscover M!CE in Abu Dhabi during an exclusive webinar on Tuesday, 7th September 2021, at 3pm IST. The webinar will highlight the Abu Dhabi Advantage programme that supports M!CE groups with nearly US$100 in benefits per person. For more information contact jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or 9650196532.  

Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (“YIAPL”) has been granted the right to develop, operate and maintain the Noida International Airport (“NIA”) on DBFOT basis. YIAPL intends to select a Licensee to award the right to “Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer the City Side Hotel” at NIA (the “Project”) pursuant to and in accordance with open bidding process. YIAPL wishes to receive Applications in response to this RFQ to short-list experienced and capable Bidders for the RFP Stage. In line with the same, YIAPL has Published RFQ(Request for Qualification)for above captioned project on NIA e-tendering Platform. Interested parties can download the RFQ upon successfully registering at YIAPL’s e-portal, accessible at: https://niairport.abcprocure.com For further clarification, interested parties can communicate at tenders@niairport.in.

The Republic of Turkey has declared that fully vaccinated travellers from India will no longer be subjected to mandatory 14-day quarantine rule, with effect from 4th of September 2021. The announcement will ease the travel restrictions for fully vaccinated passengers of 12 years of age and older travelling from India or stayed in India in last 14 days. The vaccines that have been approved by WHO or Turkish Government are covered under this exemption. In addition to WHO approved vaccines, the vaccines approved by Turkish Government are Pzifer Biontech, Sputnik V and Sinovac. For the same, a traveller must be taken the second dose (if Johnson&Johnson one dose is sufficient) at least 14 days prior to the date of travel. For Indian travellers who are vaccinated with Covishield will also be allowed to travel to Turkey. Once, Covaxin get a nod from WHO, travellers vaccinated with the same will also be able to visit Turkey. The fully vaccinated travellers are also required to submit their negative PCR test report taken 72 hours before departure in order to exempt the quarantine. Non-vaccinated travellers are required to undergo mandatory quarantine for 10 days in a hotel or a location mentioned in the declaration. The Republic of Turkey usually announces changes to the travel list, after assessing its criteria like corona virus cases, vaccination roll-outs and possible threats from variants to determine restrictions on different countries. By the 4th of September the Turkish government has successfully vaccinated 79% of its population above 18 of age with first dose and 62 % population above 18 of age with both the doses. Despite the fluctuating global scenario of COVID-19 strain, Turkey has kept a strong …

Global hotel employee travel program, hotelemployeerate.com, has appointed IndiJo Consulting as its representative in India. IndiJo activities will include market outreach through sales, marketing, and PR initiatives on behalf of hotelemployeerate.com. The programme which offers exclusive hotel employee rates for hoteliers, their friends, and families. With an ever-expanding collection of hotel companies, branded properties and independent hotels around the world joining the Hotel Employee Rate Travel Program, hotels in India signing up can now offer their teams the unique benefit of employee travel rate. Hoteliers in the programme can add up to 10 friends and family. Additionally, hotels benefit with commission-free incremental bookings over low demand periods from its global base of leisure travellers booking through the hotelemployeerate.com travel programme. Joseph Fernandes, CEO, IndiJo Consulting, said, “We are excited to represent Hotel Employee Rate which we believe has the potential to do exceedingly well in India, by offering hotels dual benefit of providing their employee with an additional perk, and at the same time opening up a new platform of attracting leisure guest.” Lara Sidhu, Director Business Development -APAC, Hotel Employee Rate said, “While India is a new market for us, we see immense potential and we’re eager to showcase India’s beautiful hotels and locations on our global platform. As we see travel resume, hotelemployeerate.com will help mitigate the current issues in hotel employee satisfaction and retention rates.”

Switzerland’s natural landscape and scenery makes it an ideal destination for a self-drive experience. The Grand Tour of Switzerland is the ultimate scenic driving route which enables travellers to travel across Switzerland and their own pace. This 1,600-kilometer journey of discovery leads through four language regions, five mountain passes, eleven UNESCO World Heritage Sites, two biospheres and along 22 lakes. Travellers get the opportunity to discover the popular attractions, and some hidden gems too! Today at 3 pm IST, Switzerland Tourism will conduct an exclusive webinar for the travel trade highlighting the self-drive experience in Switzerland. To register, contact jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or 9650196532.

World’s highest motorable road for the general public at a height of 18,600 feet, which connects Leh to the Pangong Lake was inaugurated in Ladakh by Jamgyal Tsering Namgyal, MP of the UT. The stretch passing through Kela Pass, has been constructed by the 58 Engineer Regiment of the Indian Army, and it will reduce 41 km of travel from Leh (Zingral to Tangtse) to the picturesque Pangong Lake crossing the Kela Pass. Until now, the Khardungla Pass was the world’s highest motorable road for the general public at a height of 18,380 ft.

The first passenger flight has taken off from Tezu, Arunachal Pradesh to Guwahati, Assam under the UDAN initiative to improve the air connectivity in the Northeastern Region, it was revealed in a tweet by the DoNER Ministry. Tezu is believed to be a stunning location to explore and it is believed that the flight service will make a comfortable trip for travellers and pilgrims in North East Region.

ATOAI Women’s Collective is organising the first ever gender sensitization workshop for the entire adventure travel industry. The virtual workshop will be held on Friday, 10th September, 2021 from 4:30 to 6:00 PM and will be conducted by an organisation called ‘Devee’, led by Priyadarshini Narendra, an IIM and INSEAD Alumni, and Doorva Bahuguna, an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad. Arshdeep Anand, Chairperson, ATOAI Women’s Collective, said, “We want to start with the basics, which is to have the sense of gender sensitivity amongst everyone connected with the trade and otherwise also, because men and women work together in evry field now, and hence we need to know what is the appropriate behaviour towards each other. It is meant for both men and women as we both need to understand how we need to work together and go forward in life.”

In line with the updated international entry guidelines recently announced by the Abu Dhabi Emergency, Crisis and Disasters Committee, the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) has announced that Abu Dhabi is set to welcome all fully vaccinated tourists and residents travelling from all countries around the world, as well as unvaccinated visitors from ‘Green List’ countries, with no quarantine measures. Vaccines must be approved by the World Health organisation (WHO). This will take effect starting 5 September 2021. HE Saood Al Hosani, Undersecretary of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi said: “Abu Dhabi has implemented world-class COVID-19 safety procedures and an accelerated vaccination programme, which has seen a 90 percent vaccination rate in the UAE capital. These precautionary measures have enabled us to protect our citizens, residents and visitors. We look forward to welcoming back international travellers from around the world, to experience the wide and unique offerings our beautiful emirate has to offer.” Registering International vaccinations or exemption documents In order to support seamless entry for international travellers and enable visitors to safely enjoy the the UAE capital’s diverse experiences through the Abu Dhabi Green Pass, DCT Abu Dhabi has outlined a simple process to enable tourists to register their international vaccination certificate or vaccination exemption document for verification 5 days before their travel date, via the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship (ICA) Smart app or via ica.gov.ae website. Applicants will receive an SMS confirmation that will include a link to the Alhosn app, which must be downloaded prior to travel. The Alhosn app displays users’ vaccination status and PCR test results, which are required to activate the Abu …

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has started operating a special tourist train named ‘Bharat Darshan – Splendors of India’ on a 11 nights/12 days itinerary from August 29- September 10. The train starting from Madurai will have several boarding points and will cost passengers INR 11,340 per ticket. Tourists have been advised to keep vaccination certificates or negative RT-PCR test reports of not more than 48 hours handy before boarding the train.