Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General, Ministry of Tourism, has said that the tourism industry will experience consistent growth with skilful employees. “To come out successfully from the current crisis, organisations will need to nurture their employees’ digital, cognitive, and resilience skill sets,” she said while speaking at the webinar on ‘Trends in Future Jobs, Skill Development & Training in Travel, Tourism & Hospitality’ organised by FICCI.
Read More »Motivational talk by Roshan Suhail today at 11:30am
IATO and TravTalk are organising motivational session by Roshan Suhail, the renowned communication coach and keynote speaker today at 11:30am. The session titled, ‘Staying up’ would help the trade to sail through these tough times and prepare ahead. To register, mail Jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call 9650196532.
Read More »Air Asia India not going out of business, clarifies TAAI
In a written statement, Air Asia India has clarified with TAAI that they are not going out of business. The statement by Ankur Garg, CCO, Air Asia India, pointed out, “While the current pandemic has severely impacted the aviation sector and AirAsia India is no exception, we have remained adequately capitalized throughout these months by securing the funding from our majority shareholder as and when required.” He further said that they continue to grow their network and are already at ~55% of their pre-COVID capacity and looking to increase to 70% as per the recent relaxed capacity mandate from the government last week. They have also recently added a brand new A320 NEO to their fleet in Oct, adding a 2nd NEO in Nov and will add another 3 aircraft in as many months. Giving another evidence of the financial stability of AirAsia India, Garg reveals that they have been smoothly processing all refunds in the last few months and never forced a conversion of bookings during lockdown to “credit shells”. In the months of Sep-Oct, Air Asia leadership proactively engaged in regional meetings with travel agent partners across the entire country and addressed any questions on refunds, long term growth plans, etc. On the employee front, we have not retrenched any staff and have not done salary cuts for employees earning less than Rs 50,000 per month, and also no delay in salary pay-outs has happened for any month since the pandemic, he informed. Citing these points, Garg said that he hopes that it would dispel any doubts and provide enough confidence in the financial sustainability and growth plans of AirAsia India.
Read More »IATA’s digital health pass in final stages of development
IATA is in the final development phase of the IATA Travel Pass, a digital health pass that will support the safe reopening of borders. The Pass will manage and verify the secure flow of necessary testing or vaccine information among governments, airlines, laboratories and travellers.
Read More »Tourism Ministry to focus on short-haul Asian destinations
Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General, MOT, shares that the emphasis this time of MOT’s international promotional strategy will be on short-haul flights, countries and destinations from where people can actually travel in times to come. “We will be focusing on South Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as on tapping new markets,” she says.
Read More »International hotel operators dominate signings in India
JLL’s quarterly hospitality sector monitor – Hotel Momentum India (HMI) Q3 2020 – reveals that for the said period, international operators dominated hotel signings over domestic operators with the ratio of 53:47 in terms of inventory volume. There were a total of 24 signings in Q3 2020, totalling 2,314 keys.
Read More »Spain’s virtual roadshow will help trade prepare for future
Speaking about the Virtual Spanish Travel Show organised by The Tourism Office of Spain in India that will be held online on December 2-3, 2020, Elisa Robles-Fraga, its Director, says, “The show will help the trade make new contacts and prepare them to leap ahead as soon as international travel to Spain restarts.” To register, go to www.virtualspanishtravelshow.com
Read More »Virtual store by Thomas Cook India
In an endeavour to empower customers with contactless and convenient holiday planning, Thomas Cook India has introduced India’s first Virtual Holiday Store. A dedicated team of travel experts will be available over video chat 365 days, from 8 am to 12 pm.
Read More »Minister Patel mulls int’l promotions
Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of Tourism & Culture (I/C), had a detailed discussion with MOT officials on the content for promotion of tourism in the global media. The Ministry has continuously been talking about the dire need to let the world know and generate confidence among travellers that once international travel begins, India would be a safe destination to travel to.
Read More »UK offers testing for international arrivals, including Indians
Passengers from countries not featured on the UK government’s travel corridor list arriving into England will be able to reduce the mandatory self-isolation by at least a week. This includes Indian arrivals as well. The government has launched a new strategy for testing international arrivals from 15 December 2020 whereby passengers will have the option to take a test after 5 days of self-isolation, and releasing them from the need to isolate if the test result is negative. Tests will be at the cost of the traveller.
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