Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Ark Travels, a B2B company specialising in cruise representation business, has penetrated further into the non-cruising space with the acquisition of Outbound Konnections, spearheaded by Anjum Lokhandwala, who will continue as its Director. Kishan Biyani, MD, Ark Travels, says, “I felt this was the right time to enter into the non-cruise space. Along with Ark Travels, we can have a bouquet of products besides cruises, Club Med Resorts and Europamundo Vacations to offer to their B2B network without increasing overheads.”

Kimarli Fernando, Chairperson, Sir Lanka Tourism has said that India and Middle East will be key source markets for Sir Lanka in the luxury tourism segment. “We are working on various touch points when to imrove our luxury products. Now we are focusing on identifying client to offer luxury rather than just marketing the country as a whole,” she said during TT ME digital conclave.

According to a KPMG report on the infrastructure sector, India needs an estimated USD50 billion in building airport assets over the next two decades to cater to demand, with the next five years expected to see significant investments in the airports’ sector. By 2027, the number of domestic passengers is estimated to be around 500 million, the report stated.

Luxury hospitality industry leader Hemant Mediratta recently launched a new river cruise brand, Antara Luxury River Cruises. Joining the company as Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Mediratta has laid the agenda and a clear roadmap for expansion with new cruise ships and enhanced service offerings. He earlier served as Senior Vice President at Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.

According to a survey by Bengaluru airport, the intent to fly among respondents improved from a mere 13% in phase 1 to 33% in phase 5 owing to continuous enhancements in safety and hygiene measures at the airport. The survey was conducted over five phases from April 2020 to July 2020, to understand passenger sentiments around air travel. Contactless processing has also led to increase in passenger confidence in air travel.

According to a JLL report, Bengaluru’s hotel sector performance declined 59% in RevPAR in YTD July 2020 (YoY) but is expected to bottom out in Q4 2020 as domestic travel gains momentum. Occupancy was also down 53% YTD July (YoY)

Serafino Cota, President, Small & Medium Hotels Associations, says, “Our members don’t want to keep their hotels open right now. While the government is trying to show that it opening the state to tourism, it is not extending any help to us. Even if we get one guest with great difficulty for a few days, the government marks the hotel as ‘operational’ and then they start charging you for full electricity, water bill, etc. So people prefer to close it altogether. We have decided to open only in September 2021.”  

Most travellers in India are ready to book domestic and international trips, but only if airlines, airports, hotels and car rental companies collectively implement 10 different safety measures throughout their journey, reveals a new survey by Travelport. Demand for almost every safety measure is highest in India of the five countries surveyed.

The ‘COVID-19 and Transforming Tourism’ policy brief from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warns that economic damage to the global tourism sector is likely to exceed $1 trillion in 2020 alone, with up to 120 million jobs at risk.

The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) has made written representations to the Hon. Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman, the Hon. Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur and to the Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Shaktikanta Das, I.A.S. requesting for an extension of moratorium for additional three months. The hotel industry has made no progress in terms of bookings even after several states unlocked and where hotels resumed operations. The industry has registered average occupancy levels at 10 to 20 per cent. With rental and salary bills, statutory payments and other establishment costs, hotels are finding it unviable to carry on running businesses. FHRAI has informed the Ministry that an extension of moratorium at this time could help hotels restructure existing loans since the process of restructuring is time consuming. Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President of FHRAI and President of Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI), says, “For more than four months, hotels and restaurants have remained shut and have earned no revenue throughout the lockdown. There is no improvement in forward bookings and wherever hotels and restaurants have opened, the footfalls are negligible. In addition to the monthly outgoings and the statutory levies, we now have to spend more on employing hygiene and safety measures to follow the SOPs and guidelines issued by the Central and State governments. On account of all this, the debt restructuring plan announced by the RBI for the stressed MSMEs is not going to help the sector. Therefore we have urged that the moratorium be extended by a further three months.”