Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Ebixcash Tours & Travels has become the preferred travel & forex partner of 5 IPL teams. The company will handle travel needs of players and provide end to end support including charter flights, ground transportation, foreign exchange, hotel rooms and event insurance coverage.   A fully owned subsidiary of Ebix Inc., EbixCash has announced that it is handling the travel needs for five of the eight franchises involved in an 82-day Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket sporting extravaganza in Dubai. Under the leadership of Naveen Kundu, Managing Director, EbixCash Tours & Travels, EbixCash has been able to secure this prestigious assignment. As a part of this engagement of EbixCash independently by five of the IPL Franchises, EbixCash is handling approximately 19,000 plus hotel room night bookings for four franchises, chartered flights for five franchises, ground transportation for two franchises, foreign exchange needs for the entire entourage of four of the teams and event insurance coverage for one team. Kings XI Punjab, Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals, Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings are the five franchises who have engaged EbixCash Tours and Travels for varied travel needs of each of the franchises. Sharing his views on the deal, Kundu says, “We are honoured to have been chosen as the vendor of choice by the majority of the IPL franchises. Their decision was made easier with EbixCash emerging as the only end-to-end services provider who could handle their varied needs under one window. Our depth of products and services, international expanse, travel expertise and the past record was instrumental in us being selected for this prestigious engagement.” Robin Raina, Chairman of the Board, President & CEO, Ebix, said, “In COVID-19 times, …

Mandeep S Lamba, President (South Asia), HVS ANAROCK, during a webinar, has advised hotel owners in India to not sell right now. “This is not a great time to sell. But if your cash flows are not holding out and you have no other way of managing it, then there is no option but to sell. Other than that, I would advise everybody to hold on because valuations will be a little depressed if you sell now. So the best advice I can give hotel owners is that if you have the ability to manage your cash flows for the next 12 months, then just hold on,” he advises.

The Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Sanjeev Sanyal, said during a webinar for FHRAI members, “We have, through the one-time loan restructuring option, offered to alleviate the financial burden on businesses. If for any reason this provision is not working, then the government wants to take your feedback and work on an action-plan to make it work. If this means that the banks, for some reason have displayed inhibition in co-operating with the businesses trying to avail of the government’s scheme, then we will take necessary action to rectify it.”

Subhash Goyal, Secretary General, FAITH, has revealed that the Association is in discussion with Ministry of Tourism to host a hybrid ITM by the end of this year. He said, “One interaction with the government has happened; and we are still in the progress of deciding how we are going to conduct it, whether it will be entirely virtual or hybrid. However, we will have ITM by the end of this year and we hope to announce the exact dates very soon.”

Global Panorama Showcase has tied up with Airlines Technology by TWAI, to offer NDC (New Distribution Capability) by IATA to agents in India at an affordable price. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, says, “NDC technology is the new solution and is the new normal, and it will be very useful to more than 4,000 IATA agents.” To this, Trideep Aggarwal, Co-Founder and Director, Airlines Technology by TWAI, adds, “Last couple of years, airlines have been pushing for NDC which allows them to distribute new things which they were not being able to do earlier. At the end of last year, we were in discussion with Varun Bansal, the CEO of Airlines Technology, as we were looking for enhancing our product offerings by having NDC on our platform. At the beginning of this year, we acquired Airlines Technology, and since then we have been merging everything with our platform. We are one of the largest NDC aggregators in the world. As of now, there are about 19 airlines on our platform, and we will have around 23 by the end of this year.”

The 36th IATO Annual Convention scheduled to be held in Ahmedabad in September 2020 has been postponed for a year due to COVID-19 situation and is now scheduled to be hosted in September 2021 at the same venue. New dates of the convention will be finalised in due course and will be decided mutually by IATO and Gujarat Tourism.  

CM of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath said that international flight operations from Kushinagar airport will commence in next two months. The government had given Kushinagar, an important Buddhist pilgrimage site, the status of the international airport in June 2020. Once this airport begins operating international flights, it will become fourth international facility in the state.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) becomes India’s first airport to introduce a QR-code based contactless check-in facility for passengers. It has added a touch-less feature to its self-check-in kiosks whereby passengers can use their phones to scan the QR code in order to remotely self-check-in, thus minimizing surface contact in the course of their journey

In order to build the Utah brand in India, Utah Office of Tourism has appointed IndiJo Consulting as its official representative in India. Led by Joseph Fernandes, IndiJo will carry out sales, marketing, and PR activities on behalf of the tourism board. These include webinars, B2B training, co-op promotions, social media initiatives, support product development, trade and media relations.  

The Confederation of Kerala Tourism Industry (CKTI) led by EM Najeeb has called on the government to take immediate steps to reopen the tourism sector in Kerala without further delays. Najeeb added that if the crisis continues, the vast majority of enterprises in the region will face serious repercussions in the near future. The tourism sector, which has been in crisis since travel restrictions were imposed globally in last February, has been completely shut down with the lockdown imposed in India by March 24. More than 15 lakh people directly and 20 lakh people indirectly working in the tourism sector of the state and being the highest-earning industrial service sector in the state. Tourism is the highest income-earning sector with more than 45000 Crores and contributing around 12% to the state GDP in 2019. Excluding expatriate investment, it is one of the most lucrative foreign exchange earning sectors in the country and more than 20000 local investors and entrepreneurs are working in this sector with the support of bank loans and other financial institutions support. Central and State Governments should be prepared to take wartime measures to rescue the sector from the more damaging situation and intervene to restart the regular business with adequate safety and health control measure for the return of the tourism sector and lives of lakhs of people is, directly and indirectly, working travel, tourism and hospitality sector. At a time when the tourism industry is on the verge of literally collapsing as one of the state’s highest income earning industrial sectors and excluding NRI investment, the country is literally on the verge of collapse. CKTI President EM Najeeb requested. Based on unlock 4 declared by …