Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

HVS ANAROCK’S report titled ‘India Hotels Outlook’ that studies the impact of COVID-19 on the Indian hotel sector estimates that assuming recovery from COVID-19 begins in H2 2020, occupancy would then recover only by year 2022, touching 66%, while rates would recover by year 2023.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) recently organised a one-week online contest to stay connected with Indian social media influencers encouraging them to create a nice video or photo story from their stock of materials of a fond #ThrowbackThailand memory.  Initiated by TAT New Delhi and Mumbai Offices, the contest represented a token of gratitude that TAT wanted to convey to Indian social media influencers. In a normal situation, they would usually travel to various parts of Thailand and share their experiences during the year. But this year, making trips to Thailand has not been possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vachirachai Sirisumpan, Director, TAT New Delhi Office, said the activity was conceptualised with the Millennials in mind, considering that they would be the early travellers once the situation returned to normal. “We would like to thank all participants for joining this online event and keeping the spirit of travel and tourism moving during this challenging period,” he said. Taking place during the last week of May 2020, the online contest attracted over 100 high-quality unique entries, including many top award-winning ones. The contest was a huge success in terms of reaching out to the public through India’s social media influencer community, achieving more than 2.4 million impressions across the country. After a very careful selection process considering both quality and engagement, the winners were picked by the appointed committee. Out of the hundreds of participants, five were selected as Grand Winners and each received a GoPro Hero 8 Sports and Action Camera while 10 were chosen runner-up winners who also received gifts. Cholada Siddhivarn, Director of the TAT Mumbai Office, extended her warmest congratulations and appreciation to all social …

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation, has said that international operations will begin in air bubbles now, which will be active with a few countries including France, US and the UAE. He further revealed that air bubbles will operate for a while and only then will regular international operations begin. “Negotiations are at an advanced stage with at least three countries. We formally signed for Air France operating 28 flights from Paris to New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru between 18th July and 1st August. Apart from that we have an agreement with United Airlines to operate 18 flights between 17th and 31st July. We have requests from Germany also, and the negotiations with Lufthansa are almost done. Some details have to be worked out,” he said.

The re-opening of Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport has been suspended indefinitely. The airport was scheduled to re-open in August, but due to the rising COVID-19 cases in the country, operations and repatriation flights have been halted for the time being.

South Asia remains the least affected region within APAC, reveals Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys. He says that while the North East Asia region has taken the brunt of the crisis with bookings down by 83%, the impact on South Asia has been significantly less and the specific results in South Asia reveal that bookings are down by 60.2%.

Singapore and Bengaluru-based air retailing and payments platform Mystifly has raised US $3.3 M in Pre-Series B financing round from Recruit. This investment will help Mystifly to continue strengthening its product and technology, data science and Machine Learning capabilities, as well as address airline payments inefficiency while weathering the COVID-19 storm.

An HVS ANAROCK report on the impact of COVID-19 on the Indian hotel sector pegs the total revenue loss for the sector in 2020 at Rs89,813 crore, with the maximum to be borne by the unorganised segment.

Travelport has launched the Travelport COVID-19 Smartpoint Plugin. The plugin provides travel agencies with the latest information on government restrictions, lockdowns and safety measures across the globe all within the agent workflow. It is available free-of-charge to all Travelport customers globally, using Travelport Smartpoint 8.2 or above, and can be downloaded directly from Travelport Marketplace. The new tool provides detailed information on a range of topics, including: lockdown rules, entry requirements and quarantine measures for travelers. Country-level information can be displayed at the click of a button, allowing agents to advise their customers easily and instantly. Kyle Moore, Global Head of Customer Strategy and Marketing, Travelport, said, “The travel ecosystem today is probably the most complex it has ever been, with government, airline, and hotel policies in every country constantly-changing. We’re making sure our agent partners no longer need to constantly leave their workflow to search for accurate and up-to-date information— greatly improving their efficiency in servicing their traveller customers.” Sandeep Dwivedi, Chief Operating Officer at InterGlobe Technology Quotient, said: With the looming uncertainty across the globe, having a substantial amount of certainty through readily accessible up-to-date information including on government and airline policies shall unequivocally prove beneficial for our network of agents and serve as a ready aid for gaining momentum in operations and transactions. This free built-in plugin in the GDS is a welcome move from Travelport, one that will result in both informed traveller and travel enabler.” The information in the Travelport COVID-19 Smartpoint Plugin is provided by global travel safety intelligence provider, Safeture, and is updated daily. “Our collaboration with Travelport will provide millions of travellers with the information they need to make informed decisions. With …

International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that airlines in the Asia-Pacific region will be the hardest hit by the COVID-19 crisis, with losses expected to be $29 billion for 2020. This is more than a third of the $84.3 billion industry losses globally.

As part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Initiatives by GPS, agents can now own a booking engine portal, which has been developed by GPS in partnership with Influence Technolabs. Apart from they have also launched GST ready accounting solutions for travel and retail industry in association with Infozeal E-solutions. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) has said these two solutions are subscription based. The subscription charges are waived off till 31st March 2021. There is a nominal one-time integration charges applicable based on membership level of GPS.