Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Korea Tourism Organization will conduct a webinar today at 3pm for the Indian travel trade that will focus on Korea as a perfect destination for luxury experiences. The tourism board invites members of the trade to sign up for this by contacting Jaspreet Kaur on 9650196532 or jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com.

Recent statistics from ForwardKeys have claimed that Delhi-Mumbai and Mumbai-Delhi have been the top 2 most searched domestic routes in India in July 2020. However, In July 2019, Delhi-Goa and Goa-Delhi were the top 2 most searched routes.

Swadesh Kumar, President, ATOAI, revealed that in their recommendation to the minister, they have said that the COVID-19 guidelines which have been formulated by ATOAI for the adventure tourism activities should be accepted by the MOT, so that it can be circulated to the entire country and the state governments.

Pradip Lulla, Vice- President, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), has said that they have postponed their elections, which were due this year. “We had an MC meeting recently, where we took a decision on our elections. Because of the pandemic, we have decided to postpone our elections. We will continue having our AGMs though.”

The #TogetherThailand digital campaign by TAT India has entered into the second week where ‘Food experiences in Thailand’ will be the key theme. The contest for Pan India travel agents and OTAs will focus on local food, street food, cooking class, food tours (tuk-tuk and bus tour), and Indian food in Thailand.

Subhash Goyal, Hony. General Secretary, FAITH has suggested that India Tourism Mart (ITM) will be held by the end of November 2020. “This will help in promoting India to the tour operators all over the world.  Last two years, we had 250 buyers, this year in the virtual mart we hope to interact with more than 500 leading travel agents and tour operators from all over the world,” he said. Goyal also thanked the  Tourism Minister for agreeing to organise a joint meeting of the Indian travel agents and tour operators with the Minister of Civil Aviation, Hardeep Singh Puri to sort out the pending issues of the tourism industry with Civil Aviation. FAITH also suggested for better coordination an Inter-Ministerial Task Force be formed chaired by the Tourism Minister consisting of mainly with Tourism, Civil Aviation, Commerce, Home, External Affairs & Railways along with the members of the tourism industry. An Inter-State Task Force should also be formed which should include all State Tourism Secretaries.  

Mehernosh Colombowalla, Director – Beyond Borders Travel Management Company says that he has sailed through the past few months by inspiring his clients to keep their travel dreams alive during this long hiatus. While he spoke at the 5th TravTalk Digital Conclave, he said, “As professionals in the tourism space we understand that regaining consumer confidence in travel is key to regenerating the industry. Clients do not have direct access to airlines & hospitality & thus shortly after lockdown, we invested our time in connecting with our clients, updated them with all the positive developments & factual information given to us by aviation, hospitality & tourism sectors. In the bargain, gained trust & became their validation point for various travel-related information. We spoke to them about new & less frequented destinations and sent them short videos on interesting & unique experiences around the globe – to keep their travel interest alive. Sent them information on the various safety procedures & new norms in travel. All this helped in generating business opportunities for us.” Talking about the future, he says, travel agents will need to become more ambitious in how they design experiences. As a new paradigm of luxury travel that is life-enriching & value-based is emerging.

Hotel management company VATS Hospitality and Care is planning to launch new hotels in Agra, Mathura, Patna, Bettiah, Motihari and Ranchi. Sharing information, company’s co-founder & CEO Siddarth Sharma said that they have tied up with three hotels in Vrindavan, Kota and Raxaul Bihar in just a short span of time.

JLL’s Hotel Momentum India (HMI) Q2 2020, has revealed that Goa saw the sharpest decline in RevPAR in Q2 2020, with a 93.9 percent drop compared to the same period in the previous year.

Jyoti Mayal, President, TAAI, has said that they had met Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of Tourism & Culture, along with the other association heads, where they have requested him to initiate a meeting with Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation, so that they can discuss their issues with him, especially regarding restructuring tourism business, refunds, money stuck with airlines, and also about Air India and the service fee that the agents charge for booking VBM flights.