Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of State (I/C), Tourism & Culture, has said that his ministry has encouraged state governments and Union Territory administrations to consider providing relief measures to the sector. These measures include waiver of penalty or interest to be levied on payment of dues owed to the state bodies, relief from excise fees, electricity duty, and reduction of property tax.

While RevPAR has been low throughout the country, Chennai and Mumbai have been the top performers ( with -83% and -83.3% RevPAR YoY) in May 2020, according to HVS ANAROCK monthly newsletter, H2O.

Jyoti Mayal, President, TAAI, has met with Pradeep Singh Kharola, Secretary, Civil Aviation, in which they discussed industry issues and repatriation flights were in focus. Sharing the highlights of the meeting, Mayal said, “After our continuous communications MOCA has assured us that they have started requesting all international airlines to allow agents to book on the repatriation flights. We discussed many more crucial issues relating to the survival & revival of the aviation industry for the agents, not only for now but for the future too.”

Airlines in the Lufthansa Group are switching from short-term to longer-term flight planning and are now completing their flight schedules by the end of October. The new summer timetable is valid until 24 October, which means that the airlines will offer in the upcoming month over 40 percent of their originally planned flight program. A total of over 380 aircraft by the Lufthansa Group carriers will be used for this purpose until October. This means that half of the Lufthansa Group’s fleet is in the air again, 200 aircraft more than in June. “Little by little, the borders open again. Demand is increasing, in the short term but also in the long term. We are therefore consistently expanding our flight schedule and our global network and pushing ahead with our restart. I am pleased that we can now offer our guests even more connections to all parts of the world with all Lufthansa Group Airlines via all hubs,” said Harry Hohmeister, Member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. By the end of October, over 90 percent of all originally planned short- and medium-haul destinations and over 70 percent of the Group’s long-haul destinations will be served again.

A new notification issued by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has declared an amendment to National Permit regime under the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989 for promoting tourism across the country. Under the new scheme, any tourist vehicle operator may apply for an “All India Tourist Authorisation/Permit” through online mode. All such authorisations/permits shall be issued, after all the relevant documents submitted as mentioned in the rules and due nationwide fees deposited towards such authorisation/permit, within 30 days of submission of such applications, subject to all compliances being met by such an applicant as a one-stop solution. The statement reads, “The Ministry is in the pursuit of providing seamless movement to the tourist passenger vehicles after the success of goods carriage vehicle under National Permit Regime.” The new set of rules is known as, ‘All India Tourist Vehicles Authorisation and Permit Rules, 2020’ published vide GSR 425( E) dated 01 July 2020 for public and stakeholders consultation, which shall go a long way in promoting tourism across the states in our country on one side, while enhancing the revenue of State Governments. The same was discussed in the 39th Transport Development Council Meeting and was appreciated and concurred by the state participants. Source: Hindustan Times

Meenakshi Sharma, Director General, Tourism, has said that in a bid to create assurance to the foreign travellers to visit India in future, while they are working with various ministries, MOT is also looking at bringing some kind of insurance to be a part of this exercise. For this, she says the MOT is mulling over it internally and would like to take suggestions from the travel trade for the same. She was speaking at the 9th Update and Outlook Meeting by PATA India Chapter, themed, ‘Resurrecting Inbound Tourism post COVID 19’.

The temple town of Ayodhya has been gearing up for religious and spiritual tourism. It is conducting tourism courses for guides in association with RML Avadh University, Faizabad. These courses will be conducted and managed by the university. The training went on for three days in the last week of June 2020. In the first batch, 150 candidates have been selected for further grooming as guides for religious and spiritual tourism in Ayodhya. These are in line with the anticipated boom in tourism in this sector as more and more tourists are expected from around the world for darshan of Sri Ram Leela. This move is all the more important as the Ram temple is coming up in full swing.

Palladium Hotel Group has begun its summer season with the opening of seven properties: Grand Palladium Palace Ibiza Resort & Spa and Grand Palladium White Island Resort & Spa (July 3), Hard Rock Hotel Ibiza (July 10), Hard Rock Hotel Tenerife (July 30), Bless Hotel Ibiza (July 10), Agroturismo Sa Talaia (July 8) and Palladium Hotel Costa del Sol (July 16).

Etihad Airways and TravTalk are all geared up to host an ‘Agent Connect’ webinar, a live journey of flying through COVID, on Thursday, 9th July, 11 am onwards. Agents will get the chance to learn about Etihad Airways and UAE’s capital city – Abu Dhabi. To register, please email to jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call +91 9650196532.

Jyoti Mayal, President, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) and Vice Chairperson, FAITH, met Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, on July 2 and discussed the concerns and challenges faced by the members. Some of the major issues discussed in the meeting were airline refunds; challenges faced to retain employees, their salaries and avoid unemployment in the sector; moratoriums and reliefs to trade due to COVID-19 lockdown and loss of business; allowing accredited travel agents to book Vande Bharat flights for Air India and also informing foreign carriers undertaking such flights to permit the same; revival challenges and long-term facilitation for the trade with airlines; protection of the agents from airline defaults and suspension of services; direction from government to airlines on remuneration for promoting the airlines; direction seeking travel agent corporate credit cards to be used for airline ticketing; reduction of credit card merchant fee by banks to below 0.75% so as to promote Digital India for aviation, travel, tourism and hospitality sectors as a whole. Seeking support from the government, Mayal requested Kant to ensure the same and assist in guiding the trade, enable creation of demand for growth, and opportunities for all travel and tourism-related activities.