Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Tourism Minister of Maharashtra, Aaditya Thackeray has said that Maharashtra government will be the first state to announce something promising for the tourism sector and deliver on it while also creating a task force with equal contribution from the travel and hospitality industry along with government and industry-specific experts for the economic revival of the state and the industries. Speaking during a webinar conducted under the FHRAI, the minister also asked the travel and tourism industry experts to prepare documents to consider short, medium and long term measures to revive the tourism and hospitality sector in the state. “We have to take the state of Maharashtra ahead, pitch it to the world. I am really keen to make Maharashtra the first to declare and deliver something for the hotel industry. We have to revive very quickly, take the sector ahead and figure out how we can work with the other sectors. A task force has been set up, we can work in sync, understand what is doable in the medium-term and long-term,” said Thackeray. The webinar was attended by Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, FHRAI; Dilip Datwani, Former President, HRAWI and CMD of Hotel Jayshree; Jimmy Mistry, CMD & Principal Designer, Della Group; Sanjay Sethi, MD, Chalet Hotels; Param Kannampilly, Chairman of Fern Hotels; SP Jain, MD of Pride Hotels; and Vivek Nair, CEO, Leela Group. Some of the problems faced by the members of the hotel and restaurant industry were presented to the Minister including the need for liquidity and working capital.

Switzerland Tourism invites the trade to participate in its webinar titled ‘Unlimited Swissness in Interlaken’ to be hosted on Friday, May 22, 2020, at 3:00 pm. Interlaken is situated between the Lakes Thun and Brienz and is centrally located in Switzerland. Surrounded by the mountains Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau, it not only provides numerous excursion opportunities but is also a hub for adventure activities in Switzerland. This webinar will provide the trade with the latest information and updates about Interlaken. Travel partners who attend all their webinars stand a chance of winning a trip to Switzerland. For more information, please contact Jaspreet Kaur on 9650196532 or jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com.

Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA) is working closely with hospitality partners and Government Authorities to safely welcome guests back to the Emirate as restrictions are gradually eased, and hotel pools and beaches become accessible to visitors.  To ensure the wellbeing and safety of visitors and employees, the Authority is in ongoing dialogue with hotel partners to ensure they are strictly adhering to government and public health guidelines and complying with all social distancing advisories from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the UAE Federal Authorities. In Ras Al Khaimah, current hospitality standards and procedures include testing of all hotel staff for COVID-19, provision of masks and gloves for all guests, allocation of separate entrances and exits for guests and staff and mandatory thermal screening at all entrances on arrival.  RAKTDA inspectors will also be undertaking daily spot checks to ensure the measures are being adhered to and will provide support from Government Authorities to help hoteliers enforce the protocols designed for guest wellbeing. To ensure guests have confidence in their stay, RAKTDA is working closely with the Public Service Department (PSD) to oversee a dedicated certification process – the RAK ‘Stay Safe’ Hotel Certification – whereby hotels are required to fulfil a detailed set of measures to attain the certification.  The certification assesses all the measures in place across all areas of the hotels including reception and concierge areas, guest rooms, restrooms, restaurants and lounges, pools, beaches, spas fitness areas, kid clubs and retail spaces.  Guidelines are also being provided around guest transportation, meeting and function spaces, housekeeping, laundry and waste management. The ample space within hotel properties in Ras …

Speaking at the third edition of the TravTalk Digital Conclave held on May 15, 2020, Rajeev Jain, Director, Rashi Entertainment said that weddings will start happening in India by December 2020. He said, “The last wedding we did was on February 29, 2020 in Udaipur. But this situation is not that big a problem for those who have cash reserves. These months are anyways an off-season for weddings. Business would definitely come back by December 2020 with a bang and it will be back in India. The expense is not a hurdle as people have money to spend on weddings. The wedding industry is here to stay!”

In its June flight schedule, Lufthansa Group has announced services to 106 destinations across the world. In India, Mumbai will be the first destination served by the German carrier and will connect Frankfurt with the business capital of India. George Ettiyil, Senior Director Sales, South Asia, Lufthansa Group, says, “I am quite proud of our decision to have Mumbai as one of the first destinations for increasing our long-haul services. It reflects the robust demand for flights to and from India, even in these unprecedented times. While we fully understand and respect the Indian Government’s final call as to when this can take place, resuming flights to Mumbai, underlines our confidence in how the Indian Government is handling the pandemic crisis. With Germany and Switzerland also leading the way by flattening the “curve” in Europe, reopening this route will increase economic cooperation between our countries again.”

The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH) has decided that making a fund to help the ailing tourism industry would be part of their future course of action, after the tourism industry was snubbed by the Government and no stimulus package was announced by the Finance Minister for the same. Subhash Goyal, Secretary General, FAITH, said “We have a board meeting today at 9’o clock, and our next course of action will be decided there. We are making a final appeal to the Tourism Minister and the Prime Minister, and then we’ll see what action we shall take. Ultimately, we’ll have to create our own fund, on which we are working, and we will decide what name we’d give it today.”

“Corporates will not buy travel the same way as before, that’s for sure. The entire travel industry is going to move to IT. They will also have to learn how to close deals on the phone,” said Rajdev Bhattacharya, GM, Global Travel & Hospitality Services and Way2go, Digital Operations & Platforms for Wipro, when speaking at TravTalk’s third Digital Conclave on May 15. The session, where Bhattacharya spoke at length about how travel companies also needed to relook at the mix of people they were to hire based on skill sets, aimed to highlight the timelines when the Indian travel industry could start looking at weddings as well as corporate and M!CE travel in the road to tourism’s recovery.

Speaking at the third TravTalk Digital Conclave, Dilip Puri, Founder & CEO, Indian School of Hospitality (ISH), said that technology would be used in hotels to monitor guests’ health. “Many hotels have started working with technology or proximity software. With our loyalty programme, we wanted to recognise our platinum guests in and around the lobby, allowing us to go ahead and personalise their stay more. In terms of policing in hotels, they need to understand the health condition of a customer and see if social distancing is being maintained. Technology would begin to take this over as well. Not only will the guests be thermally scanned and checked while entering a hotel, but there would be technology that would also allow hotels to recognise a guest’s health condition, like what the Aarogya Setu App is doing. How technology is going to play out in this new normal is going to be a very significant factor in how hotels operate in the future, whether they are new hotels, existing hotels or hotels under renovation,” he said.

In the foremost session of 3rd TravTalk Digital Conclave, titled ‘The Reality of No Tourism’, Debjit Dutta, Director & CEO, Impression Tourism Services (India), highlighted the advantage enjoyed by East India when it came to tourism’s recovery. He said, “For eastern India, the biggest opportunity will be cross-border tourism with East Asian countries. Lockdown has come as a form of opportunity for the industry to learn and adapt to a better world.” He added that while indirect support from the government will be needed, stand-alone properties will be more popular and in demand once everything normalises, as people would like to travel to less-crowded places that serve their specialised needs.

The DDP Group, to support travel and hospitality companies affected by the COVID-19 crisis, has created a media fund of Rs1 crore under its ‘Standing with the Trade’ initiative. The move will help support businesses by providing targeted advertising campaigns, free of cost. Advertisements will be provided on a first-come, first-serve basis. Interested businesses can contact the DDP team through gaganpreet@ddppl.com. This initiative is supported by all of DDP Group’s premier publications, including TravTalk, Tourism Breaking News, TravelTV.News, M!CETalk and Hospitality Talk. Together, these publications reach 600,000 travel and hospitality professionals daily. “The timeliness and effectiveness of our actions as a united industry are more important than ever before and we are hoping that our initiative can assist stressed businesses till the market begins to strengthen again. Although it is difficult to predict how long this might continue, history has enough examples to show that after a time of economic difficulty, industry and countries have always bounced back,” says SanJeet, Director, DDP Group.