Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

When the Badaling section of the Great Wall reopened on March 24, a visitor was caught on camera defacing it with a key. The Great Wall Office will now impose penalties on vandalism towards cultural relics and misbehaving tourists will be added to a blacklist that will be announced to the public regularly.

According to an HVS report, the overall revenue of the Indian hotel sector is set to decline by anywhere between $8.85 billion and $10 billion this year, reflecting an erosion of 39-45 per cent compared to the previous year. The report also shows that besides actual business loss, hotel owners will also incur losses due to fixed operating expenses, debt repayments, interest payments and several other compliances required to be undertaken. It is important to note that the magnitude of the impact can change drastically if the outbreak is not contained immediately. In such an event, these scenarios will turn invalid.  

According to Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, FHRAI, the industry has witnessed a decline in revenues to the extent of 60-70 per cent as compared to the previous year’s figures. He says, “In stocks alone, the industry stocks have taken a beating of over 51 per cent. While retaining jobs of workers seems like a noble thing to do, job losses are inevitable. Almost 50 to 60 per cent of the total jobs are in danger if the sector is not revived.”

A joint survey carried out by Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), China Comfort Travel Group and Ivy Alliance Tourism Consulting aimed at understanding Chinese tourists’ intent and needs to travel after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic reveals that if the situation is effectively controlled in April, travel demand in the summer of July and August could be relatively strong. While 41% of tourists surveyed said they would travel after the pandemic but the exact time was still uncertain, 32% indicated that they have plans to travel during the summer in July and August. In terms of destination selection, 56% of tourists surveyed chose to travel to other cities or scenic places in the country, and 45% indicated that they will travel abroad.

According to the latest update by CAPA on the state of the Indian aviation industry, Indian carriers will require a domestic fleet of around 300-325 aircraft from Oct-2020 onwards, and an international fleet of 100-125 aircraft. The total fleet size of 400-450 aircraft would still mean that the current fleet of 650 represents a surplus of 200-250 aircraft for a period of 6-12 months. While a gradual path towards normality could be expected during Q3 and Q4, the Indian aviation sector is likely to shrink significantly, even if some of the vulnerable airlines manage to survive. This estimate may still be conservative and assumes that Q1 FY2021 will be almost written-off, with traffic limping back during the weak second quarter, followed by a gradual trajectory towards normality during the second half of the financial year.

FAITH had an urgent meeting with Ministry of Commerce to discuss measures on tourism exports. These include rating the SEIS @10% and crediting it immediately on the basis of previous financial year, deemed export status , SEIS on gross forex earnings, zero rating of tourism exports and GST refunds to tourists, strategic focus on MICE sector, EPCG on tourist vehicles and relaxing export obligations among others. Most of the tourism enterprises support  their infrastructure (hard & soft) by managing different tourist seasons. As all global source markets are hit, it will be domestic business of India  which will keep India tourism businesses  running. Thus, FAITH also has requested the Ministry of Commerce to request Piyush Goyal, who is both, the Commerce and the Industries Minister to take up the request for the survival support for the whole tourism travel & hospitality industry with the PM. These include deferment of all statutory liabilities, setting up a COVID 19 Tourism relief fund for interest free 10 year working capital loan for salaries & establishment costs , increase of banking moratorium period to 12 months without any interest for or for direct benefit transfer to affected employees and a national legislative tourism  task force of central and state governments.   Faith has also requested ESI funds to be used for compensating employees as ‘stay at home’ is a forced and mandatory curative medical need to fight the virus. They have also requested PF coverage of all tourism travel & hospitality employees as under the PM Rozgar Pradhan Yojana.  Faith has also shared examples from the US & UK, Thailand and Indonesia where salary support, taxes exemption and stimulation of domestic travel is being …

UK’s Tourism Minister Nigel Huddleston has launched a new emergency fund to support local tourism organisations throughout the coronavirus outbreak. He said, “At the moment it is of utmost importance that everyone plays their part and stays at home. However, we also need to act now to help the tourism sector be as strong as possible when we get through this pandemic. Destination Management Organisations will play a vital role in this recovery and this fund will support their essential work.” Source: gov.uk

Talking about the after-effects of COVID-19 on the Indian tourism and aviation industry in the recovery phase during TravTalk Digital Conclave, Kapil Kaul, CEO & Director, CAPA South Asia said that there is a need to rationalise the number of travel agents in the country. “There will be consolidation across the travel and aviation sector. The change must start by rationalising the number of travel agents in the country. Somewhere, the associations need to relook at their membership. There should be stricter norms to be a travel agent otherwise there will be fewer entry barriers in the industry, we’ll keep having more and more travel agents. Travel trade associations must relook at whether they need so many travel agents? You can’t have thousands and thousands of travel agents. The more and quicker you rationalise, it is better for the health of the industry. There is a possibility that there would be no airline commission or GDS commission may drop(If NDC comes into effect in June) for travel agents in the recovery phase post-COVID-19 crisis. Then you may need to take that call earlier than post to avoid taking drastic measures suddenly. I urge TAAI, TAFI to look at their membership and restrict the qualification to be a travel agent.

The travel trade community has received a reprieve as a result of urgent meetings initiated by travel trade associations on behalf of their members with Pradeep Kharola, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, in terms of refunds on air tickets. The respite however due to this intervention is only from two international airlines – Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa Airlines. Both airlines have updated their offer and will now give full refunds as well, in case the customer wants, but there could be a delay due to backlog. Singapore Airlines however has further offered bonus to people who wish to claim their refunds as credits rather than take cash refunds (over and above the value of ticket).

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has cancelled all three Tejas trains till 30th April owing to a rapid increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country. The decision is also taken keeping in mind that a lot of train staff is outsourced, looking at the uncertainty on how and when the lockdown will be lifted. However, no decision is taken yet on the operation of other passenger trains run by Indian Railways.  IRCTC runs three premium, private passenger trains across three routes– Lucknow-New Delhi-Lucknow, Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Kashi Mahakal express connecting Varanasi and Indore. Full ticket fare will be refunded automatically, without any cancellation charges, to all the users/passengers having booked tickets for journey during the above period.