Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Hotel Leela Venture said its board has approved the proposed change in name of the company to ‘HLV Ltd’ or some other suitable name, if it is not available. As part of the Brookfield transaction, the word “Leela” would not be a part of the company’s name, Hotel Leela Venture said in a filing to the BSE. The board has also approved the resignations of Rajiv Kaul as President and Rajan Shah, its Chief Financial Officer as they wanted to move to Brookfield. The Company will continue to own and operate the hotel in Mumbai, under the Leela Brand licensed to it by Brookfield. The Company also continues to own the land in Hyderabad and its share of apartments under the joint development project of residential apartments with Prestige Developers in Bangalore, adjoining The Leela Palace Hotel. Source: PTI

VISIT JAPAN Travel & MICE Mart (VJTM) 2019 kick-started in Osaka and will be held till 26 October. The business meetings in VJTM 2019 use a unique appointment-matching system to arrange business meetings in line with needs of both buyers and sellers. This year, the mart concurrently is held with “Tourism ExpoJapan,” as part of one of the world’s largest international tourism event, with an aim to promote the entire tourism industry and activate local economies. Furthermore, with the VJTM being held in Osaka for the first time, Kansai Tour Program (voluntary participation) for buyers and the media to introduce Osaka and the other Kansai areas and help expand buyer knowledge of the region, in addition to the conventional familiarization trip has been arranged.

Alitalia recently launched its B2B community platform, called ‘Alitalia Connect’, in Italy to offer personalised relationship between Alitalia and its B2B customers like travel agencies, companies and SMEs. Now, the Italian carrier is set to launch ‘Group Connect’, a web platform under Alitalia Connect in India on November 13. Group Connect is aimed to manage and speed up quotations and group bookings, revealed Nicola Bonacchi, Vice President, Leisure Travel Sales, Alitalia. Other prominent features of ‘Group Connect’ include requesting an offer, booking a group and having the quotation and the contract in real time, monitoring the contract terms and conditions, changing the reservation (increasing or decreasing the group) and entering passengers’ names in the system. The platform offers increased flexibility, allowing the agent to customise the conditions to be chosen based on customer’s characteristics and period.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation would seek Cabinet approval for privatising half a dozen more airports by the first week of December. The six airports up for privatisation are Varanasi, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Trichy, Indore and Raipur. An official source said, “The Airports Authority of India (AAI) board has approved the plan. We will seek in-principle approval of the Cabinet now. Once it is approved, the bidding process would start.”

The Indian Railways has recently announced that all trains services will be stopped to and from Dehradun with effect from November 10 and will be reopened for public on February 7, once the renovation is over. A few trains have been cancelled and others including the Dehradun-New Delhi Shatabdi Express and Nanda Devi Express will start and terminate at Haridwar Railway Station.

Piyush Goyal, Minister, Railways and Commerce, said that there is no privatisation on cards for Indian Railways. However, the government is planning to bring a lot of investments into Indian Railways via Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and using state-of-the-art technologies from across the world, revealed Goyal. This comes after the launch of IRCTC-operated Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express on October 4, and is India’s first private train. Apart from that, the Government decided to form a task force to draw a blueprint for handing over operations of 150 Indian Railways’ trains and 50 stations to private operators in a time-bound manner.

The AAI is planning to monetise 759 acres of land near eight major airports so that private companies are able to establish warehouses, hotels or restaurants, and the money generated is utilised to develop airport infrastructure, a senior official said. AAI has identified land parcels near airports of Kolkata, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur airport, Varanasi, Lucknow, Raipur and Tirupati. “The (aforementioned) land is likely to be leased to any company or organisation for a period of 25-30 years for a fixed annual rental income,” a senior official said. Source: PTI

In a bid to promote the heritage, history, and culture of Guwahati city, Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) has launched Guwahati Heritage Walk, to showcase the heritage sites of the city to the domestic and foreign tourists through the morning commute. Jayanta Malla Baruah, Chairman, Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC), launched the tour recently in the presence of tour operators and association members. Guwahati Heritage Walk starts from the North Brook Gate of Sukreswar Temple, then Cotton College, Latasil, Jurpukhuri, Ujanbazar, Shattrakar Devalay and ends at Raj Bhawan.

Piyush Goyal, Minister, Railways and Commerce, said that there is no privatisation on cards for Indian Railways. However, the government is planning to bring a lot of investments into Indian Railways via Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) and using state-of-the-art technologies from across the world, revealed Goyal. This comes after the launch of IRCTC-operated Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express on October 4, and is India’s first private train. Apart from that, the Government decided to form a task force to draw a blueprint for handing over operations of 150 Indian Railways’ trains and 50 stations to private operators in a time-bound manner.

Enhancing its connectivity in the Northeast, AirAsia India has launched flight services to Imphal, Guwahati, Kolkata and Delhi from Agartala, the capital of Tripura. Biplab Kumar Deb, Chief Minister, Tripura flagged off the first AirAsia India flight to Kolkata from the Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport. Sanjay Kumar, COO, AirAsia India informed that 14 flight per week would be operated from the Maharaj Bir Bikram Airport on the Agartala-Kolkata, Agartala-Delhi, Agartala-Guwahati and Agartala-Imphal routes. “We also have plans to extend our service for connecting Agartala with Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai. This is our 20th destination in the country,” he further said. On the occasion, he said that air connectivity is very important for the northeastern state. “When SpiceJet had withdrawn their service from the state early this year, we took up the matter with the Union Civil Aviation minister and requested him to take some initiative for more air connectivity with the state,” he said.