Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Considering the option of Joint Bank Guarantee for hotels and discussing its viability, Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India, says, “We are open to consider Joint Bank Guarantee option but it would require a prior and complete scrutiny and understanding of the JBG terms and conditions. For instance, the JBG  should be given by either the TA or a renowned association on behalf of the agent so that there is a guarantee for payments for the hotels and the TA can enjoy extended credit.” 

Starting October 1, 2019, IndiGo and GoAir will operate all domestic flights from T1 and international from T2, while SpiceJet will shift its full operation to T2. The structural streamline of airlines initiated for the greater benefit and convenience of the passengers. While Terminal 2 of the airport operates both domestic as well as international flight, the airport currently operates 50 international and 9 domestic airlines. The primary runway at CSMIA handles more than 46 arrivals and departures per hour while the secondary runway has a capacity of 35 flight movements per hour. Airline Domestic flights International flights IndiGo T1 T2 GoAir T1 T2 SpiceJet T2 T2

According to Hotel Momentum India, H1 2019, by JLL, first half of this year witnessed 46 new hotel openings (branded) with 3,509 rooms. Besides this, the number of hotels signed (branded) in the first half of this year were 85 which will have 8,612 rooms. Domestic hotel operators dominated the hotel signings during this period where 36% of new signings are conversions of old hotels.

The Amravati Tour & Travel Association (ATTA), which is a small 23-member association based in Amravati, will be hosting its second edition of the three-day B2C Travel Expo 2019 from November 29 to December 1, 2019 in Amravati. The association, which is in its third year now, is led by Babanrao Kolhe, President, ATTA, alongside Vishwanath Arora, Vice President, ATTA. Speaking to TravTalk, Arora said, “This is the first time that a travel trade association is conducting a B2C expo. We saw huge success in its first year with more than 50 booths and so we decided to organise it again this year. It will start from November 29, 2019 and end on December 1, 2019. Last year, we were supported by MTDC and Genting Cruise Lines. The aim is to get more and more big travel companies to Amravati as there is a huge market here. We hope to get good support from companies this year too and we are in discussions for the same.”

The year 2019 is expected to outpace 2018 with a total of 105 new branded hotel openings with a total key count of 8,574 keys, revealed HVS ANAROCK in its recent report. It revealed that the effort to open new hotels, big or small, requires hotel operators to coordinate large amounts of preopening effort. So, while domestic operators opened 65 hotels of the total 134 openings in 2018, which represents nearly half of all the openings, in terms of key counts, domestic operators represented only 32% of the total 7,215 keys.

The Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in July 2019 were 8,17,455 as compared to 8,06,495 in July 2018, registering a growth of 1.4%. FTAs during the period January-July 2019 were 60,84,353 as compared to 59,57,816 in January- July 2018 registering a growth of 2.1%, as revealed by Ministry of Tourism, Government of India.

Delhi came out at the top as host (84.6%), organiser (88.5%) and supplier (88.2%) of MiCE events in India, revealed a recent report on MICE Market In India. The report claimed that the three base metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata in addition to Bangalore are at the top of the mind when it comes to recall of all the segments at both demand as well as supply end. Mumbai was a close second as host (76.9%), organiser (79.2%) and suppliers (79.2%) of events followed by Kolkata as host (53.9%) , organiser (48.3%) and suppliers (73.2%) of events. The report was commissioned by Ministry of Tourism, Government of India.

The Passenger Load Factor (PLF) for scheduled domestic carriers in the month of July 2019 has shown declining trend compared to previous month primarily due to the end of tourist season, according to DGCA. Overall, SpiceJet came out on top in terms of PLF amongst all other domestic carriers, with a PLF of 92.4%, while GoAir was a close second with 90.4%. Air Asia was at the third place with a PLF of 89.5%, followed by IndiGo at 86.2%, while Vistara recorded a PLF of 86.2 per cent. Air India recorded a PLF of 79.7 per cent.

Suman Billa (IAS), Joint Secretary, MOT and Chairman ICPB, recently revealed at a meeting that they are taking steps to facilitate easier MICE movement. He adds, “We had already opened the e-Conference visa earlier but that was only open for events that were organised by the government and for the PSUs, so now the door has been opened for the private sector as well. It is open to all private conferences. However, if there are some listed countries, and if you have delegates from those countries you need to take special permission for them. Also, we understand that GST is high, especially if you are dealing with a price sensitive and cost competitive industry like the MICE segment.  We are also trying to get the GST reduced, hopefully we will be able to do away with the 28 per cent slab. We are also planning to have a bidding corpus, if there are conferences where you need  go out and bid for,  to help sweeten the deal with a certain amount of money we will put on the table to better the opportunity. We are thinking this should be done with a collaboration with the states on a matching basis. In the next four to five months, we should be having this ready. ” On ICPB he said, “We have been working on the idea to restructure ICPB for some time. We had commissioned this study a while ago, but we are also picking up from there. We have already changed the constitution and are bringing it in line with the recommendations of this report.”  On the same Chander Mansharamani – Vice Chairman, ICPB added , “The marketing role of …

Sri Lanka Tourism will now focus on tapping the growing wedding market in India, revealed Jeevana Fernando, Assistant Director, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLPB). Speaking at the Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi, where they organised a workshop for Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) on Ramayana Trail, he said that they are working with wedding planners and the travel agents to promote Sri Lanka as a wedding destination for Indians. He stressed that Sri Lanka has very good hotels, infrastructure and connectivity to be a preferred destination for Indian weddings.