Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

On 73rd Independence day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his speech has urged the citizens of India to visit at least 15 tourist destinations by 2022. He said, “I want the citizens of India to visit at least 15 tourist destinations, with the family by 2020. I know people travel abroad for holidays but can we think of visiting at least 15 tourist destinations across India before 2022, when we mark 75 years of freedom?” He said people should visit Indian destinations even if there are no hotels or infrastructure there, as their visits would boost tourism in these areas and automatically lead to better facilities. 

The Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) will now start promoting outbound tourism to neighbouring countries in a bid to help its members expand their horizon of business as well as improving bilateral ties with the countries to get more tourists to India and simultaneously send tourists from India to such destinations. The association invited Dubai Tourism, TCEB and Thai Airways to discuss their plans to work together. The association is also working to promote outbound operations for its members with an intent to develop a model of cross-border tourism. In a first such interactive meeting organised for IATO members who do outbound or want to do outbound, IATO introduced its members with the idea and intent to promote outbound tourism as well. Sharing more details, Rajiv Mehra, VP, IATO & EC Liaison, Outbound Tourism Promotion Committee said that they are first looking to target the neighbouring countries like Thailand, Dubai, Vietnam and can further move on to other countries. “Let us learn things and promote India for inbound tourism to our neighbouring destinations and also for outbound tourism so that more Indian tourists travel abroad. Whatever less business is coming to India, let us get it filled up with such initiatives,” he said. The association is planning to organise such ‘Outbound Knowledge Forum’ bi-monthly now on with talks going on with at least three other NTOs.

According to The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the domestic India market has proven resilient with the closure of Jet Airways earlier this year. Growth in domestic RPKs (revenue passenger kilometers) have recovered strongly, lifting to a 7.9% year-on-year pace in June, as the remaining carriers moved quickly to fill the gap created by the loss of a competitor and to meet the customer demand.

J.B. Singh, President and CEO, InterGlobe Hotels, recently disclosed that IGH will expand majorly in Tier-I cities. He says, “The standard big metros like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru are high-growth markets with good absorption rate, not just from hospitality side, but from the aviation and commercial real-estate side as well. There is great demand from the customers to build hotels in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Gurugram. We must manage the demand where customers ask for more hotels. We have a couple of hotels under construction in Vikhroli and Thane.”

STR’s hotel pipeline data for the Asia Pacific region showed 2,109 projects accounting for 470,650 rooms in construction as of July 2019. Five countries reported more than 20,000 rooms under construction including India where 24,801 rooms, 8.4% of existing supply is under construction. China led with 244,233 rooms, which represented 9.4% of the country’s existing supply and Japan with 43,012 rooms, 6.3% of existing supply.

Out of the 28 Indian cities from where international passengers Embark/ Disembark, Delhi accounts for highest international passenger traffic with a share of 26.6% in quarter one (Q1) of 2019. Five Indian cities accounted for most (approximately 70%) of the international passenger traffic, and after Delhi it was Mumbai (20.4 per cent share) and Chennai (8.8% share). After that was Bengaluru (7.0 %) and Kochi (6.6%). Domestic and foreign carriers connect India to 54 countries through 346 Routes. Out of these routes top 10 Routes accounted for approximately 20 per cent of the total international passenger traffic during the first quarter of the year 2019. Maximum international passengers were carried on the Dubai-Mumbai sector followed by Dubai-Delhi.

Domestic hotel operators dominated signings over international operators with the ratio of 68:32 in the first half (H1) of this year, revealed the Hotel Momentum India (HMI) report released by JLL. The report revealed that 36 per cent of new signings are conversions of old hotels. Also, it was seen that Gujarat had the highest number of branded hotel signings (1593) amongst all states, while West Bengal had highest number of branded hotel openings (926) from January to June, 2019.

306 different destinations in Asia will receive cruise ships in 2019, which is an increase from the 288 destinations in 2018, according to 2019 Asia Cruise Deployment and Capacity Report by Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), which details Asia’s planned cruise activity in 2019. Many of the destinations – especially India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea – will see growth. Ships in Asia increasingly call at more places, increasing the range of choice for passengers.  The report adds that 2019 will see a total of 1,917 sailings and generate capacity for 4.02 million passengers to cruise in Asia. This year’s total passenger capacity has been reduced by 5.7% year-on-year after several years of rapid expansion. The decline was mainly due to the reduction of short cruise itinerary options from mainland China. Nevertheless, 2019 will still see 79 ships from 39 cruise brands sailing in Asia, a similar level to last year. Port calls to Asia will remain steady this year with 7,154 calls. Asia will also see a slight rise in passenger destination days. The 13 million passenger destination days forecast in 2019 will translate to more potential onshore visits from cruise passengers, creating a stronger tourism impact for the destinations across the region. Joel Katz, Managing Director for CLIA, Australasia & Asia, says, “The popularity of cruising in Asia is expected to grow further over coming years as cruise lines deploy new, larger vessels that have been purpose-built for Asian consumers. The coming generation of ships will replace older ships previously based in Asia, and when coupled with new cruise infrastructure in several Asian destinations are expected to fuel strong interest among travellers. The result …

Prahlad Singh Patel, State Minister Tourism (I/C) and Culture, has said that the National Tourism Policy needs to be worked on further, and it would take the MOT at least one year to finalise everything and release it officially. The draft of National Tourism Policy is already out and available on the MOT website, but the official release has been pending for the same. MOT has already executed many projects mentioned in the policy, like Incredible India 2.0 campaign, Incredible India website, etc.

The officials at the Louvre Museum has decided to restrict the entry of visitors following the chaos and long queue. Being one of the world’s most visited museum, it experiences large number of tourist footfalls everyday. Considering the crowd that the museum receives, management has decided to implement, ‘obligatory advance booking option’. Hence, online ticket booking is compulsory for those visiting Louvre.