Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

Hyatt Hotels and Resorts aims to add approximately 1,400 more keys to its current portfolio of over 7,000 rooms by next year, reveals Harleen Mehta, Vice President, Sales Operations – India, Hyatt Hotels and Resorts. She says, “The Hyatt Place Hyderabad-Banjara Hills was launched in December 2017 that will be followed by our Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty which is slated to open in April 2018. It will offer 265 luxurious guestrooms including 38 suites and four villas, and will mark our foray into the Kerala market. The two upcoming Hyatt Place hotels – Hyatt Place Bangalore Airport-Urbana is scheduled to open this year and Hyatt Place Jaipur is expected to open doors next year. These two hotels will add approximately 400 more rooms to our portfolio. Hyatt Regency McLeod Ganj that is set to open in 2018 in the Himalayas will establish us as the only licensed international hospitality chain allowed to build an eco-friendly hotel in the forests there. Apart from this, we are looking to expand in the market with our upcoming properties in Gurgaon and Agra.” Currently, Hyatt’s India portfolio includes 28 hotels across 17 key destinations in the country.

Preferred Hotels & Resorts recently kicked off the Asia Pacific series of its 50th anniversary celebrations at The Leela Palace New Delhi with a specially curated luncheon presentation at Le Cirque, hosted by the group’s CEO Lindsey Ueberroth and Executive Vice President Saurabh Rai. “As we commemorate the Preferred brand’s 50-year legacy of inspiring travel, we are more committed than ever to providing travellers with even more opportunities to embrace the spirit of independence and to making our pineapple logo synonymous with the ultimate hallmark in world-class hospitality,” said Ueberroth. “It is so exciting and humbling to see how far we have come as a company, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate this major milestone with our associates, partners and friends from around the world. “As the region’s largest independent hotel brand, Preferred Hotels & Resorts is entering its 16th year in India, and we are focused on continuing to build on the foundation of our company’s 50-year legacy of championing the independent hotel space. We are committed to forging ahead with more innovative and strategic consumer-focused initiatives to foster greater engagement in this market,” added Rai.

FICCI and KPMG India have jointly unveiled the knowledge paper ‘Expedition 3.0- Travel & Hospitality Gone Digital’ at the inaugural session of Digital Travel, Hospitality & Innovation Summit. The Knowledge Paper looks at unravelling the technology trends in travel and hospitality segment that will help better define the future of the industry, how digitalisation has impacted the evolution of this industry and what can be achieved by overall technology inclusion across stakeholders in the industry ecosystem. Some of the key highlights of the paper reveal that most travellers go online, and 67 per cent even use voice search for research; 71 per cent use smartphones for research and booking, and 82 per cent prefer digital boarding passes and e-tickets for convenience; 87 per cent use videos and photos posted by friends as part of their travel research while 83 per cent want to be connected while travelling; 85 per cent use price comparison websites to look for deals, and 58 per cent agree spending considerable time to find best price; 91 per cent use review sites; and 75 per cent choose hotels that do not charge for Wi-Fi.  

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) inaugurated the third edition of Digital Travel, Hospitality & Innovation Summit on March 21, 2018 at Federation House, New Delhi. The two-day summit is part of FICCI’s mandate to further enhance India’s digital drive in the travel and tourism industry. The summit saw in attendance the high flyers of travel and hospitality industry alongside the giants of travel technology from both India and abroad. The summit kick-started with an inaugural session where Ashish Kumar, Co-Chairman, FICCI Travel Technology Committee & Partner Agnitio Consulting, welcomed the delegates and attendees, followed by a special address by Dhruv Shringi, Chairman, FICCI Travel Technology Committee & CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra Online, where he stressed on the new innovations changing the face of the travel industry around the world. This was followed by keynote addresses by Jason Nash, Chief Storyteller, Travelport; Rajesh Magow, Co-Founder & CEO, MakeMyTrip and Pulkit Trivedi, Director Global Sales Organisation, Facebook India.

In an effort to expand its reach further in the market, Kolkata-based ‘A Travel Duet’ has moved its head office to Mumbai. Pritish Shah, Founder, A Travel Duet, who has also moved to Mumbai, says, “We had a branch office in Mumbai while being headquartered in Kolkata. But we soon realised that if we want to expand, Mumbai is the place to be, specially with the kind of products we offer. Mumbai is also a trendsetter in many ways. We also have a huge emphasis on having Preferred Partners such as Relaix & Chateau, Four Seasons, and Luxury Lodges of New Zealand and we are keen to expand that portfolio from about 10 brands right now to 100 this year. That is also one of the reasons why we wanted to move to Mumbai.” The Mumbai office will have a staff strength of about 15-20 people and will be located in Khar West. The company offers high-end, exclusive leisure holidays to couples. Speaking more about expansion plans for this year, Shah adds, “We want to make the company the best luxury travel brand for couples in India. At a later stage, we will also open an office in Delhi which will purely have a sales and operations team.”    

Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) this February were 10.53 lakh as compared to FTAs of 9.56 lakh in February 2017 and 8.49 lakh in February 2016, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Tourism. The growth rate in FTAs in February 2018 over February 2017 was 10.1 per cent as compared to 12.7 per cent in February 2017 over February 2016. FTAs during the period January-February 2018 were 21.19 lakh with a growth of 9.2 per cent over the same period of previous year, as compared to the FTAs of 19.40 lakh with a growth of 14.6 per cent in January-February, 2017 over January-February, 2016. The percentage share of FTAs in India during February 2018 among the top 15 source countries was highest from Bangladesh (18.28 per cent) followed by USA (12.40 per cent), UK (11.75 per cent), Canada (4.36 per cent), Russian Federation (4.20 per cent), France (3.24 per cent), Malaysia (3.14 per cent), Germany (3.04 per cent), Sri Lanka (2.89 per cent), China (2.33 per cent), Japan (2.09 per cent), Thailand (1.92 per cent), Afghanistan (1.65 per cent) and Nepal (1.41 per cent).

The Fern Hotels & Resorts has added another hotel to its portfolio with the launch of KK Beacon Hotel in Rajkot. This is the eighth hotel which is managed by the company under the Beacon Hotels brand. Suhail Kannampilly, COO, The Fern Hotels & Resorts, said, “The 34-key hotel is the second property which the group is managing in Rajkot. We already have The Fern Residency. With this launch, we have further consolidated our position in Gujarat.” The other Beacon properties are located in Ajmer, Amritsar, Bhopal, Jodhpur, Mumbai and Udaipur. Beacon Hotels (brand owned by The Fern Hotels and Resorts) is positioned as ‘smart and efficient’ hotels in the economy segment. The new hotel comprises 34 air-conditioned rooms with amenities like internet facility, cable television, direct-dial telephone, multiple computer/mobile phone charging points, mini bar, hairdryer and multiple dining options. The hotel is located 3 km from the airport and in close proximity to the railway station and bus stand.

Tourism Fiji has announced the appointment of Seema Kadam as its Country Manager for India. She will be based in Mumbai and will be responsible for Tourism Fiji’s activities across India. Kadam brings with her an abundance of knowledge of the travel industry and products as well as great interpersonal and business development skills. Having worked and excelled at other international tourism companies such as Switzerland Tourism, where she was the Area Manager, she is well qualified to lead the team in India for Tourism Fiji. Matthew Stoeckel, CEO, Tourism Fiji, said, “India is a strategically important market for us and one that has significant potential for sustainable long-term growth. This new appointment is the first of many steps we have taken to increase visitor arrivals from India and further promote Fiji within the India market. Visitor arrivals from India have grown by 24 per cent over the last three years and we hope to drive these numbers up further.”

Airbnb has signed MoUs with the North Eastern Council (NEC), North East Tourism Development Council (NETDC) along with two key livelihood initiatives, North East Rural Livelihood Project (NERLP) and North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Society (NERCRMS), with the aim of creating hospitality micro-entrepreneurs across key destinations in North East India. Under the MoU, the NEC, NETDC and Airbnb agreed to expand tourism in the North East, improve the quality of home stay facilities and properties in the region, provide and promote tourism resources in the area and cooperate to improve the regulatory environment for home sharing. Airbnb also announced MoUs for strategic partnerships with the NERLP and NERCRMS to generate technology-enabled livelihood opportunities in tourism for micro-entrepreneurs in the North East. “This MoU with Airbnb is a step towards achieving our aim of doubling tourist growth rate in the next three years, by creating more sustainable accommodation options and enhancing the hospitality service standards in the region,” said Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of Development of North Eastern Region. “Last year, during Brian Chesky’s meeting with Prime Minister Modi, Airbnb had committed to develop a home stay ecosystem through adequate skills training and development and promote India’s high potential tourism offerings to the world; and the North East was an inevitable choice. We look forward to supporting the economic growth of the North East by drawing more tourists to the region,” added Kum Hong Siew, Regional Director, Airbnb—APAC. Source: ANI

Skål International Delhi-125 will be hosting the club’s first wellness programme on April 15 at Nehru Park, New Delhi. The members will be able to enjoy various active and wellness activities based on health and age like nature walk, yoga and meditation and cycling tour, informed Ranjit Vig, Secretary, Skål International Delhi-125. Vig further added that this year, the club has witnessed an increase of 26 per cent in membership, making it the largest club. The announcement was made at a special dinner event hosted at Le Meridien Gurgaon. The gathering was also a way to boost the morale of one its members, Ajeet Bajaj, Managing Director, Snow Leopard Adventures and his daughter Deeya Bajaj who will be undertaking an expedition to climb Mt. Everest in April. Sharing details about the activities of the club, Vig added, “For the first time, Skål Delhi has formulated an events calendar to have a clear agenda for the year. The same has been shared with all the members to allow them enough time to plan and participate wholeheartedly.” The club has also strengthened its PR and communication arm by making inroads to various social media platforms, informed Sunil Ghadiok, President, Skal Delhi. He said, “This year we will be twinning with Washington, wherein like minded members will come together to find business opportunities, network and share the best business practices. An agenda for the same is underway and will be announced soon.” It was also noted that the CSR and wellness committees of the club have taken initiatives to support child education and NGOs.