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West Bengal tourism department is currently focusing on homestay tourism policy and has also started promoting adventure tourism in different destinations of the state, said Gautam Deb, Tourism Minister, Government of West Bengal, on the sidelines of the Bengal Travel Mart (BTM) in Siliguri. Deb inaugurated the third edition of BTM along with Bratya Basu, Information Technology Minister, Government of West Bengal, and James Kujur, Tribal Development Minister, Government of West Bengal. “Bengal has immense potential. We are currently working to develop each sector of tourism in the state – from forest to hills to coastal areas. We are also preparing our integrated tourism policy along with homestay and adventure tourism policies,” he said. Deb also pointed out that the Bagdogra airport’s instrument landing system (ILS) will start operating from March 29, as per an AAI notification. He was happy to inform that in the previous year, the passenger growth at the airport touched 22 lakh. The three-day travel mart was attended by buyers and sellers from across the country and abroad to establish partnership. The event was organised by Eastern Himalaya Travel and Tour Operators Association  (EHTTOA) in association with North Bengal Development Department and West Bengal Tourism.

Through its upcoming properties in Kochi and Sriperumbudur, AccorHotels will further highlight its focus on catering to the growing base of business and leisure travellers. Jean-Michel Cassé, Chief Operating Officer, India and South Asia, AccorHotels, says, “Mid-segment hotels form a larger percentage of the total room inventory, also accounting for nearly 50 per cent of all the hotel rooms in the country. In this segment, we see a significant demand and supply gap, which we seek to bridge with our Novotel and ibis brands. We see this growing demand as a potential growth engine for the future. Our recent openings in Lucknow, Dwarka, Chennai OMR, Pune and Goa along with upcoming openings in Kochi and Sriperumbudur further highlight our focus to cater to the needs of a diversified growing base of business and leisure travellers alike.” In India, AccorHotels has a network of 46 hotels spanning across nine international brands in 22 cities.

South African Tourism brought down a 60-member delegation for a 5-city roadshow to India, which successfully completed its Delhi-leg with back-to-back business meetings and networking with the travel trade in the city. The 15th edition of the roadshow has been held in Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Delhi and will be travelling to Ahmedabad after that. Hanneli Slabber, Regional General Manager, Asia/Australasia/Middle East, South African Tourism, said, “The Indian market has not just grown considerably since our entry in 2005, demands of Indian travellers are in a constant and rapid state of evolution even today. This makes cross sharing of insights, trends and observations between our Indian and South African partners extremely crucial. We have had South African products being tailored to suit these specific needs as a testament of the value proposition we see in the market.” Alpa Jani, Acting Hub-Head, Middle Easst/India/South East Asia, South African Tourism, said, “We have always recorded an outstanding response from the Indian travel trade and are eagerly looking forward to seeing the positive impact this Roadshow will have towards driving Indian traveller traffic to South Africa in 2018.”

The new Universal Federation of Travel Agents Association (UFTAA) board was elected at its AGM held during the UFTAA Congress held in Tel Aviv. The new UFTAA board now included Sunil R. Kumar from India as the new president, Yossef Fatael from Israel as the Vice President, S.G. Kaka from Kenya as the Vice President – Finance, and Cetin Gurcun from Turkey as the Vice President – Tourism. Sunil R. Kumar has been re-elected as the President of UFTAA for the third time starting from 2015. Kumar says, “It is delightful to be assigned with the responsibility to lead the most prestigious UFTAA once again. The association has a glorious past and a roaring future in the world of global networking that is extremely important in our fast evolving industry. UFTAA’s tourism initiatives and getting more parts of the world into Active UFTAA is what does matter for the success of UFTAA. I attribute this success to TAAI and India, for our respect globally is well acknowledged and accepted. It also implies that we have greater responsibility of our shoulders and this will certainly be delivered well. Congratulations everyone one in the Indian Industry for this global lead opportunity, which is historic to have been re-elected.” The Board of Directors meeting of UFTAA was held on February 6, 2018, at Tel Aviv. During the Congress, UFTAA welcomed some prominent regions of the world who joined UFTAA. This includes COTAL, the federation of travel & tourism associations of 25 countries of Latin America and China Association of Travel Services (CATS) that joined UFTAA as its Association Member.

Vistara has launched a daily direct service between Delhi and Chennai and is set to double its frequency between the two cities from March 1, offering convenient same-day return options in both directions. Besides, the airline will fly daily direct between Chennai and Port Blair from March 1, and will further expand its operations from the city from March 25 with daily direct flights between Chennai and Kochi and double daily flights between Chennai and Kolkata. Sanjiv Kapoor, Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer, Vistara said, “Many of our customers had been waiting for us to bring ‘the new feeling of flying’ to Chennai, and we’re pleased to finally inaugurate our service to the city. We may have been late in coming to Chennai, but our aggressive expansion plan from the city truly signals its importance to Vistara. The new Chennai service would offer additional connections through Delhi to many additional destinations including Srinagar, Jammu, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Varanasi, Bagdogra, and Guwahati.”

Travelport has announced a renewed long-term partnership with Travelgenio. With nearly 250 airlines signed up to use Travelport’s unique merchandising technology, Travelgenio is able to further differentiate itself by displaying and selling branded fare families and ancillary products from these airlines in the same way they do on their own websites. Having recently become the first global distribution system (GDS) to be certified by IATA as a “Level 3” Aggregator under its New Distribution Capability (NDC) initiative, Travelport will also benefit Travelgenio by creating NDC connections with airlines as they become available. Commenting on the renewed agreement, Mariano Pelizzari, CEO, Travelgenio, said, “Given all the searches that take place, it’s crucial we take advantage of the right technology to optimise our customer experience. The renewal of our agreement with Travelport demonstrates our commitment to serve the end traveller even better by continually providing the rich choice of content with the speed and accuracy that’s critical to them.” Fred Lindgren, Country Manager, Travelport Spain, commented, “To maintain its leadership in the competitive landscape of online travel, Travelgenio needs continued access to extensive global travel choices and the best booking technology to deliver a fast, differentiated and personalised booking. This agreement is testament to Travelport’s combination of innovative technology and extensive travel content.”

With the collaboration of Nijhawan Group, Ram Lal Anand College, has introduced a new certificate course of Heritage and Tourism Management, affiliated with the University of Delhi. In-house as well as guest faculties will enlighten students about Indian heritage, culture and tourism studies. The first batch consists of thirty students in total. “The current course has been designed with clear objectives to make students aware of the linkages between heritage and tourism, to sensitise them towards the need to preserve our rich heritage and to provide practical training and requisite skills to facilitate their employment in government and corporate sectors engaged in diverse tourist operations”, said Dr. Rakesh Kumar Gupta, Principal, Ram Lal Anand College. Students will be provided with internships after the completion of the programme, followed by the placements with the support of Nijhawan Group.

With a focus on the Indian market, SriLankan Airlines intends to increase its frequencies to 13 flights per week to Delhi and 14 flights a week to Mumbai. According to Chinthaka Weerasinghe, Country Manager, SriLankan Airlines, “We are keen on increasing the destinations and flight frequencies in India as the demand is constantly on the rise. With the new development ventures, we anticipate significant passenger numbers from our key contributors to inbound tourism traffic that includes India, China, Europe, Australia and the Maldives.” India has been a vital partner in SriLankan Airlines’ route network from the early days since it is Sri Lanka’s number one source of inbound tourist traffic. Today, the airline directly operates to 14 Indian destinations with a total of 135 flights a week. Weerasinghe adds, “The Indian government authorities and related state institutions have always been a firm supporter to all SriLankan Airlines and Sri Lanka Tourism projects.”

As a result of a sharp rise in inbound numbers from India into Russia, Ural Airlines is planning to appoint a GSA in India. Valeriya Sorokina, Head (Touristic Division), Route Network Development Department, Koltosovo (Yekaterinburg) Airport, reveals, “The Indian market is one of the largest in the world and the most rapidly growing market. So we are going to grab all kinds of passenger traffic originating from India. We are looking to appoint a GSA representative here instead of having our own airline office.” The airline plans to start flights from New Delhi and Mumbai. Sorokina adds, “However, these are only in plans as there are no traffic rights yet and no slots available. The plan is to start flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Yekaterinburg and further to all over Russia as well as other popular European points. We hope the flight starts from October 2018.” The airline is also seriously developing itself as a hub where it captures not only point-to-point traffic, but also more transit traffic.

K Raheja Corp’s hospitality company, Chalet Hotels has ambitious growth plans through both greenfield and brownfield acquisitions. Sanjay Sethi, Managing Director & CEO, Chalet Hotels, says, “We have about four hotels under development right now. These will add roughly about 800 more rooms to our current portfolio of 2800-odd rooms. These will take about two to three years to build.” Chalet Hotels currently has about eight hotels, of which seven are owned by Chalet Hotels 100 per cent and operated by Marriott. One out of the eight is run by Chalet Hotels. Speaking about the route that the hotel company will take for growth, Sethi says, “We have ambitious plans. We are looking at acquisition opportunities in the market and we want to grow through both greenfield and brownfield acquisitions.” While charting these plans, Chalet Hotels will stay true to its portfolio which is largely upper, upscale and luxury segments. “Of course we are also looking at upscale assets also. So a couple of developments we are doing are in that segment. We will stay in the upscale and upper upscale because that’s a sweet spot for us. We might do select luxury, or mid-segment hotels as well,” Sethi adds.