Tag Archives: Country Head

Finland witnessed a 15 per cent growth in Indian arrivals in 2018 and over 80,000 overnights, informed Jukka Holappa, Commercial Counsellor, Country Head—India and Sri Lanka, Business Finland, at VisitFinland and India Workshop 2019 held in Delhi on February 25. Speaking at the event, he said, “The numbers from India have been growing. At our roadshows in Delhi and Mumbai, we have 10 partners from Finland and are looking at a participation of about 70-80 agents in each city. Indians usually like to explore more countries in one single visit, often going to Russia and Estonia; we are hoping to get them to stay longer in Finland.” Holappa claims that the they are committed to support, educate and grow the business for their travel partners. “It’s our role to educate the travel agents on Finland but the Indian travel trade needs to educate us to manage Indian travellers as well,” he concluded. He also informed that Lapland is very popular with Indians as they love to see the Northern Lights.

Hilton has expanded its footprint in the country by launching DoubleTree by Hilton in Goa – Panaji. A unit of Goldfinch Hotels and managed by Hilton, the hotel reiterates Hilton’s aim to double its presence in the country over the next few years. Navjit Ahluwalia, Senior Vice President and Country Head, Hilton India, said, “This property has a number of standout amenities that could offer all our guests unmatched experiences. We are committed to India for the long-term and will continue to make significant investments to expand our presence and further enrich our operational and management capabilities.” Prakash Shetty, Chairman, MRG Group, says, “This resort is testimony to my vision to bring world-class hospitality to Goa by partnering with Hilton. We have augmented a number of products and services across the property to deliver bespoke guest experiences to cater to the needs of global citizens. This resort will also be the first in Goa to offer Mangalorean cuisine at its specialty restaurant Feliz.” With 160 guestrooms including nine suites, equipped with signature DoubleTree by Hilton amenities, the resort features environmentally friendly smart lighting. DoubleTree by Hilton Goa – Panaji offers indoor and outdoor venues for conferences and events – a grand ballroom, two boardrooms and sunset lawns along with state-of-the-art audio-visual technology.

Thomas Cook (India) has opened a new branch at Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad to leverage the growing potential of Telangana. Present at the inauguration were Romil Pant, Senior Vice President- Leisure Travel, and V Pradeep, Associate Vice President, Foreign Exchange, Thomas Cook (India). This expansion extends Thomas Cook India’s presence in Telangana to 10 consumer access centres (4 owned branches and 6 Gold Circle Partner franchise outlets) across Saifabad, Begumpet, Hitech City, Gachibowli, Kukatpally, Banjara Hills, Attapur, Sainikpuri and Malakpet; with five additional outlets in Andhra Pradesh. Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head – Holidays, MICE, Visa & Passport Services, Thomas Cook (India) said, “At Thomas Cook, Telangana State has been identified as a prime driver and continues to deliver strong growth of 25 per cent YOY for our leisure travel business. Our new branch at Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad (a key residential, commercial and retail centre), gives our consumers convenient access to a wide range of travel and foreign exchange services. Innovative products like our Holidays and Forex apps with doorstep delivery of foreign exchange; equally our cutting edge prepaid cards (Borderless and One Currency) are of great value to Hyderabad’s tech savvy travellers and we are confident of seeing a strong uptake.” Deepesh Varma, Senior Vice President– Sales & Relationship Management, Foreign Exchange, at Thomas Cook India said, “Given the impressive increase of 45% across our key Forex product-segments, we have identified Telangana State as a strategic source market. Telangana is also a significant outward remittances market for us; our Send Money Abroad service seeing increased uptake.”    

Witnessing a significant increase in demand for experiential travel from the MiCE sector, Thomas Cook (India) has launched a portfolio of unique programmes that deliver engaging experiences across key global destinations. The clear shift from the traditional basic sight-seeing tour plus gala dinner to innovative experiential itineraries has created potential for the MiCE sector. In a strategic initiative to leverage this momentum, the company’s MiCE business has curated a series of cutting-edge MiCE programmes. Thomas Cook’s experiential MiCE portfolio incorporates fascinating long-haul destinations (Iceland, Canada, Japan, Korea, Norway, New Zealand, Australia and USA, etc) and short hauls (like Baku, Kiev, Morocco, Oman), coupled with distinctive elements including the adrenalin rush of Queenstown’s adventure experiences, snow-mobiling in Iceland, rafting in Norway, Formula 1 drives on the Yas Marina circuit, 360 degree helicopter tours, etc. Sightseeing trips are delivered with an exciting twist: via segway in Hungary or Spain, vintage cars in Prague, stretch-limousines in Dubai/Abu Dhabi or helicopters in Canada. Also incorporated are exclusive dining experiences- on a glacier in Canada or a private island in Australia; also decadent spa-wellness programmes and thermal baths in Iceland, Turkey, Jordan, New Zealand and more. Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head – Holidays, MICE, Visa & Passport Services, Thomas Cook (India) said, “The evolution in the MiCE sector is creating an expanded market of discerning corporates. With experiential travel high on their wishlist, our launch of engaging MiCE experiences was intended to capitalise and build on this significant and growing opportunity.”  

Hotelivate has kicked off its 6th Hotel Operations Summit India (HOSI) at Taj Palace, New Delhi with stimulating discussions on topics pertaining to the hospitality industry. HOSI, the only dedicated forum for hotel professionals in the region, aims to empower today’s hospitality leaders through enabling conversations on management and operations-related issues, the rapidly evolving marketplace, latest industry trends, benchmarking and best practices. With the focus on increasing the diaspora of the speaker by bringing in leaders from businesses that are intricately tied up with the hospitality industry, the programme encompassed a series of keynote addresses by distinguished speakers and thought-provoking group discussions. Notable speakers included industry leaders such as Anshuman Bapna, Chief Product Officer, Goibibo; Dilip Puri, Founder and CEO, Indian School of Hospitality; Jiggs Kalra, Mentor and Culinary Director, Massive Restaurants; Raj Rana, Chief Executive Officer – South Asia, Radisson Hotel Group; Rattan Keswani, Deputy Managing Director, Lemon Tree Hotels; Navjit Ahluwalia, Senior Vice President and Country Head – India, Hilton; Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, OYO Rooms; Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director and CEO, Indian Hotels Company, to name a few.

Thomas Cook (India) has partnered with the Government of India for the Khelo India School Games, a part of the Khelo India Programme initiative of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to create a sports ecosystem and revive sports culture at a grassroot level in India. Thomas Cook India was selected as Hospitality Partner for the Khelo India School Games, held from January 31-February 8, 2018 in New Delhi, where India’s Under-17 athletes were invited to participate across 16 disciplines. Thomas Cook India had set up a dedicated team of 160 members during the Khelo India School Games to project drive this strategic initiative. The team has successfully executed the partnership by providing both accommodation and meals for an approximately 5000-strong contingent for a duration of 10 nights. Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head- Leisure Travel, MICE, Thomas Cook (India), said, “The Khelo India programme is inspirational in its aim to scout young talent from schools in various disciplines, groom them as future champions and thereby, serve to catalyse the sporting culture of the nation. It is hence, truly an honour for us at Thomas Cook India to have been selected to partner with the Government of India for this unique initiative.”

Maharashtra contributes most tourists to Australia followed by Delhi. Speaking in New Delhi, Nishant Kashikar, Country Head-India and Gulf, Tourism Australia, said, “Tourism Australia first started its representation agency in Delhi before setting up their office in India. We have developed a great relationship with the travel trade in the city of Delhi and have seen great growth from this market. We have had almost over 32,000 tourists only from the state of Delhi, who travelled to Australia last year. These tourists contributed almost close to 165 million Asutralian dollars, which is an increase of 26 per cent as compared to the previous year.”

India has been participating at the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) since its inception 24 years ago and this year is no different. Speaking at a media briefing held at ATM 2017, HE Vipul, Consul General of India, Dubai said, “We have 54 participants in total from India who are here at ATM including goverment agencies like IRCTC, ITDC, as well as a number of private tour operators. Two state governments Jammu & Kashmir and Kerala have put up stalls while officials from Madhya Pradesh are also participating. The theme this year is yoga and wellness and Dubai particularly has embraced yoga in a big way. There has been a consistent and positive growth from this region to India over the last 3 years with 2016 having registered an overall growth of around 17 per cent over the previous year. India is today the biggest source of tourist arrivals in UAE with the numbers increasing every year and with the simplification in e-Tourist Visa and introduction of e-business and e-medical visa, we expect more tourists to travel to India.” Gyan Bhushan, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, highlighted the country’s growing tourism figures, and said, “India registered a growth of 10.6 per cent in 2016, which is higher than the global average of about 4.3 per cent. It is an all round destination and offers diversity throughout the year since we have the Himalayas, the desert, beaches, plains and much more. Our focus on health & medical tourism, wellness, cruise tourism, among others has grown as well since these are booming sectors.” Saket Saran, Country Head, Air India, reiterated the fact that traffic has been strong between Dubai and India and said, “The …

Mauritius recorded a growth of about 16 per cent in Indian arrivals this year and expects this to increase to 20 per cent in 2017. Vivek Anand, Country Head, Mauritius Tourism, India, says, “We have seen a growth of nearly 16 per cent and a lot of high end tourists are visiting Mauritius and there are a lot of MICE movements and a lot of big Indian weddings happening there.” In 2017, Mauritius targets 100,000 Indian tourists which is a growth of 20 per cent. According to Anand, the growth will primarily come from the high end FITs, MICE and weddings.

Scoot will commence its Jaipur–Singapore flight from October 2. Scoot has named its first plane landing in Jaipur ‘KamaScootra’ taking inspiration from the ancient Indian text. With this, India becomes the second country after Singapore to inspire an aircraft name after it for Scoot Airlines. The plane will have 335 seats, including 21 premium economy. There will be three flights every week from Jaipur to Singapore till October 29 and afterwards, the frequency will be increased to four. Bharath Mahadevan, Country Head, India, Scoot, says, “At this point, our focus in India is building guest awareness on our propositions – value, choices, innovation, and service with Scootitude–and getting them to experience why Scoot has been ranked Asia-Pacific’s top LCC for two years running. With Jaipur, we take another step towards the target of steadily increasing our operations in India.” The Singapore Airline Group will offer affordable fares from Jaipur to Singapore and other destinations like Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong and Bangkok. The fares will range from Rs. 4,699 onwards. The sale period starts on September 01 and ends on September 11, 2016.