Tag Archives: Delhi

Vistara inaugurated its daily direct service to Amritsar from Delhi, making it the fifth destination in northern India on the airline’s network. Vistara will commence operations between Amritsar and Mumbai with daily direct flights, starting March 8, 2017, which would make it the only full service airline to connect the two cities. Commenting on Amritsar’s potential and congratulating Vistara on the launch of the new service, Prakash Singh Badal, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Punjab, said, “It is very heartening to see Amritsar expanding its air connectivity across the length and breadth of the country and to the world. Introduction of the new flights from Amritsar to Delhi by Vistara will definitely help not only the people of the state, but all countrymen who travel within the country and overseas. It will truly help Punjab harness its industrial, tourism, religious as well as business growth potential. I congratulate Vistara on the launch of this new service to and from Amritsar, and wish the airline great success.” Expressing delight at the launch, Phee Teik Yeoh, Chief Executive Officer, Vistara, said, “We’re very happy to add Amritsar to our network, and we sincerely believe in the city’s great potential for growth in several aspects, apart from only tourism. The launch of service to Amritsar is in line with our focus on customers, who have long desired to ‘fly the new feeling’ to the city, and it is also well aligned with our evolving international plans, as millions of NRIs travel to and from Amritsar every year. We’re confident that our customers will be equally delighted to fly these new routes with us.”

Vistara has announced the launch of two new routes to cater to growing customer demand. Starting March 26, 2017, Vistara will fly direct daily between Kolkata and Pune, and starting April 15, 2017, will also fly direct between Delhi and Port Blair (Andamans) on Saturdays and Sundays during the upcoming summer season. These new flights are in addition to Vistara’s recently announced service to Amritsar from both Delhi and Mumbai, and to Leh (Ladakh) from Delhi, both starting in March. Vistara’s Kolkata-Pune flight will serve business professionals as well as a large population in Pune that hails from Kolkata. The Delhi-Port Blair flight will cater not only the people residing in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands who visit the national capital, but also attract businesspeople and tourists from northern India to discover the history, beauty and trade potential of the Andaman Islands. Bookings for these flights are now open. Customers can book their flights on Vistara’s official website (www.airvistara.com), on its iOS and Android mobile apps, and through Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and other travel agents. Vistara’s GDS partners including Amadeus and Travelport allow customers to book via all major channels worldwide, including through our global interline airline partners.

Having grown its annual roadshow from five cities to six now, Mumbai-based U&I Holidays is keen on adding Tier-II cities from next year. Shyam Upadhyay, Director, U&I Holidays, says, “This time, we wanted to include a new city so we added Kolkata, which to our surprise was a hit. Most of the participants found good potential there. Every city got more than 100 attendees but Kolkata was at 150 which is really good for a city like that.” The six cities were Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai. The roadshow had 32 participants from Bali of which 31 were hotels plus one caterer. Speaking about Kolkata, Ashish Indulkar, Director, U&I Holidays, adds, “Although we have been doing some activities in Kolkata, we never ventured full-fledge into the market. We were very happy with the turnout. It is a very interesting market because there are whispers that AirAsia India is planning to launch a direct Kolkata-Bali flight via Kuala Lumpur.” Upadhyay adds that next year’s roadshow will continue to travel to six cities but a new set of cities which will include a Tier-II city like Nagpur, Jaipur or Pune. U&I Holidays sent 15,000 Indian pax to Bali last year. “In 2015, it was 12,000, and this year we are expecting bigger numbers. We are focusing more on MICE as well,” Indulkar adds. U&I has its own office in Bali and they are also a DMC for Maldives. Last year, U&I Holidays entered the wellness segment by opening Ashoka Spa outlet in Mumbai. It opened another one in Bali in December 2016. It will now focus on hotel spas in Mumbai and parts of Maharashtra and are already in talks …

Lufthansa has started commercial services of the A350-900 on its Munich (MUC) to Delhi (DEL) route and the aircraft landed in Delhi on February 11 from Munich. The arrival was greeted with the celebratory water canon salute at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. The city of Delhi becomes the first destination worldwide to welcome Lufthansa’s most modern and environmentally friendly long haul aircraft, the A350-900. “The launch of Lufthansa A350 services in Delhi marks an important milestone in our growing partnership with India. This game-changing aircraft reflects the values of the new global Indian, and reaffirms our commitment to this important market by introducing the very best and latest in air travel,” said Wolfgang Will, Senior Director South Asia, Lufthansa Passenger Airlines.

Oman Air is growing its capacity to India by increasing flight frequencies from 126 to 161 flights per week between Oman and its 11 Indian destinations to boost the tourism sector. The airline informed that from February onwards, Mumbai, Delhi, Calicut and Hyderabad will be operated with 21 weekly flights each and Lucknow with 14 weekly flights. “The demand for all 11 of our Indian destinations has always been high and the increased frequencies offer yet more choice and convenience to our guests. Oman Air first launched flights to India in the 1990s and the demand for seats has grown exponentially not only increasing tourism traffic and revenue but also promoting vital trade agreements between the two countries,” said Paul Gregorowitsch, Chief Executive Officer, Oman Air. The extended traffic entitlements will give a further boost to the tourism sector, prompting many discerning tourists to visit Oman as well as India. With this development, Oman Air is flying its wide bodied aircraft to selected destinations in India. Source: The Indian Express

The Department of Tourism (DOT), Philippines will be conducting training sessions in Ahmedabad and Delhi this February, in conjunction with the DOT’s participation in OTM 2017 in Mumbai. The training sessions will be conducted by top suppliers from the Philippines in Ahmedabad on February 24 at Hyatt Ahmedabad and on February 27 in Delhi at The Lalit New Delhi. The objective of the workshop is to educate, interact and establish commercial ties with Indian trade in these cities. Representatives from DOT Philippines along with a 14 -member delegation will interact with over 400 key travel agents and tour operators, MICE and up-market leisure operators. SanJeet, Tourism Attaché, Philippines Tourism, said, “India being an important source market for Philippines tourism, such training sessions ( our first of 2017) will provide an excellent platform to showcase the destination’s products and services. The Indian travellers’ palate has become experimental and therefore, through our numerous trade initiatives, we envisage the influencers of the Indian travel market to sell the destination more effectively to the end consumers.” The programme for the workshop will include presentations by officials of DOT Philippines, DMCs and hotels from the Philippines in addition to Q&A, detailed networking sessions, entertainment by Filipino artists and a special lucky draw for the participants.

Oracle Hospitality along with Airpay Payment Services, recently conducted a closed-door workshop for CIOs and IT Heads of top hotels in Mumbai and New Delhi. About 25 in Mumbai and 37 in New Delhi attended the event. The first India Oracle Hospitality Customer Event had a compelling agenda and was designed to address questions on Oracle Hospitality and the solutions it offers for the hospitality industry. The half day event had three speakers discussing various topics such as technology trends in the hospitality industry in India and globally, and maximising guest services beyond the front desk. This was followed by an overview of its products – OPERA Cloud, Hotel Mobile and Simphony Cloud. Meanwhile Amit Kapoor, CEO & Co-Founder, Airpay, spoke about the payment services company’s association with Oracle Hospitality and how hotels can re-invent consumer engagement on their portals. The two speakers from Oracle Hospitality were Jay Sherman, Senior Manager, Sales Consulting, Hotel POS, Oracle Hospitality (Asia Pacific & Japan) and Travis Macauley, Solutions Manager – Hotels.

Working on boosting regional connectivity, Air India is starting new domestic routes and beefing up frequency on existing ones. A direct flight service to Port Blair will commence from Delhi in May this year. While responding to the constant public demand, Air India will also add second frequency on Delhi-Nagpur-Delhi, fourth frequency on Delhi-Ahmedabad-Delhi sector in March 2017 and second frequency on Delhi-Leh-Delhi sector in the month of May.

As part of its expansion drive and the success of the Delhi- San Francisco route, Air India is set to start another route to the United States and will start direct flight operations on Delhi-Washington-Delhi route in July 2017. This flight will be the fifth direct connection with the US and shall be operated by Boeing 777 aircraft. In addition to this, in May 2017, Air India is looking to offer a real treat to Indian travelers by connecting Bangkok, one of the most favored tourist destinations by starting direct flight operations on Chandigarh-Bangkok-Chandigarh and Kolkata-Bangkok-Kolkata sectors besides starting a second frequency from Delhi.

South African Tourism sets the pace for continued double digit growth in the coming year with its annual roadshow slated for this month. The roadshow will be held in Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai where suppliers from South Africa will network with Indian travel agents. Now in its 14th edition, the roadshow will start with Chennai on 30 January, and then go on to Bengaluru on 31 January, Delhi on 1 February and conclude in Mumbai on 3 February, 2017. About 10 per cent of the delegation will be first-timers and will include hotel chains, airlines, products, attractions, DMCs and local tourism offices. Indian agents will be able to meet representatives from boutique hotel chain Lion Roars Hotels & Lodges, adventure-focused attraction Tenikwa Wildlife, care-rental Multilayer Trade Corporation and DMC Africa Incoming. Domestic airline Safair has also signed up. Additionally, Air Seychelles (which many Indians use to fly to South Africa via Mahe) that is said to be starting a flight to Durban starting March will also be present. Hanneli Slabber, Country Manager, South African Tourism India, said, “Up until the third quarter of 2016, we noted that arrivals had grown by 26.6 per cent in comparison to 2015 and we hope to have closed the year at 27 per cent growth. By September 2016, our arrivals had hit 73,902. This makes India South Africa’s eighth-largest long-haul tourism source market.” The tourism board is expecting between 600-1,000 travel agents to attend the roadshow.