Tag Archives: Director

Akanksha Garg Dewan, Director, Waxpol Hotel and Resorts, was awarded the Gold Maya at the East India Travel Awards 2016 for the Face of the Future. Dewan has been a pioneer in promoting sustainable tourism and resorts with negligible carbon footprints in Sundarbans and West Bengal. She has also been instrumental in putting Dooars that opened in 2008. She has not only created a niche in the region, but has even taken the brand to Madhya Pradesh.

The maiden edition of Travel Wedding Show will be inaugurated by Shaji Thomas, Director, Destination Tourism Development, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority along with Rajeev Jain, Director, Rashi Entertainment and Rajnish Rathi, Publisher/Editor, Wedding Affair. This exclusive closed-door event, to be held from July 9-10, 2016, in Gurgaon, aims to bring together a selective list of 30 exhibitors and 30 buyers under one roof. The first day will cater exclusively to wedding planners, while the second day will target specialised travel agents with experience of global weddings informed Sarika Rawal Bhambani, General Manager, Travel Wedding Show. “Travel Wedding Show aims to deliver real value by successfully targeting the right customers as well as the discerning wedding clients who have vast spending power and are frequent buyers of high quality fashion, jewellery and related services.” Speaking about the inaugural edition, Executive Chairman and Founder of PLG, Alwin Zecha said, “Our aim has always been to provide our clients with a complete range of services for all their business requirements with assistance from our experienced and dedicated staff. With this event, we intend on bringing the same level of expertise to the Indian market and thoroughly delighting our clients.”

Skyscanner, the flight search engine, has launched the Facebook messenger bot that lets users search for flights through the chat interface. Users will be able to enter destinations and receive flight prices, as well as ask for recommendations. Filip Filipov, Director, Skyscanner commented, “The messaging economy and conversational search are areas which we believe are incredibly important evolutionary features for the travel industry. It has been a top priority for us to take a pioneering approach when it comes to building a bot for the Messenger Platform. We want to make travel search as easily accessible as possible, and believe that the launch of our Messenger bot will allow more people to search for their travel in a fun and informative way.”

The International Healthcare Tourism Congress 2016 is going to be launched on March 18, at The Lalit Ashok Bangalore, Bengaluru, Karnataka. U.T Khader, Hon. Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Government of Karnataka will give the inaugural address while Dr. C. N. Manjunath, Director, Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Science & Research will give the keynote address. The two day long event will conclude on March 19. On Day 1, there will be seminars on telemedicine, infrastructure and economics of healthcare tourism, oncology followed by buyers and sellers meetings. Day 2 will witness seminars on dentistry & opthalmology, Ayush & wellness, organ transplant, destination marketing, and geriatric medicine.

Viset Sontichai, Director, Indian Sub-Continent (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh & Nepal), Thai Airways, has revealed that Thai Smile will start operations from Ahmedabad and Chandigarh to Bangkok very soon. However, Sontichai, who has recently taken over operations for the Indian Sub-continent, did not reveal any dates for this route as yet. But, he said that they are planning to launch the new route to cater to the growing Tier-II and Tier-III markets. He also said that among the new connections from India, they are planning to connect UK from Bangkok via India. However, instead of London they are planning to connect Manchester and Birmingham. He also revealed that they are planning to also start a flight from Islamabad to Manchester by the end of this year.

Namaste Turkey has launched a brochure for 2016-17 comprising of 48 pages and includes over 15 unique itineraries for Turkey and combination of Turkey & Greece. These programmes are commissionable to the travel agents and tour operators at 10 per cent. Subhash Motwani, Director, Namaste Turkey, who was recently in Cappadocia to forge an alliance with key partners, is optimistic that Turkey will be doing exceptionally well in 2016, given that Turkish Airlines has excellent connectivity to Europe, US and Africa and with a valid Schengen, UK or US or OECD country visa, you can get a Turkey visa online instantly. Namaste Turkey has also introduced for the first time eight-day full board cruises from Bodrum and Marmaris with guaranteed departures from May until October 2016. This too is commissionable to travel agents and tour operators.