Tag Archives: February

Adventure Tour Operators’ Association of India (ATOAI) is all set to organise Adventure Tour Summit from April 26-28, 2018. Captain Swadesh Kumar, President, ATOAI, reveals that they had requested the Ministry of Tourism to declare 2018 as the ‘Year of Adventure Tourism’. He claims that it took them almost three months to convince MOT, and now they will organise activities related to this every month of this year in India. “Under this, we have requested the ministry to put adventure as the theme as part of its advertisement. We are doing a mega show where we are inviting 500 tour operators, travel agents and media from across the world from April 26-28, 2018. The aim is to make India’s incoming business for adventure tourism double in three years. The celebration will start from Delhi in January when we will be doing a roadshow, where we wish to have a seminar on an industry level and talk about adventure tourism. February we will be going to Maharashtra, and we will be carried on. One important thing we will be doing is that we will be launching the guidelines for adventure tourism in this country—guidelines for sustainable tourism, good practices and safety,” he elaborated.

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) is planning to organise a day-long symposium in Mumbai in the third or fourth week of February 2017. The symposium will focus on issues like e-visas for inbound traffic, visa challenges for outbound traffic from India, GST and other topics that the Union Budget will touch upon. Sharing more details, Pradip Lulla, Vice President, TAFI, said, “We will get experts to address our members who will be not from Mumbai but also from Pune and surrounding areas. We will also invite stakeholders like airlines and consulates. Topics are yet to be firmed up.” TAFI had conducted a similar symposium in New Delhi in October 2016 where it had also launched its new logo. “We want to replicate this in other metro cities as well and discuss topics that are relevant for that particular region,” Lulla added.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand New Delhi has confirmed the temporary waiver of visa fees for Indian tourists travelling to the Kingdom from Dec 1, 2016, to Feb 28, 2017. The Thai cabinet has also decided to halve the visa-on-arrival fees from 2000 baht to 1000 baht. Along with India, the move applies to 18 other countries including Andorra, Bulgaria, Bhutan, China, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Romania, San Mario, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The three-month tourism promotion measure is aimed at boosting the number of visitors by 350,000 and generating an income of 28 billion baht.

Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) during February 2016 were 8.47 lakh as compared to FTAs of 7.61 lakh during February 2015 and 7.56 lakh in February 2014. There has been a growth of 11.3% in February 2016 over February 2015. FTAs during the period January-February 2016 were 16.91 lakh with a growth of 9.0% as compared to the FTAs of 15.52 lakh with a growth of 2.5% in January-February 2015 over January-February 2014.The Percentage share of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during February, 2016 among the top 15 source countries was highest from Bangladesh (12.96%) followed by USA (12.94%), UK (12.45%), Canada (4.71%), Sri Lanka (3.86%), Germany (3.51%), France (3.46%), Malaysia (3.34%), China (3.08%), Russian Federation (3.07%), Australia (2.69%), Japan (2.37%), Thailand (2.28%), Nepal (1.69%) and Afghanistan (1.65%). The Percentage share of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during February 2016 among the top 15 ports was highest at Delhi Airport (32.33%) followed by Mumbai Airport (17.24%), Chennai Airport (7.33%), Haridaspur Land check post (6.98%), Bangalore Airport (5.66%), Goa Airport (4.52%), Kolkata Airport (4.21%), Hyderabad Airport (2.69%), Cochin Airport (2.65%), Ahmedabad Airport (2.18%), Gede Rail (2.00%), Sonauli Land check post (1.58%), Trivendrum Airport (1.48%), Amritsar Airport (1.44%) and Tiruchirapalli Airport (1.27%). Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs) during February 2016 were Rs 13,627 crore as compared to Rs. 11,642 crore in February 2015 and Rs. 11,510 crore in February 2014. The growth rate in FEEs in rupee terms during February 2016 over February 2015 was 17.1% as compared to the growth of 1.1% in February 2015 over February 2014. FEEs from tourism in rupee terms during January-February 2016 were Rs. 27,296 crore with a growth of 15.0% as compared to the FEE …

GoAir has started to commercially operate night flights to Port Blair Veer Savarkar International Airport. Its maiden commercial charter flight G8 1291 took off from Bengaluru at 23:15 hrs on January 20, and landed at Port Blair airport at 01:50 hrs. As a part of its charter operations, GoAir will operate three night flights in this sector in January, five night flights in February and six night flights in March. All flights will arrive at Port Blair from Bengaluru at 1.50 am and depart for Bengaluru from Port Blair VSI Airport at 2.20 am. Effective March 27, 2016 and as per its new summer schedule, GoAir will also start operating its first ever daily direct flights to Port Blair from Bengaluru.