Tag Archives: Goa

StayWell Hospitality Group has launched its fifth property in India—Park Regis Goa. This is the largest property under the group’s portfolio. Spread over an area of 5 acres in Arpora, Park Regis Goa boasts a magnificent location featuring 96 Rooms & Suites each spread across 5500sqft with modern-décor, soothing warm colors, plush duvets, international standard mattresses and high quality bathroom amenities. Luxurious comfort with expansive, lavish spaces, a private bar and your own private balcony over-looking the plush greens. Simon Wan, CEO & Managing Director of StayWell Hospitality Group, has commented that the opening of Park Regis Goa is just the tip of the Group’s expansion in the region.”With four properties opened and an additional six under development, the growth opportunities for StayWell in India are extremely positive and exciting,” he said. The 96 room resort-style hotel is located in a prime position north of the main city of Goa, within close proximity to Goa’s iconic attractions Baga, Calangute and Anjuna Beaches. Boasting a large outdoor alfresco pool bar, cafe, restaurant, conference facilities, pool and gymnasium, Park Regis Goa will become a new class of accommodation in North Goa. Guest rooms are spaciously designed offering lavish inclusions such as handcrafted amenities, oversized bathtub and a private balcony overlooking lush surrounds. This is the second Park Regis hotel to open in India following the launch of Park Regis Jaipur in July 2015. Rohit Vig, Managing Director for India, StayWell Hospitality Group added that the group’s strategic plan is targeting an area of the Indian market with the biggest growth opportunities.”Ultimately, we are targeting India’s domestic travel segment. With a rapidly growing middle class with disposable income, the market is huge. We …

A portfolio of seven Premier Inn hotels located in two of Thailand’s top destinations, Bangkok and Pattaya, as well as India’s most visited cities, New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune and Goa, are being offered for sale through an international tender process with JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group. The tender for bids is scheduled from December 19 to 23, 2016. Owned by UK company Whitbread Hotels & Restaurants International, the portfolio offers two hotels in Thailand with a collective key count of 388: one property is located in the heart of Bangkok’s retail and entertainment precinct, Sukhumvit Soi 11, and is set to be completed in the first half of 2017; the other hotel is minutes away from Pattaya’s popular Second Road and enjoys close proximity to the town’s beaches, retail malls and famous Walking Street. Premier Inn’s India portfolio, comprising five hotels in prime locations in the nation’s best performing cities, will be among the largest hotel portfolios offered in India in recent times, with a total of 583 room keys. “Hotel portfolios with vacant possession, occupying prime central locations and of this scale are rare and hard to come by in the current market,” says Mr Mike Batchelor, Managing Director of Investments Sales, JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group, Asia. “There is an expected high level of interest from global, regional and domestic investors attracted to this opportunity as they are able to immediately rebrand the hotels to the operator of their choice upon purchase.” India continues to be ranked as one of the fastest growing economies in the world with a 2016 forecast GDP growth of 7.6 percent. On India’s growing hospitality investment sector, Paul Chakkrit, Senior Vice President, …

AirAsia will connect Bengaluru with Hyderabad and Goa from September 22. The airline would also operate flights between Bengaluru and Guwahati with daily service. This was announced at the company’s press conference where AirAsia disclosed its plans of expansion of its fleet along with starting new routes in India. As part of the proposed plans, it will induct 20 Airbus A320 aircraft to its India operation. “We want to expand our presence in India as a low cost player. We have put in very careful consideration about where we fly. It must be commercially viable at the end of the day. It is a very young market and will take time to stabilise,” says Amar Abrol, Chief Executive Officer, AirAsia India. The company at present has a market share of 2.2 per cent in the domestic business with an average load factor of 86 per cent. “AirAsia has ordered for 100 A320neo. As and when they are added to our fleet we expect those will be added to India operations also,” adds Abrol. He also pointed out that as of now the company is operating a single fleet but is also constantly evaluating other types of aircrafts. “It again depends on the demands in the areas where ATR can fly. There are no immediate plans,” he says. (Source: The Hindu)

HeyBnb (HeyBednBreakfast), a global company in the short stay accommodation space, has announced its entry into India with presence in cities like New Delhi, Bengaluru, Goa and Cochin. Headquartered in Singapore, the company works on the concept of shared economy of home sharing concept. It provides an online marketplace connecting hosts who want to make their extra rooms available and travelers who are looking for comfortable yet affordable short-term accommodations. Commenting on this, Kenny Blatt, Co-Founder, Head strategy, HeyBnb said, “We at HeyBnb are bullish about our expansion plans and we want to rope in as many guests & hosts as possible. We are focusing largely on key cities across Asia, Europe, US and Australia. In India alone, we started our operations this year with 17 cities and expect to increase our room count to 60,000 by end-October. The global size of the vacation stay market is expected to reach $170 billion by 2019, out of which five players own less than 10 per cent share, namely Home Away, Airbnb, VRBO, One Fine Stay and Tujian.”

Travelport and OYO has announced a new agreement whereby 6,000 hotel properties offered by OYO will be made available through Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform to its travel agency users, both in India and around the world. OYO currently operates in more than 180 Indian cities, including Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Goa. Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform connects hotel providers and independent properties to its 68,000 connected agencies worldwide, in turn, offering travellers more hotel choices as Travelport now offers 650,000 unique hotel properties. Kavikrut, Chief Growth Officer, at OYO said, “We are pleased to partner with Travelport and take our offerings to a wider audience. Both OYO and Travelport are recognised for leveraging innovative technology capabilities. We are confident of utilising this synergy to unlock new growth areas for both partners.” The agreement with OYO is the latest example of Travelport responding to the needs of its agents to add the hotel content they need in their local regions.  It also responds to the needs of hoteliers by giving them access to the international travel booking industry. Once on Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform, travel agents globally have access to the hotel content through their normal workflow, eliminating time-consuming and inefficient bookings across different channels.

National carrier, Air India has become the first airline to launch self check-in kiosks for its domestic fliers that aims to make the check-in process expeditious. The exclusive service presently covers 26 domestic centers at Aurangabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Calicut, Coimbatore, Cochin, Chennai, Goa, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jamnagar, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Nagpur, New Delhi, Mumbai, Mangalore, Raipur, Rajkot, Trivandrum, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam and Varanasi. Under this initiative, started on May 1, 2016, customers can procure the boarding pass by using the self-check-in kiosks also known as CUSS (Common Use Self Service) near the check-in area at the airport.

AirAsia Berhad will be suspending its three times weekly flights from Kuala Lumpur to Goa effective June 7, 2016, as part of its route rationalisation initiative. Guests that are affected by this will be offered options to alleviate any inconvenience that might occur. They will be notified directly via their registered member email account, as well as via an SMS notification. AirAsia strongly urges all guests to keep their email addresses and mobile numbers with their country code prefix updated in their AirAsia member profiles to ensure that the airline can reach them to assist them. Spencer Lee, Head of Commercial, AirAsia Berhad, said, “We take very careful considerations for every new route that we introduce. However, this suspension is due to our route rationalisation exercise. Despite this route adjustment, we remain committed to the Indian market and look forward to return to Goa in the future.” Affected guests for this route suspension will be able to choose from three options: move flight to an earlier date before the suspension, subject to availability, full credit shell with 180 days validity or full refund.

According to data released by Department of Tourism, Govt.of Goa, there was no drop in foreign tourist arrivals in 2015. A total of 52,97,902 tourists visited  Goa in 2015 which includes 47,56,422  domestic  tourists and  5,41,480 foreign tourists. While the state has recorded an overall 30.54 per cent increase in tourist arrivals for 2015, domestic tourist arrivals were up by 34 percent and foreign tourist arrivals up by 5.4 per cent. Tourist arrivals during the monsoons (June, July and August 2015) recorded a 22 per cent increase as against an 18 per cent increase in 2014. Foreign tourist arrivals to Goa from  UK, Russia, UAE, USA, Portugal, South Africa and many others have shown an increase in arrivals to the  State despite  continued recession and crises’ that hit the European regions. The eTV regime introduced by the Central government in December 2014 has also facilitated easy access of foreign tourists to Goa. Within a year (Till December 31, 2015) a total of 49,626 eTVs were issued to foreign tourists. Dilip Parulekar, Minister for Tourism, said, “We are extremely delighted to know that despite various negative geo-political situations across the globe these have not hit Goa Tourism in any way. We have received a good response from foreign and domestic tourists in 2015 as in the past. Our new initiatives, marketing and promoting is showing substantial results and we are optimistic that tourists will choose Goa as their destination for holidaying.”

Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) website will be made into an online booking portal to allow tour operators and tourists to sell and book packages to Goa at discounted rates. Private tour operators will be provided a login ID which will allow them to load their packages into the system and sell them based on commission rates, built into the portal. “We will be the first tourism board to launch such a service. A tourist can combine various activities with the packages like hot air balloon ride, paragliding, bungee jumping amongst other new products on the website, making Goa a 365-day destination. Even though we own the new product offerings, the services will be offered by the private sector where we will only be the facilitator and hand hold them for proper delivery,” said Nikhil Desai, Managing Director, GTDC. Goa Tourism is expecting at least 400,000 tourists to visit the state over three days during Goa Carnaval from February 6-9, 2016, Desai said during a press conference in New Delhi. Dilip Parulekar, Goa Tourism Minister, was also present. Parulekar said, “Goa Carnaval is one-of-a-kind event and people come from all over the globe. While the spirit of this celebration is contagious, we have taken into account aspects of safety, security and cleanliness which will ensure that the celebration is a truly memorable one.”

United Kingdom (UK) granted over 360,000 visitor visas, until September 2015, a 16.5 per cent increase year on year, according to recently released statistics. With the commercial partner VFS, UK offers 15 visa application centres across India, more than in any other country. Visa application centres are situated in Delhi, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Mumbai South, Mumbai North, Pune, Ahmadabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Cochin, Kolkata, Gurgaon, Jaipur and Goa. A number of premium services are offered to the UK Visa applicants at the Visa Application Centre (VAC). VFS Users can avail walk in appointments where urgent travellers or those who have missed their appointment, can pay Rs 2537 to get a walk in appointment. Digital Assistance is provided in filling out the visa application form on the visa4uk website. The staff reads out questions on the form, and records the answers verbatim on behalf of the applicant for an extra cost of Rs 400. Group Appointments is available for group travellers who can apply at the same visa application centre at a particular time and day. This service is extended to all groups including tour operators, large families, conferences etc for Rs 500 per application. Travellers can pay for their visa by cash at the VAC, using VFS Global’s Credit Card at an additional cost of Rs 1000 per transaction. Certification service enables travellers to keep hold of their original documents. Applicants need to bring original documentation to the VAC to show VFS staff, who photocopy the documents and send to the decision hub along with the application. This service costs Rs 50 per document page. In 2015, India became the second country to benefit from the British Irish Visa Scheme, allowing Indian …