Tag Archives: India

India is the fastest-growing business travel market in the world along with Indonesia and will average double-digit growth in business travel spending over the next five years, According to the GBTA BTI™ Outlook – Annual Global Report & Forecast, a new report released today by the GBTA Foundation, sponsored by Visa. However, at $291 billion, China has surpassed the United States as the largest business travel market in the world in 2015.

With annual growth of 18.8 per cent (in a market of 80 million domestic passengers), India’s performance surpassed that of Russia (11.9 per cent growth, in a market of 47 million domestic passengers), China (9.7 per cent growth, in a market of 394 million domestic passengers) and the United States (5.4 per cent growth, in a market of 708 million domestic passengers), as per International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) industry performance statistics for 2015. This information was included in the recently released 60th Edition of the World Air Transport Statistics (WATS), the yearbook of the airline industry’s performance. “Last year airlines safely carried 3.6 billion passengers— the equivalent of 48% of the Earth’s population—and transported 52.2 million tonnes of cargo worth around $6 trillion. In doing so, we supported some $2.7 trillion in economic activity and 63 million jobs,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO. Airlines in the Asia-Pacific region once again carried the largest number of passengers with a 34 per cent market share (1.2 billion passengers) registering an increase of 10 per cent compared to the region’s passengers in 2014.

Bird Travels has been appointed as the GSA for Avianca Brazil in India. “We are very delighted to represent and promote Avianca Brazil as their GSA in India. Avianca is a member of Star Alliance covering 22 domestic and one international destination with over 200 daily flights. It has a modern fleet of 41 Airbus aircraft. The major hub airports are Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Salvador. In India we are also entering the BSP very soon for wider distribution,” said Praful Khosla, Executive Vice President, Bird Travels.

India may soon roll out a long-term multiple-entry comprehensive visa by merging tourist, business, medical and conference visas into one to attract more visitors and boost trade. Tourists, businessmen or people coming for treatment or to attend conferences or even for film shoots can be covered under the proposed new category, which was first mooted by the commerce ministry following a suggestion by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to boost services trade. The long-term, multiple-entry visa is likely to be given up to 10 years but under this category the visitor will not be allowed to work or stay permanently, a government official, who is part of the deliberations, said. As per the proposal, if a foreigner is granted long-term, multiple-entry non-working or non-permanent stay visa and his or her stay is restricted to 60 days on a visit, the government may waive the visa fee as well. However, the visitors have to give biometric details and fulfill certain security obligations, the official said. The home ministry is working on the proposal and, hopefully, it will be implemented soon, the official said. The plan is part of the commerce ministry’s initiatives to boost India’s services trade. Source: PTI

POP, the new low-cost, long-haul airline on the anvil, plans to operate non-stop flights from the UK to Amritsar (ATQ) and Ahmedabad (AMD). POP directly targets these whilst offering the business sector two new routes with a tailored, non-stop service. The needs of the VFR and leisure/tourism markets will be met at affordable prices that will ensure market penetration by word of mouth. Nino (Navdip) Singh Judge, Chairman and Principal of POP, commented: “POP is different – it is going to be a UK airline whose DNA is Indian. The Punjabi and Gujarati communities in both the UK and India historically have had strong family and business connections and that desire for both communities to keep in touch and visit each other has not abated over the years. Add to that India’s booming economy and the rise of the middle classes – including the expansion in their numbers, their larger disposable income, their increasing spending power and their insatiable desire to travel all means there are vast numbers of potential passengers waiting for an airline like POP to offer them the opportunity to fly. Combine the fact that passengers are contributing to the improvement of their own society in both the UK and India – perhaps even helping a village or an individual known to them personally – means there is an excellent chance for POP’s two proposed routes to Amritsar and Ahmedabad of being a great success.” Currently flights between the UK and India are predominantly between London Heathrow and just two main destinations, Mumbai and Delhi, and three supporting ones, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad. There are also a number of indirect UK to India routes through the Middle …

The Union Cabinet under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the signing of Air Services Agreement between India-Taipei Association in Taipei (India’s representative office in Taiwan) and Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India (Taiwan’s representative office in India). Presently there is no formal Air Services Agreement between India and Taiwan and the Air Services are governed by an MoU exchanged between Air India Charters Limited (AIRL) and Taipei Airlines Associations (TAA). The Air Services Agreement signifies an important landmark in the civil aviation relations between India and Taiwan, and has the potential to spur greater trade, investment, tourism and cultural exchanges between the two parties.

India will soon open its sixth consulate in Seattle to cater to the needs of large number of Indian-Americans living in the North West part of the US. “We hope to open a new Indian consulate in Seattle,” Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar said after the conclusion of the talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama at the White House. This was reflected in a joint statement issued after Modi-Obama talks. “Both sides committed to open additional consulates in each other’s country. India will be opening a new consulate in Seattle and the US will open a new consulate at a mutually agreed location in India,” the joint statement said. Apart from its embassy in Washington, India currently have consulates in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston and Atlanta.

Costa Cruises is all set to sail from Mumbai starting December 2016 until March 2017. Nalini Gupta, Head, Costa Cruises India and MD, Lotus Destinations, said, “Costa cruise will be homeporting Costa neoClassica in Mumbai port from December 23, 2016 to March 18, 2017. During this period, we will be doing seven nights sailing from Mumbai to Maldives and seven nights return to Mumbai with interesting Indian ports enroute.” The move would finally put India on the cruising map. The seven day itinerary ex-Mumbai goes to Mangalore and then to Cochin, and finally to Maldives. The 7 day itinerary ex-Maldives takes guests to Colombo), Goa and finally Mumbai. The cruise liner that will be operating on this route can accommodate around 1800 people.

India and the US have signed an MoU to facilitate hassle-free entry of Indians into the US at selected airports by providing speedy security clearances for pre-approved, low-risk travellers from the country. India is only the ninth country with which the US has entered into this International Expedited Traveller Initiative (also known as the Global Entry Programme), reflective of the growing relationship between the two largest democracies of the world. The move would take a few months to implement and will provide speedy security clearances for pre-approved, low-risk Indian travellers upon arrival in US at selected airports. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Indian Ambassador to the US Arun K Singh and Kevin K McAleenan, Deputy Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection. “After joint scrutiny and clearance by both countries, the approved Indian travellers will be extended the facility of expedited entry into the United States through automatic kiosks at select airports,” a statement said, adding, the procedures are expected to be completed in the coming months. “Expedited entry for the Indian travellers under this programme at the US airports will enable further easing of travel environment, and will have positive impact on all kinds of people-to-people exchange between our two countries,” Arun K Singh said at the MoU signing ceremony. He said strengthening people-to-people ties between the two countries has been at the very core of Prime Minister’s vision of India’s bilateral relationship with the US. “In the last two years, several initiatives have been taken by the Government of India for easing travel from the United States to India, which includes issuance of long term visas and introduction of electronic-tourist visas for US citizens.” “India’s …

The Union Cabinet has given its approval for signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Qatar for strengthening cooperation in the field of Tourism. The main objectives of the MoU are to create favourable conditions for long-term co-operation in tourism, exchange expertise, publications, information/data and statistics related to tourism, encourage cooperation through the exchange of programmes, propaganda and marketing of their tourism products via media etc. The MoU also entails exchange visits of tour operators and media for promotion of two way tourism. It will also encourage co-operation between tourism sectors, tour operators, travel agents and other tourism private sector’s firms and bureaus in the two countries. Qatar is an emerging tourism source markets for India (India received approximately 6313 tourists from Qatar in 2015). Qatar is a potential market for India in terms of Medical tourism and provides vast opportunity for India in this field. The signing of MoU with Qatar will be instrumental in increasing arrival from this emerging source market.