Tag Archives: MD

Hotel Association of India has elected its new Executive Committee, and KB Kachru, Chairman Emeritus & Principal Advisor, South Asia at Radisson Hotel Group is the new President of the prestigious association for a two-year term. Vice President is Rohit Khosla, Executive Vice President, IHCL; JK Mohanty, MD Swosti Group is the Hony. Secretary and Sanjay Sethi, MD & CEO, Chalet Hotels, is the new Hony. Treasurer for the association. Two new EC members include Shashank Bhagat, MD, Radisson Blu Marina Hotel and Sonali Chauhan, General Manager, IHCL.

Sudeep Jain, MD, SWA, IHG Hotels & Resorts, has revealed that in the next 2-3 years, they plan to add another 52 hotels in South-West Asia, out of which 42 hotels will be added to their portfolio in India. “We also see potential of debuting our global brands such as Regent, Kimpton, Voco and the recently launched Vignette Collection, at the right time with the right partners, at the right location,” he claimed.

Naveen Kundu, MD, EbixCash Travel & Holidays, has said that while they keep doing something new, they are currently consolidating themselves in India because when we acquired companies in 2018-2019, we were hit by pandemic, which was bad. “We had made huge investments in India and it’s time to relaying our foundation and now everything is growing organically, and we are very focused in what we are doing,” he said.

Nikhil Desai, MD, GTDC, has said that a 1400 seat convention centre is being built in the capital city of Panjim. “That will take care of the medium sized conventions, both domestic and international. Apart from that we have plans to have a 5000 seater convention and expo centre right in Dona Paula, which is on the outskirts of Panaji City, with all facilities like hotels, parking and entertainments features.”

Pawan Jain, MD, Belair has shared that airlines are charging ₹300 as Refund Application Fee (RAF) to travel agents, which is illegal. “If this RAF is not written in the fare basis of the airline, then it’s not applicable. But airlines are pressurizing the agents to pay this amount, which used to be there in the times of paper tickets.”

Ravi Gosain, MD, Erco Travels, Tourism Enterprises and Saffron World B.V. & Vice President, IATO, has joined TravStack (Gutsytech Travel Solutions Pvt Ltd), as a Strategic Investor and Growth Consultant. Gosain said, “TravStak will help the travel agents to optimize their resources and work effectively. It will help them in doing their business by bringing technology to their fingertips.” TravStack (Gutsytech Travel Solutions Pvt Ltd), is a Travel technology Startup based out of Bangalore by 2nd time founders from IITs and other premiere institutes backed by Singapore Tourism Board, Forbes under 30 entrepreneurs and advisors from Google, Netflix etc. TravStack is on a mission to impact 1 million travel professionals. It provides readily adaptable SaaS tools for Tour Operators, Travel agents, Travel Advisors & other Travel Businesses. The product offerings includes smart Itinerary builder, white labelled travel store with CMS, holistic travel CRM with workflow automations.  All these solutions help travel and tourism professionals to improve their bandwidth, boost digital branding & improve customer buying behaviour.  Simultaneously, empowering all SMB and offline businesses with digitally transformative tech. “We are happy to onboard a tourism industry veteran Mr. Ravi Gosain as a Strategic Investor and Growth Consultant. He is currently the Managing Director, Erco Travels Pvt. Ltd, Tourism Enterprises and Saffron World B.V. He also holds a position of Vice president in IATO. His knowhow about Startups, technology and worldwide network will steer us in the right direction in terms of positioning our product to the prospective clients from travel industry. We would also appreciate his industry experience translating into product use cases and product market fit. We would like to closely work with travel and tourism associations to listen to …

Deepak Narula, MD, GRNconnect, has said that they are planning to launch DMC for Egypt and a DMC for India. “During COVID time – we focused a lot on technology and product upgradation by adding some Key Suppliers in our portfolio. Now we have ambitious plans on distribution front. We have made some major tie ups and we will go live on these platforms as early as Jan’22. We also plan to launch DMC for Egypt and a DMC for India.”

Government of Goa has constituted a 19-member tourism board and has dissolved three panels called the state-level promotion and marketing committee, the high-powered monitoring committee, and the state-level permission committee. Hence, all decisions pertaining to tourism in the state will be taken by this committee. Confirming the news, Nikhil Desai, MD, GTDC, has said that they have already been taking care of infrastructure, development and hotels under GTDC. The marketing had been taken care of by Goa Tourism, and will now be under the purview of the committee.

Baywatch Stayzz has been appointed as the GSA for The Fern Creek in Kodaikanal, which are experiential glam tents situated in the heart of Kodaikanal. Manish Kriplani, MD, Baywatch Stayzz and Baywatch Travels, says, “These are unique tents in 1.5 acres of land, offering experiential luxury for patrons. With 7 tents, one restaurant and indoor and outdoor lounge areas, they offer everything a traveller can ask for. We are also looking at expanding the number of tents in future.”

EbixCash Travels(Via.com) has taken the bold initiative to re-engage with the trade by conducting Travel Sub-agent Meets across the country, making sure that all COVID protocols are followed. Naveen Kundu, MD, EbixCash Travel Services (parent company of Via.com) says, “The aim behind these meets is to bring agents out of their post-COVID shells and from their offices/ homes, to get back to work and their business. These are small and medium enterprises, and we have been telling them that we as a conglomerate will help you with technology, credit lines, efficient payment remittances. When the partners and the principles meet together, they develop a camaraderie, which eventually will work in the favor of the customer, suppliers and the business. We must put in efforts to bring the business to normal, these are the efforts that we are making and rewarding them for staying through with us, even during the pandemic.” Now that the situation is getting better, EbixCash Travels (Via.com) is all out to support, reassure and extend help to its trade partners to grow their business because we believe in developing and keeping the connection personal with the community, and expanding it by creating physical community meetings. The meets are being conducted to have a closed group conversation with the partners to understand challenges and help them overcome them.