Tag Archives: Thailand

Cross Hotels and Resorts are holding an exclusive webinar for the Indian travel trade on 25th May, 2020 at 2:30 pm IST. For more information, please contact Harish Chhetri on 9650196521 or sales@crosshotelsandresorts.in. To attend the webinar please register on this link, https://event.webinarjam.com/register/113/1n728ak9. The key note speaker for the webinar from Thailand is Yui, Group Director of Sales, Cross hotels and resorts. The webinar will elaborate on one of the leading hotel chains in SE Asia, Cross Hotels and Resorts .

The Tourism Ministry of Thailand plans to return registration deposits to local tour operators amounting to 1.4 billion baht. The Tourism Department has this budget collected from inbound, outbound and domestic tour companies paying 50,000-200,000 baht per licence. To implement the policy, each company will receive 50-70% of the deposit back to help solve financial stagnation.  

The percentage shares of top 15 source countries availing e-Tourist Visa facilities during November, 2019 were highest from UK (12.22%), followed by USA (10.75%), China (8.06%), Russian Fed (7.85%), Malaysia (5.71%), France (4.61%),Germany (4.60%), Australia (4.16%), Canada (3.85%), Thailand (3.25%), Italy (2.32%), Singapore (1.87%), Spain (1.64%), Vietnam (1.50%) and Israel (1.40%), reveals Ministry of Tourism.

The Maintenance, Repairs & Overhaul (MRO) Association of India (MAOI) has appealed to the Finance Ministry to, on priority, fix the lop-sided tax policies to create a level playing field between the Indian MRO industry and foreign MROs. The MAOI has stated that in the current financial year 2018 -19, the industry has registered negative growth. With 90 per cent of the MRO requirements of India being imported, the import driven policy has lost 90,000 direct jobs to countries like Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, France and Germany. The MAOI has made recommendations to the government for the future and growth of the Indian MRO industry: reduce GST for Indian MRO services to 5 per cent to bring it on par with foreign MRO services. Alternatively, customs duty on MRO services (where such capabilities exist in India as per DGCA CAR 145 approved organisations list) should be applied at 18 per cent on all imports and grant of ‘infrastructure’ status to MRO industry. Bharat Malkani, President, MAOI, says, “Based on data from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), the current fleet of 550 airliners is expected to grow to 1000 by 2023. The government is focused on creating new infrastructure and is encouraging domestic carriers to expand their fleet size. While this is a positive development for Indian Aviation, it has no bearing on its immediate ancillary MRO sector. This is because the present GST for importing MRO services to India is levied at 5 per cent, whereas the same services offered at home are taxed at GST of 18 per cent. Of the several requests we are making to the Ministry through the pre-budget memorandum, our highest priority is to have the GST …

The Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE) recently recognised Destinos India with a ‘Crystal Award for Best Destination-based Incentive Travel Program’ at the Crystal Awards Recognition Ceremony held during SITE Global Conference 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. Considered the highest honour in the Incentive Travel industry, SITE Crystal Awards recognise creative, practical, and truly memorable incentive programmes that not only keep employees engaged, but also drive business results. Annamaria Ruffini, CIS, CMP, SITE President 2018, commented, “As the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence, it’s only fitting that we have our own reward and recognition programme to highlight excellence in incentive travel. The Crystal Awards programme is a long-standing SITE tradition, part of our association since 1980 and a hotly-contested, much-anticipated annual event. It confers the highest honour in our industry to incentive travel professionals who have clearly demonstrated how incentive travel leads to business results.” Destinos India selected the crown of “Incredible India” – Delhi, Agra and Jaipur – as the triple-city destination to provide the experience of a lifetime for 140 qualifiers from all over the world. Sanjay Malhotra, Director, Destinos India, commented, “Right after our inception as a DMC, this was the first dream project to put our heart and soul in to deliver an incredible incentive voyage. With detailed research, offbeat vision, sagacity, prevision, dedication and micromanagement, backed by hard work by our experienced, professional and enthusiastic team, we transformed all possible challenges to opportunities and presented an incentive journey to cherish for a lifetime. This award becomes even more special and important for us as we have got it in the very first year of our existence.” Randir Brar, Director, Destinos India, added, “It is a special …

As one of the top 10 source markets of visitor arrivals for Thailand, India generates more than one million tourists in a year, revealed Tanes Petsuwan, Deputy Governor for Marketing Communications, Tourism Authority of Thailand. Talking at a product briefing networking lunch in Delhi, he said, “From January to November 2018, arrivals from India were up by 12.03 per cent to 1.42 million, generating an estimated 63 billion baht in tourism income.”

Thai Airways will operate triple daily making a total of 21 flights a week from Delhi to Bangkok and beyond. The additional day flights starting from February 3, 2019 will offer more options to passengers travelling to destinations within Thailand (Phuket and Chiang-Mai), Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Mainland China, Australia and New Zealand. Increase in services to Bangkok will enable the airline to capitalise on the steadily growing round-the-year demand on the highly popular sector, offering guests greater flexibility and choice throughout the day, and helping create a far superior and well-differentiated travel experience for them. Thamanoon Kuprasert, General Manager – India, Thai Airways, said, “Being the first service provider to Thailand from Delhi, Thai Airways has sustained itself successfully in Delhi since 1969 by offering world-class reliable services to passengers for Thailand, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It is our endeavour to ensure that our passengers enjoy a comfortable and happy journey on THAI. We are constantly improvising as per customers’ expectations.”

The Government of Thailand has decided to extend the waiver on the 2000-baht visa-on-arrival fee for Indian nationals till April end to boost tourism in the country. The waiver was set to end early January, but the cabinet decided to extend it to allow foreign tourists to Thailand during the Chinese New Year in February and the Songkran festival in the middle of April.

To ensure a seamless golf experience exclusive to Thailand, The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), New Delhi, has launched the Thai Golf Pass Season-II after the success of  first-ever golf loyalty programme for any country. The new season of the programme aims to offer exciting rewards on redemption of loyalty points. The focus of Thai Golf Pass Season-II is to integrate its website with travel partners’ website while increasing the number of loyalty partners to 200 and membership’s base to cover 5000 golfers. Besides bringing all the suppliers under one platform, TAT is also looking to organise promotional events in India and Thailand. On the occasion, Isra Stapanaseth, Director, Tourism Authority of Thailand, New Delhi, said, “Amazing Thailand is a paradise for golfers with more than 250 international standard golf courses, professional caddies, warm hospitality, wellness and food, and entertainment. We are looking forward to Indian golfers to become a part of this loyalty programme and experience the services and offers.”

Thailand-based low-cost carrier (LCC) is set to launch four weekly direct flights connecting New Delhi and Bangkok from December 19, 2018. It has also announced a special promotional one-way Economy Class fare starting from Rs 7,200 (USD 99), inclusive of taxes and surcharges. The special promotional fares are available from December 07 to 31, 2018 for travel between December 19, 2018 to March 30, 2019. The new services will be operated with Boeing 777-200 wide-bodied, twin-aisle jets. Configured with a total of 415 seats, the Boeing 777 offers an unprecedented LCC level of comfort to customers with 24 seats in ScootBiz Class and 391 seats in Economy. Giam Ming Toh, Deputy CEO, NokScoot, said, “We are proud to announce NokScoot’s inaugural service from Delhi to Bangkok on December 19, 2018.  This route marks our first ever service to South Asia and follows the launch of services to Tokyo Narita in June 2018 and Osaka Kansai in October 2018.”