Category: Round Up

The Indian Railways is working on a much-awaited project to connect the Char Dham sites in Uttarakhand through a 327-km-long railway line, ANI has reported. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, taking to Twitter, announced that the Indian Railways is going to make the Char Dham Yatra easy for crores of devotees. “Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Railways is going to make the Char Dham Yatra easy for crores of devotees. Devotees will be able to travel by rail to visit Gangotri, Yamunotri, Badrinath, and Kedarnath situated in the holy plains of Uttarakhand,” Goyal tweeted. The railway line will ... Read more

The State and Central governments should support the tourism sector by offering moratorium on loan repayments for a period of 24 months, says Prasad Manjali, Director of Contour Group of Hotels & Resorts. They could also look at supporting salary payments of the hospitality and tourism employees, notes Manjali, who is also the Managing Director & CEO of Citrine Hospitality Ventures. He says the cost of property maintenance including basic salaries of staff, lease payments, generator fuel expenses and electricity was tough to deal with. The staff panicked as they realised that the pandemic had created instability, he says in ... Read more

Covid-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented crisis in the tourism ecosystem, however the crisis presents an opportunity to rethink the tourism ecosystem for a more sustainable and resilient future. Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of State for Tourism and Culture, has said that the pandemic  opened new opportunities for development getting all the stakeholders together to fight against this situation. “We have been able to open all the monuments, hotels and soon we will be able to open the banquet halls in half capacity. We have been able to revive the air travel to a certain extent and we will continue ... Read more

The President of the Wayanad Tourism Organisation (WTO), K R  Vancheeswaran, says that since properties in Wayanad are largely MSMEs, the chances of them closing down are very high.The quick buck makers are bound to close down, while the more serious and resilient ones will weather the storm and get back on their feet, he says. There are many fly-by-night operators who have already shut shop, Vancheeswaran, says in an exclusive interview, which is part of our mini-series Wayanad Matters. This being a glamour industry there are many who can’t even openly state their plight, for it will affect their pride. ... Read more

A new in-depth data dashboard highlighting the recovery of travel demand across flights and hotels, as well as revealing the shifting intentions of travellers through online travel searches, has been launched by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). The one-stop data shop or Interactive COVID-19 Travel Demand Recovery Dashboard was developed by WTTC, which represents the global Travel & Tourism private sector, with support from McKinsey & Company. This unique tool provides users with easy access to qualitative and quantitative travel data at the global and regional level as well as for 33 major countries around the world, by ... Read more

Passengers will have to pay Rs 10 extra for their air travel from September 1 as the Ministry of Civil Aviation has decided to revise the rates of aviation security fee (ASF) for domestic and international passengers. According to officials, the ASF for domestic flyers will be increased by Rs 10 to Rs 160 while the international passengers will have to pay $5.2 instead of the current $4.85. The ASF is used to fund the security arrangement at airports across the country. The ASF was hiked last year to Rs 150 from Rs 130, and international passengers were charged $4.85 ... Read more

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has started a special safety audit of all Indian airlines, two weeks after the plane crash in Kerala’s Kozhikode in which 18 people were killed, a senior official of the aviation regulator said on Thursday. “It will be a complete FOQA (Flight Operations Quality Assurance) audit,” he said. The FOQA is the process of obtaining and analysing all kinds of data from flights to improve the safety and efficiency of future flight operations, PTI reports. “All Indian airlines will undergo the special safety audit that has begun. In the first phase, we are ... Read more

The Association of Tourism Trade Organisations India (ATTOI) has urged the Indian government to initiate direct flights between Thiruvananthapuram and various European cities, to rekindle interest among European guests to visit the state of Kerala. ATTOI President Vinod CS has said that starting air travel services to cities like Frankfurt, London, Zurich and Dublin will help to rejuvenate the tourism sector in Kerala, especially in the post-COVID scenario. “The greater connectivity to Europe will help European travellers to visit us more often, thus contributing more foreign exchange earnings for the state,” he said. “I hope the Central government can expedite ... Read more

Kerala’s Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran has termed the Central Government decision to lease out the Thiruvananthapuram Airport to Adani Enterprises as a “big scam”. “This is daylight robbery. Despite our requests, the airport has been leased to the Adani group, which is a large conglomerate,” the minister said. Adani has won the rights to operate the airport for 50 years. The Kerala government has been opposing privatisation of the Thiruvananthapuram airport for a long time. The state had even expressed willingness to create a separate company to run the airport. The minister termed the privatization move as unacceptable citing that ... Read more

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved the proposal for leasing out three airports, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram, to Adani Enterprises that won these in an auction last year. Billionaire Gautam Adani-led private developer had emerged as the successful bidder in a global competitive bidding conducted by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).  The AAI will get an upfront amount of Rs 1,070 crore from handing over the airports to the private developer, said Union minister Prakash Javadekar. “The upfront amount of Rs 1,070 crore that will come to AAI will be used for developing airports in smaller airports. The other benefit ... Read more

India is negotiating with 13 countries, including Australia, Japan and Singapore, to establish separate bilateral air bubble arrangements for international flight operations, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said. Under a bilateral air bubble pact, airlines of both the countries can operate international flights with certain restrictions. Puri said on Twitter air bubbles have also been proposed with our neighbours Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal and Bhutan. Since July, India has established such bubbles with the following countries – the US, the UK, France, Germany, the UAE, Qatar and the Maldives. “We are now taking these efforts forward & ... Read more

The cost of the restrictions on travel introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is there for all to see. Between January and May, the sudden and rapid fall in tourist arrivals cost an estimated $320 billion. That’s three times greater than the impact of the Great Recession of 2007-2009 on our sector – and this is just for the first five months of the year,UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili has said. The re-opening of borders to tourism is a welcome relief to millions who depend on our sector. But this alone is not enough, especially in view of recent announcements and ... Read more

KTM President Baby Mathew Somatheeram has said the state government’s announcement to support the tourism sector with a financial package, should have come earlier. “I am happy that such a move has happened at least now, though there has been some delay. It should have happened earlier. For months, KTM has been trying to ask the government for this support. Every month we have been following up,” he said. Still, many things are yet to be announced, he added. For example, support for the houseboat sector. KTM had met with the chief minister and tourism minister, finance minister, industries minister ... Read more

The Kerala government will shortly announce a relief package aimed at homestays and houseboats, CKTI President EM Najeeb has said. CKTI President EM Najeeb said he has personally met the minister to congratulate him for the relief package announced. “The government’s relief package is a morale booster for the entire Kerala tourism industry. The industry will stand united and support the government,” he said. “The minister has assured me that shortly the government will announce a relief package for homestays, houseboats and guides,” Najeeb said. “Kerala’s tourism sector will get rejuvenated by this move. Considering that the Union government has ... Read more

The Fern Hotels & Resortshas opened a new property called The Fern Royal Farm Resort in Anjar-Kutch, Gujarat, in a move that could give confidence to others in the hospitality industry. This is the 20th hotel which the company is managing in the state. Overall, the company’s count has extended to 76 hotels across the country and in Nepal and Seychelles. Suhail Kannampilly, the CEO of the company said, “We are growing from strength to strength in Gujarat. This is our 20th property in the state and we are expecting to open a few more hotels in Gujarat over the coming months”. The Fern Royal Farm Resort, ... Read more