Category: Top Stories

Alan Faena and Len Blavatnik of Faena Group, together with Sébastien Bazin, Chairman and CEO of Accor have announced the launch of a global strategic partnership focused on expanding the Faena brand around the globe. Faena, one of the world’s most impactful brands in the luxury lifestyle and hospitality industry, and Accor, a world-leading hospitality group with an unparalleled brand portfolio and more than 5,000 properties across 110 countries, have partnered to expand the Faena brand to strategic destinations worldwide. Alan Faena will work in partnership with Accor to break new ground, developing Faena Districts in select global destinations.  This ... Read more

In a boost for Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club, members in the UK can sign up to Virgin Red, Virgin’s new rewards club. Through the Virgin Red app and website, which celebrates its members for living a life more Virgin, Flying Club members will unlock a wealth of new earning and spending options overnight, across a wide range of products and services from the Virgin family and beyond. New and existing Flying Club members in the UK can now enroll in Virgin Red and seamlessly link their Flying Club account, creating a shared Virgin Points balance that they can use across ... Read more

The Ministry of Tourism’s Dekho Apna Desh Webinar series held its 76th webinar titled “Vocal for Local: Empowering Local Communities: Gujarat Experience”  on 13th February 2021. The tourism sector has a huge effect in India by providing immense economic opportunities to the local community. Entrepreneurship has been identified as an essential factor for creating job opportunities, generating income, increasing standard of living, and generally growing the income levels of local communities through tourism. The webinar discussed the empowerment of local communities around Kevadia, the site of Statue of Unity, and the Weaves of Gujarat which is a tourism product in itself.  ... Read more

The world has been gripped by the coronavirus for the past year. Although we are still going through unprecedented fears, the advent of the vaccine has made things a lot easier. Many areas where the corona is badly spread are on the path to recovery. Of these, tourism is the most notable. Many countries have now resumed tourism since the Corona era when tourism was rampant. It was a difficult time with lockdowns, international travel bans, cancellations of flights, and the closure of countries. But with the advent of the corona vaccine, most of the closed ones were opened. Many ... Read more

After some lean months during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fat Thursday finally brought some cheer to Polish confectioners as their sweet-toothed customers feasted on doughnuts. On the last Thursday before Lent, the period when Christians traditionally fast before Easter, Poles stuff their faces with doughnuts in a festival of calorific indulgence. “The pandemic has obviously had an effect on our sales, a negative effect of course,” Pawel Sypniewski, owner of the Sucre Patisserie in Warsaw, told Reuters. “Fat Thursday is crucial for my business because the months of January and February are quite dead in our industry.” Poles will consume almost ... Read more

Fifty-nine couples in Thailand got married while riding elephants on Sunday, in an annual Valentine’s Day mass wedding ceremony at a botanical garden in a province east of Bangkok. Dancers and a band led the procession of elephants and couples and a local official, also on an elephant, oversaw the signing of the marriage license. “For me, I’ve been planning for a long time that if I were to sign a marriage license one day, it must be an extraordinary event,” said groom Patiphat Panthanon, 26, sitting beside his 23-year-old bride. The elephant-back wedding is an annual event at the ... Read more

Air travellers to Canada will have to quarantine in a hotel for three days at their own expense starting February 22. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released the official date at a press conference on February 12, about two weeks after introducing the new coronavirus safety measure. Air travellers must also take a quarantine test once they arrive at the airport. The prime minister said that the three-day quarantine in a government facility is meant to allow enough time for the results of a PCR test to come through. These coronavirus tests are more accurate than rapid testing, Trudeau said. “The decision ... Read more

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated 520 km of the first phase of the National Waterway, marking a new chapter in the transport and tourism sector of Kerala. Simultaneously, the initial work of the second phase began. Inaugurating the project, the Chief Minister said that since the coming to power of this government, there has been a huge growth in the transport sector. That change is reflected not only in road transport but also in the air and water transport sectors. At the same time, with the setting up of the National Waterway, new possibilities are opening up. With the provision ... Read more

The Union Minister of State for Culture & Tourism, Shri Prahlad Singh Patel co-chaired the 8th Meeting of ASEAN-India Tourism Ministers meeting with Minister of Tourism of Cambodia H.E. Dr. Thong Khon through video conferencing today. The Meeting was in conjunction with the 24th Meeting of ASEAN Tourism Ministers (M-ATM). Shri Patel highlighted India’s historical and cultural links with ASEAN countries and reiterated that ASEAN is a key market for Buddhist Tourism in India which generates major tourist traffic for the Buddhist Circuit and the Ministry of Tourism has invested in a major way to upgrade infrastructure in the circuit. The ... Read more

The Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, the Hon. Dan Tehan MP has today announced the launch of Tourism Australia’s latest domestic marketing campaign Event Here This Year to support the recovery of Australia’s business events industry. First launched in the wake of the 2019/20 summer bushfires, the dedicated Event Here This Year recovery campaign seeks to drive increased demand across the sector by promoting the value of face-to-face events and showcasing the breadth and quality of Australia’s business events offering. The new campaign, which is being delivered as part of a broader domestic strategy to aid the industry’s recovery following the ongoing impact ... Read more

Ginger strengthens its footprint in southern India with the signing of two new hotels in Kochi – at Kochi Airport and Kalamassery commercial hub, respectively. Both hotels will be designed around the brand’s design and service philosophy of offering a vibrant, contemporary, and seamless hospitality experience to its guests. Commenting on the twin-signing, Ms Deepika Rao, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Ginger Hotels, said, “It is a proud moment for us. With these two signings, we enter Kochi – an important focus market for Ginger. These hotels will cater to distinct and high demand micro-markets of Kochi. We are delighted ... Read more

The Ministry of Tourism’s Dekho Apna Desh Webinar series titled “Astro- Tourism: The Next Frontier of Nature-based Tourism” held on 06th February 2021 focused on promoting nature-based tourism which is emerging strongly in a post – COVID world, the major thrust of the webinar was sustainable and responsible travel. The webinar focused on exploring the evolution of Astro-tourism as one of the most authentic and environment-friendly ways of traveling along with its immense potential to bring positive social, economic, and conservation benefits to remote communities. The webinar began with the opening remarks by Smt. Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General, Ministry ... Read more

The outlay for Annual Budget 2021-22 of the Ministry of Tourism is Rs. 2026.77 Crore as against the outlay (Rs. 1260.00 Crore) approved for the revised Budget Plan 2020-21. Briefing media about the various budgetary provisions benefitting the tourism sector in New Delhi today, Secretary Tourism, Shri Arvind Singh said that the annual outlay in FY 2021-22 is 61% higher than the revised annual outlay in FY 2020-21. Out of the proposed budget allocation of Rs 2026.77 crores, about Rs. 950.00 crores would be used for the creation of tourism infrastructure at different destinations spread over different States and about ... Read more

A UK health agency has analyzed cities across the world and come up with a definitive ranking of the top places to live. Netherlands’ capital city Amsterdam was a clear winner, with manageable obesity levels, more than 400 outdoor activities, and the third-highest happiness index. Two Australian cities feature prominently in the list, coming in second and 11th place, out of 44 cities. The Healthy Lifestyles Cities Report used ten markers to decide if a city lent itself to healthy living. In each city, researchers looked at the cost of a bottle of water, the pollution index score, how many ... Read more

Countries could relax border controls and allow more travel if there’s a set of standards for vaccine certification that immigration authorities can use to help determine entry policies, Singapore Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said. “That is really the light at the end of the long tunnel,” Ong said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday. “With vaccination and vaccination certification, we can start to relax some border measures to allow some travel to start happening within the course of this year.” Ong said he “wasn’t holding his breath” for a V-shaped recovery in aviation, but was hopeful that ... Read more