Category: Top Three Stories

Tourism industry body IATO has urged the government to provide immediate relief to the tourism sector, which has been severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the tour operators have been forced to lay off their staff, many have sent staff on furlough and those who are remaining are getting less than 30%, the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) said in a statement. In light of this, IATO has sought various relief measures from the government. This includes one-time financial grant of the gross salaries amount paid to the staff of tour operators on the basis of the ... Read more

NotOnMap, a social initiative for the marginalized across rural India and StayFlexi, the world’s first flexible and autonomous hospitality company based out of California have come together for their social initiative NotOnMart for rural India. NotOnMart in essence is a small scale community-led initiative that aims to scale up the coordination of micro-sized businesses. The project can turn out to be a major promoting factor for rural tourism, as it supports rural craftsmen. With this initiative, NotOnMap plans to support the livelihood of farmers and craftsmen of rural pockets by connecting them directly to the end-consumer through a tech-enabled platform ... Read more

Air India has been allowed to conduct ground handling operations at US airports. The airline has called the move as an opportunity for the future. The development has overturned a US Department of Transportation`s July 2019 order whereby Air India`s right to self-handle at US airports was suspended.   An Air India spokesperson said the airline was not affected due to this restriction by the US Department of Transportation to self handle at the US airports as it did not conduct any self-handling of its flights in the US. “However, the relaxation will give us an opportunity to self handle at ... Read more

The Kerala Tourism Department is trying to promote regional tourism through its new initiative called ‘Keralam Kanam’ or ‘Let’s see Kerala’, in which the people of the state are encouraged to visit the backwaters, beaches, hill stations and houseboats to get over the stress caused by the pandemic. The official launch of the online project www.malayaliyatra.com will be done by Kerala Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran on August 26 (Wednesday) at 12.30 pm via a video conference. With the COVID-19 devastating the tourism industry, the Kerala Tourism Department is trying its best to recapture the past glory of the industry. It is hoped ... Read more

The Ministry of Tourism has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) and FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) for ensuring women empowerment in the tourism industry. Through this initiative FLO & TAAI would lay emphasis on personal and hospitality skills, a more flexible work balance and greater options for entrepreneurship with significantly lower capital. Speaking on the occasion Prahlad Singh Patel said that, “Women in our country are excelling in different fields. We have the best of women doctors, pilots, scientists and businesswomen. Women have also excelled in various adventure related activities and sports ... Read more

Kerala Tourism has announced a Rs 455 crore loan scheme to support the sector which has been decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, in a move that’s bound to bring substantial relief to the industry. The scheme known as the Chief Minister’s Special Tourism Loan Fund will benefit both entrepreneurs and employees of the sector who are struggling to keep themselves afloat. As per the scheme announced by Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran, 2,500 large scale entrepreneurs in the sector can avail working capital loans from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 25 lakh. Besides that,  2,500 small scale tourism entrepreneurs can avail ... Read more

Leading tourism associations have come forward to congratulate the Kerala state government’s decision to announce a financial package worth Rs 455 crore, which will be used to provide loans to entrepreneurs and employees in the industry. ATTOI President Vinod CS said he would like to congratulate the State Government, Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran, Tourism Secretary Rani George and all the officials of the tourism department for putting together this package. “This is will be highly beneficial for the sector,” he said. “Covid-19 has destroyed the sector. Many had lost their jobs and entrepreneurs didn’t have a clue on how to ... Read more

Around 50 Air India pilots have received termination letters and have sought the intervention of the management on the issue of “illegal termination” of pilots from service. The Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), in a letter to Rajiv Bansal, Air India’s Chairman and Managing Director, said that around 50 pilots have received illegal termination letters from the Personnel Department in blatant violation of company’s operation manual and service rules. “What’s happening? Around 50 of our pilots have been terminated overnight unceremoniously without proper procedure being followed. A rude shock for those who served the nation in this pandemic putting the ... Read more

The US Department of Homeland Security has said that a COVID-19 ban on non-essential travel through border crossings with Canada and Mexico was being extended until September 21. The reciprocal travel ban aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus was first imposed in March and has been extended several times since then, AFP has reported. “We continue to work with our Canadian and Mexican partners to slow the spread of #COVID19,” acting US Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said on Twitter. “Accordingly, we have agreed to extend the limitation of non-essential travel at our shared land ports of entry through ... Read more

Domestic air traffic made a minor recovery in July, growing to 21.07 lakh passengers, a 6.1% increase from June, when 19.84 lakh fliers took to the air. Year-on-year, however, the traffic declined 82.3% in July.  In July 2019, 1.19 crore passengers had travelled by air. But here also there is a silver lining. The drop is lower than what was seen in June when the decline was 83.5%, year-on-year, Moneycontrol has reported. The data was released by industry regulator DGCA, on August 13. For the year till July, the industry had a total of 3.72 crore passengers, a drop of ... Read more

By Sheik Ismail, Member – Tourism Care Foundation (TCF) Founded in April 2020, the Tourism Care Foundation (TCF) is a non-profit organization whose objective is to help and support people who have lost their jobs and businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically in the tourism industry. One day my friend, Gafoor, called me and over our conversation we both discussed about the industry and the need to help our friends during these difficult times. During this pandemic, we have witnessed and noticed many of our colleagues facing utmost difficulty in meeting their basic and unavoidable needs like food, medicine, their ... Read more

Nearly three million jobs in the UK – and 197 million worldwide in the travel & tourism sector globally – look set to be lost due to the collapse of travel, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). WTTC economic modelling conducted less than two months ago predicted this ‘worst case scenario’ would occur if barriers to global travel, such as quarantine measures and blanket travel restrictions were to remain in place. While some travel bans have been removed, many others remain, with new restrictions likely to come into force to tackle the continuing threat posed by COVID-19 ... Read more

The virtual webinar organised by the Association of Tourism Trade Organisations India (ATTOI), to discuss the future of tourism will be inaugurated by Kerala’s tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran later today. The webinar features two eminent individuals – Claudia Wagner, managing director of German tour operator FIT Reisen and Muralee Thummarukudy, Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction in the United Nations Environment Programme.  The theme of the webinar is “We will overcome”. While Claudia Wagner will speak on the topic ‘Impact of Covid-19 and the revival of tourism’ from 3.30-4.30 pm, Muralee Thummarukudy will deliver his talk in Malayalam on the subject ... Read more

Andhra Pradesh’s Tourism Minister Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao has said that in order to generate revenues for the sector, hotels across the State will be turned into paid quarantine centres. Addressing the media at the Secretariat, he said, “Tourism sector has suffered huge losses due to the COVID-19 crisis. So, we have decided to rent out low-occupancy tourism hotels as COVID quarantine centres.” The private hotels are already being used as quarantine centres. “Tourism hotels in Nellore, which were used as quarantine centres, have generated a revenue of Rs 2 crore in the past few months,” said Rao, adding that revenue of ... Read more

The Association of Tourism Trade Organisations India (ATTOI) is organising a webinar on August 6, featuring two eminent individuals – Claudia Wagner, managing director of German tour operator FIT Reisen and Muralee Thummarukudy, Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction in the United Nations Environment Programme. The theme of the webinar is “We will overcome”. While Claudia Wagner will speak in English on the topic ‘Impact of Covid-19 and the revival of tourism’ from 3.30-4.30 pm, Muralee Thummarukudy will deliver his talk in Malayalam on the subject ‘Is there a spring season awaiting Kerala tourism?’, from 4.30-5.30 pm. Claudia Wagner has been with ... Read more