Category: Top Three Stories

Emirates is celebrating the beginning of the Malayalam calendar with a burst of flavours, making it even more special for Keralites. From 1 to 13 September, the airline will serve authentic Onam dishes across all cabin classes on all its flights to and from Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. Emirates’ chefs and catering teams have curated delicious festive menus with the distinctive flavours of the season that remain true to the taste buds even at 40,000ft. Enjoy traditional appetisers such as kaya varuthathu or crisp banana chips, sharkara upperi, banana roasted in jaggery, and kondatta mulaku —fried sundried chillies steeped in yoghurt. ... Read more

SpiceJet is planning to introduce six new flights to expand its network across domestic and international routes. The low-cost carrier has introduced a second non-stop flight on the Kolkata-Bangkok-Kolkata sector and also increased frequencies on the domestic sectors of Kolkata-Chennai and Chennai-Shirdi. The airline will now connect Kolkata and Shirdi with a direct flight via Chennai. “We see tremendous potential in the Kolkata-Bangkok sector. Our second non-stop flight on this route will offer a tremendous boost to the city”s connectivity, considering it will also connect passengers to and from other Indian cities to Bangkok via Kolkata,” said Chief Marketing Officer ... Read more

Recognizing the need to uplift Sri Lanka’s travel industry in the wake of 4/20 incident, Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts is set to host the third edition of the ‘Future of Tourism Summit’ (FOT 2019) on the 23rd September at Cinnamon Grand Colombo, Sri Lanka. Running under the theme ‘Challenges and Growth in the Face of a Crisis’, this year’s event will bring together top global destination experts who will share their specialist knowledge and insights on how tourism industries can implement sustainable strategies in the long-run and recover and rebuild following a variety of incidents ranging from terror attacks to ... Read more

Israel Ministry of Tourism (IMOT) conducted a roadshow in Kochi on 29th August to enhance commercial ties with the Indian travel trade fraternity. In an effort to retain the growth momentum of Indian arrivals to Israel, the team interacted with over 150 key travel and tour operators, MICE providers and up-market leisure operators. The event commenced with a presentation leading to an interactive session with the IMOT team. The roadshow included interactive B2B sessions, education programmes and workshops to aid trade members in planning itineraries and responding to customer queries. The Israeli delegation was led by the newly appointed Director ... Read more

Nayan Seth joins Taj Palace, New Delhi as General Manager. With over two decades of prolific experience, Nayan is an admired leader in the industry and a veteran with The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL). In his new role, Nayan will be responsible for the continued success of the Taj Palace, New Delhi through his strategic leadership, and ensuring margin enhancement and overall operational excellence. In his last assignment, Nayan led the fabled Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur, nestled in the midst of Lake Pichola, Udaipur, Rajasthan. “We are indeed fortunate to have Nayan join the team at Taj Palace, New ... Read more

Israel Ministry of Tourism (IMOT) conducted a roadshow in Mumbai on 27th August to enhance commercial ties with the Indian travel trade fraternity. In an effort to retain the growth momentum of Indian arrivals to Israel, the team interacted with over 200 key travel and tour operators, MICE providers and up-market leisure operators. The event commenced with a presentation leading to an interactive session with the IMOT team. The roadshow included interactive B2B sessions, education programmes and workshops to aid trade members in planning itineraries and responding to customer queries. The Israeli delegation was led by the newly appointed Director ... Read more

An air-conditioned baby feeding room was inaugurated by Union Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel at the premise on August 29.  Earlier this year, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had announced to build a breastfeeding room as a relief to female visitors. “It is the first baby feeding room to open at any Indian monument,” said Vasant Kumar Swarnkar, Superintending Archeologist at ASI. “It’s a 12-by-12 feet room within the Taj Mahal campus. It has a diaper-changing table, sofa sets specially designed so one can feed her baby, and there is also rubber flooring. One woman employee will be there to ... Read more

Soon, visitors will be able to access Taj Mahal even at night. “Taj Mahal will remain open beyond its 10:00 am to 6:00 pm public access time. We have been receiving a lot of requests to keep the monument open during the night hours. We are dedicated to make this a reality,” said Union Tourism and Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel. At present night access to the monument was allowed at a premium only for five nights in a month – on full moon night and on the two nights preceding and following the full moon. Only 400 tourists — ... Read more

Snap Inc. has introduced two new Landmarker Lens experiences in India enabling Snapchat users to use augmented reality to bring to life two iconic monuments – Gateway of India in Mumbai and Taj Mahal in Agra. To enable the feature, users have to simply point the Snapchat camera to the monument on location. Through the Landmarker Lens, users can play with a beautiful floral embellishment on the monuments. In addition, these locations will be available as Landmarker Templates alongside a further twelve locations spread around the across the globe as part of an update to Lens Studio – Snap’s free ... Read more

Kerala Travel Mart (KTM) Society revamped its managing committee for 2019-21, retaining top functionaries including Baby Mathew Somatheeram as the president, Swaminathan S as vice-president and Jose Pradeep as honorary secretary of the organisation that works for the promotion of the state’s tourism with the help of public-private partnership. The 2000-founded institution, which conducts the biennial KTM that hosts the country’s largest buyer-seller meet in the tourism segment, will have Hari Kumar C as the honorary joint secretary and Scaria Jose as the honorary treasurer. The appointments were made based on an election held last weekend in Ernakulam. The other ... Read more

The Algarve could be transformed into a ‘Mecca’ for health and wellness travel – benefiting from major investment linked to the booming €600 billion global industry – according to organisers of the 2019 Algarve Tourism Conference. Tourist development consultant Andrew Coutts said worldwide ‘wellness tourism’ spend is rising rapidly and expected to surpass €900 billion by 2022, representing 18pc of the global tourism market. Meanwhile the GWI (Global Wellness Institute) predicts wellness tourism trips to grow by 8pc annually reaching 1.2 billion by 2022. The news comes ahead of the 2019 Algarve Tourism Conference running from 9am-5pm at the Hilton ... Read more

Maya Beach, Thailand If you are planning a trip to Thailand before April 2020, you can save approximately Rs 4659 on Visa on Arrival fees as the country has decided to waive off visa fees for Indian travellers till that time frame. The Royal Thai Government has approved the extension of the visa-on-arrival fee waiver for citizens of 20 countries including India for another six months, until April 2020. The scheme was to expire on October 31. The waivers are part of a $10-billion stimulus package to boost growth, including a debt moratorium for farmers, loans for smaller businesses, and ... Read more

Travel Tours, the leisure travel brand of FCM Travel Solutions – Indian subsidiary of Flight Centre Travel Group Australia, further expanded its presence by inaugurating its 10th store in Maharashtra and the 3rd store in Mumbai. The store was inaugurated by Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, FCM Travel Solutions – Indian subsidiary of Flight Centre Travel Group. The opening of the store marks Travel Tours’ reach to 39 stores across India, out of which 10 are now located in Maharashtra. Considering the ever-growing demand from travel enthusiasts and trends witnessed across the travel sector for leisure travel, the services offered include ... Read more

Israel Ministry of Tourism (IMOT) conducted a roadshow in the capital city of New Delhi on 22nd August to enhance commercial ties with the Indian travel trade fraternity. In an effort to retain the growth momentum of Indian arrivals to Israel, the team interacted with over 300 key travel and tour operators, MICE providers, up-market leisure operators and media personnel. The event commenced with a presentation leading to an interactive session with the IMOT team. The roadshow included interactive B2B sessions, education programmes and workshops to aid trade members in planning itineraries and responding to customer queries. The Israeli delegation ... Read more

Vietnam’s low-cost airline VietJet Air, popularly known as as ‘Bikini airline’ for having cabin crew dressed in ‘Bikini’ in some of its flight, is going to start two direct flights to India by the year end. The flights will be launched from Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City and capital Hanoi to New Delhi. The airline has also announced special promotional fares for both the routes. As per the offer, a ticket on the Vietjet flight on these routes will cost Rs 9 (excluding VAT, airport fees and other surcharges). The airline has said only 8000 such tickets will be given ... Read more