Category: News

Cox & Kings has opened a new franchisee store in Delhi which offers holistic travel solutions to travellers from Patel Nagar, Delhi and extended areas. The store is inaugurated by Hon’ble Mayor-North Delhi Municipal Corporation Adesh Kumar Gupta. Owned by Bharti Dhingra, presently it is Cox & Kings’ 12th franchisee store in Delhi. “Since the past few years there has been a 25 per cent growth in travel demand from Delhi. To cater to this demand, we felt the need to expand our presence here with a new franchisee store. A range of Cox & Kings travel services from group tours, ... Read more

The Flag Island, Sharjah’s leisure, tourist and family destination, is to host the International Festival ‘Kalinka’. The 2-day festival on 29 – 30 March 2019, will be showing spectacular cross-cultural performances as Russia and Kazakhstan combine their talents in a dazzling display of music and dance at the Flag Island’s amphitheatre, from 7:00 p.m – 11:00 p.m. The Flag Island will be providing families, children and audiences of all age groups, with a full spectrum of Eastern Europe’s most authentic styles and genres. The Festival Committee collaborates with local artists from Russian and Kazakhstan, both children and adults, aiming to ... Read more

The Indian Hotels Company has opened its Taj brand in Rishikesh, Taj Rishikesh Resort & Spa, Uttarakhand. This will be the company’s third hotel in the state. “We are honoured to partner with Mehra for Taj Rishikesh Resort & Spa, an exciting new addition to IHCL’s expanding resort portfolio. With its idyllic setting and unrestricted views of the Himalayas, the resort is well positioned to tap into the growing potential of the wellness and spiritual tourism market. This is consistent with our commitment to offer global travellers’ new and unique experiences in hospitality,” said Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director and Chief Executive ... Read more

Emirates has announced a seasonal increase to its existing daily service to Durban, with four additional flights a week, effective from 14 June to 04 August 2019. This is in response to growing demand for travel during this period. The airline will also be introducing its award-winning First Class experience on the additional flights. “Emirates’ decision to increase capacity is a clear indication of customer demand for our award-winning travel experience. We are committed to servicing Durban and offering our customers greater flexibility and travel choices during this busy season. The introduction of the First Class cabins will allow customers ... Read more

The WTM World Responsible Tourism Awards 2019 have been launched. This year the awards will be of six categories and a panel of expert judges will select the finalists from across the six categories. The overall winners are to be announced at WTM London, on Wednesday 6th November, 2019 as part of WTM World Responsible Tourism Day. This year’s categories are: Best for Benefitting local People Best for Wildlife & Nature Conservation Best for Reducing Plastic Waste Best for Reducing Carbon and Other Greenhouse Gasses Best for Transparent Reporting Best for Coping with Success, dealing with Overtourism “The ambition of the ... Read more

Arrivals from Europe to the GCC will increase 29 per cent over the period 2018 to 2023, driven by new and direct flight routes, a growing number of millennial and middle-class travellers and competitive air fares, according to the latest data released ahead of Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2019, which takes place at Dubai World Trade Centre from 28 April – 1 May 2019. According to ATM’s research partner, Colliers International, as many as 8.3 million EU residents will travel to the GCC in 2023, an additional 1.9 million travellers when compared to 2018 arrival figures. Adding to this, figures ... Read more

Tourism arrivals to Oman will increase at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5 per cent between 2018 and 2023 to 3.5 million, according to data released ahead of Arabian Travel Market 2019 (ATM), which takes place at Dubai World Trade Centre from 28 April – 1 May 2019. Commissioned by ATM, the Colliers International data predicts the rise will be fuelled by visitors from India, who accounted for 21 per cent of total international arrivals during 2018. In addition, arrivals from the UK (9 per cent), Germany (7 per cent), Philippines (6 per cent) and the UAE (6 ... Read more

The Great Indian Travel Bazaar, India’s leading business networking platform for Inbound Tourism, is scheduled to be held in Rajasthan from April 28-30, 2019. Organised by the Department of Tourism, Government of Rajasthan, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), the event is expected to receive participation of more than 280 foreign tour operators from all over the world and 270 Indian Exhibitors to showcase their products. Over the period of two days more than 11,000 pre scheduled structured face to face business meetings takes place between Foreign buyers and Indian Sellers. 96000 B2B ... Read more

Ethiopian Airlines strongly refutes all the baseless and factually incorrect allegations written in the Washington Post dated March 21, 2019, the airlines said in a statement. All the allegations in the article are false defamations without any evidence, collected from unknown and unreliable sources and meant to divert attention from the global grounding of the B-737 MAX airplanes, it said. Ethiopian airlines operates with one of the highest global standards of quality and safety performances certified by all National, Regional and International regulators like the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority, the FAA, EASA, IOSA and ICAO and other National regulatory authorities. ... Read more

The Cambodia Association of Travel Agents (CATA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with India’s SRAM & MRAM to increase the flow of tourists between the countries. The MoU was signed on Wednesday by Chay Sivlin, president of CATA, and Sailesh Lachu Hiranandani, SRAM & MRAM director. SRAM & MRAM Group is a conglomerate with branches in Cambodia, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Georgia, and Bangladesh. It is present in a wide range of sectors, from agriculture to artificial intelligence and foreign exchange management. The agreement focuses on religious and wedding tourism with the goal of strengthening tourism ties between the ... Read more

Fifteen major tour-operators from India and 35 Vietnamese tour operators held meetings at a tourism promotion event in HCM City. The event, titled ’Visit Incredible India in 2019’, invited Vietnamese to experience Indian culture, cuisine, bountiful nature, and religious places. “Leaders of both countries have focused on strong tourism co-operation and people-to-people relations as a key element of our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,” said K Srikar Reddy, the Indian consul general in the city. India’s Minister for Tourism K J Alphons attended the Seventh Meeting of Tourism Ministers of ASEAN and India held in Ha Long City this January. At the meeting, the ministers ... Read more

The tourism industry of Kashmir has been suffering great loses post Pulwama attack owing to ‘negative publicity’. To counter this and clear apprehensions of people in other states about visiting Kashmir, the state government of Jammu and Kashmir is all set to launch a tourism promotional campaign from March 25 with an aim to lure visitors. Tourism department, along with other stakeholders including representatives of tourism trade fraternity from all the three regions—Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, has decided to launch a sustained campaign to promote Kashmir’s tourism in other states in a meeting on March 16. The campaign will be kick ... Read more

Captain Swadesh Kumar, Managing Director, Shikhar Travels India, has been re-elected as President of Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI) for 2019-2021. Sanjay Basu, Managing Director, Far Horizon Tours, has been elected as the Senior Vice President; Tejbir Singh Anand, Managing Director, Holiday Moods Adventures as the Vice President; Vaibhav Kala, Founder, Aquaterra Adventures, as the Treasurer and Vinayak Koul, Director, Snow Lion Expeditions as the new Secretary. The elected Executive Committee members are Akshay Kumar, CEO, Mercury Himalayan Exploration; Ajeet Bajaj, Managing Director, Snow Leopard Adventures; Rajesh Ojha, Co-founder, Banjara Camps and Retreats; Ravi S Kalra, Managing Director, ... Read more

Twenty-six travel bloggers from across the globe began a fortnight’s trip across Kerala from Kochi on March 21, 2019. The sixth edition of the ‘Kerala Blog Express’ (KBE) was flagged off by Rani George, Secretary, Kerala Tourism at the Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolghatty. The Blog Express had its first halt at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, where the prominent social media influencers from 21 countries took a round of India’s biggest contemporary art festival. The Blog Express this time has a stronger representation from Latin American countries with 16 of its 26 bloggers being women. The journey facilitates the visitors to write and post ... Read more

Emirates has announced that it will increase the frequency of flights between Dubai and Cairo, adding four additional flights a week to its existing thrice-daily service, starting 28 October, 2019. The four new flights operating on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, will take the total number of weekly Emirates flights serving Cairo to 25. “Cairo is a very popular destination for both business and leisure travellers, and the additional flights will provide our customers with greater flexibility in their travel choices, and allow seamless connectivity to Emirates’ vast global network. There is a clear demand for our award-winning products and ... Read more