Category: News

The Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) has welcomed the news that payments under the government’s JobKeeper scheme will be extended for millions of stood-down workers, a report by CMW says. The government has extended the scheme beyond September for an additional six months at a new rate of A$1,200 (US$846.87) a fortnight. The wage subsidy had been A$1,500 a fortnight. AFTA CEO Darren Rudd said the decision was a victory for the travel and tourism industry which had lobbied the government for the six-month extension. “Covid-19 hit travel and tourism operators will continue to feel the impact, so ongoing support is ... Read more

Eli Rozenberg, the 30-year-old scion of a New York family in the nursing home business, made his offer on Monday for control of El Al Airlines, Israel’s flag carrier. He said that he and his family were prepared to pay $75 million for an allocation of shares that would give him a 44.99% stake. According to a report by Haaretz, the stake is the maximum he can offer to achieve control of Israel’s flag carrier without having to make a general offer for all the shares, under Israeli regulations. The offer, which was presented to the Israel Companies Authority and the ... Read more

While tourism businesses have called for more government help, Tourism New Zealand is counting on Kiwis spending more on their domestic travels to help the sector recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. New research commissioned by the tourism board found that cost was one of a number of potential barriers to travel, with more than a quarter (28%) of survey respondents saying they believe holidays in New Zealand are too expensive and lack value for money, according to a report by Stuff. “When people travel overseas they tend to spend more because they try new things,” Tourism New Zealand general manager ... Read more

A Travel, Hospitality and F&B collective of the Entrepreneur’s Organisation (EO) has requested the government to provide goods and services tax (GST) waivers among other demands to revive tourism in India. In a nine-point demand letter, the body said it requests the government for immediate survival measures to prevent mass bankruptcy and crores of unprecedented layoffs in the hospitality and travel sector that normally contributes to almost 10% national GDP, due to the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drafted in consultation with top industry leaders, the letter requests an immediate rebate to save the tourism sector and crores of jobs associated ... Read more

Sajan Joseph, co-founder and CEO of Breakout Hotels, feels trade bodies must be in continuous touch with the government to make a difference in policy making. The associations tend to be in contact with political authorities only during conclaves and when a crisis erupts. He says trade bodies should include people with a wider exposure, not just tourism, to have more impact. Excerpts from an interview: Q: As a hotelier you must be wondering what wrong has the hospitality industry done to deserve the ignominy of getting ignored repeatedly by the State and Central governments. Your thoughts please. Well, the ... Read more

Sri Lanka’s small hotels which have developed from serving tourists through global booking engines will be given provisional licenses to get Covind-19 health certification to operate when the country opens for tourists in the future, the country’s tourism promotion agency said. The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) said about 60% of the industry is estimated to be in the small and medium sector and there were about 50,000 businesses providing rooms through booking agencies like Agoda.com, Booking.com and Airbnb.com, Economy Next reports. “After a series of consultations with the SME sector and to support them during this pandemic and ... Read more

Fiji has announced a range of incentives in its annual budget of 2020-21 to promote tourism, including tax cuts, pricing reductions across the hospitality sector and a move to drop quarantine requirements for tourists from New Zealand. Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum while presenting the budget said several measures have been taken including tax reductions to stimulate the tourism sector, its biggest income earner. Hotel accommodation, food and beverages prices have been reduced, and the first 150,000 visitors to its shores will get $400 each towards packages including flights, accommodation and food and beverages, according to a report by Stuff. Sayed-Khaiyum said market surveys had ... Read more

Within 24 hours of the flight ban being lifted on Wednesday, around 1,200 Britons had landed in Greece. By Friday, a reported 200 planes had flown from the UK to the country’s 18 regional airports, according to a report by The Guardian. “Today, we can’t wait to have them,” said Charalambos Varvarigos, the vice-mayor of Laganas, the Zakynthian resort often associated with youthful hedonism. “We have always had a big soft spot for the English. Only 60% of our hotels are open but they are beginning to come,” he said. Britons are Greece’s most lucrative European market, with more than ... Read more

Emirates will resume passenger services to Stockholm with weekly flights from August 1, expanding its network in Europe to 22 cities, and connecting customers from Europe to the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa. The restart of Stockholm flights means that all Emirates gateways in Scandinavia would have resumed services by August, with flights to Oslo resuming from August 4 and services to Copenhagen being in operation since June. This will take the airline’s passenger network to 63 destinations in August, offering customers around the world more convenient connections to Dubai, and via Dubai. Flights between Stockholm and Dubai will ... Read more

Like governors in at least 15 states of the USA, New Mexico’s governor Lujan Grisham has ordered out-of-state tourists to self-isolate, citing data that about one in 10 of the state’s spiking COVID-19 cases comes from visitors. According to a Reuters report, enforcing the orders is proving difficult, given the lack of a national plan, police reluctance to take on the massive task, and Americans’ penchant for driving hundreds or thousands of miles to vacation, even in a pandemic. A US road trip this summer means navigating through a patchwork of quarantine regulations across various states, most of them voluntary. ... Read more

Etihad Airways will resume passenger flights from Abu Dhabi to Shanghai from July 27. “The service will operate with an initial weekly flight using a Boeing 777-300ER, featuring business and economy cabins,” the airline announced in a statement on Monday. Robin Kamark, Etihad Aviation Group Chief Commercial Officer, said, “We are delighted to announce the resumption of scheduled services to China, as we gradually return to more destinations on our global network, supporting the recovery of economic and social activities worldwide. Our priority now is to build the network back up on markets that have opened up and to provide ... Read more

For people stuck on either side of the Causeway, the possible resumption of cross-border travel between Singapore and Malaysia is cause for optimism, says a Straits Times report. The authorities of both countries agreed last week to restart cross-border travel for essential business and official travellers and long-term pass holders through two schemes: the reciprocal green lane and the periodic commuting arrangement. Though more details will be announced before these new travel schemes take effect on August 10, travellers will have to get swabbed for Covid-19 and submit their itineraries to the relevant authorities, the report says. Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein ... Read more

The number of hotel room bookings under the “Rao Pai Tiew Gun” (Let’s travel together) campaign has reached 3.6 million. The campaign is one of the government’s tourism stimulus measures, providing a 40% discount per night (but not exceeding five nights) to 5 million travellers. Traisuree Taisaranakul, a deputy government spokeswoman, said that travellers are still booking hotels in the major tourism cities, most of them in the western and eastern regions, according to a report by Nation Thailand. People mostly booked hotels near the seaside for largely one-night stays. For slightly longer stays, people mostly booked hotels in the ... Read more

IndiGo, India’s largest private airlines, has decided to lay off 10% of its workforce due to the economic crisis induced by COVID-19 pandemic, its chief executive officer Ronojoy Dutta said on Monday.  “It is for the first time in the history of IndiGo that we have undertaken such a painful measure,” Dutta said in a statement. “From where things stand currently, it is impossible for our company to fly through this economic storm without making some sacrifices, in order to sustain our business operations,” Dutta said. “Therefore, after carefully assessing and reviewing all possible scenarios, it is clear that we ... Read more

The Chilika Development Authority (CDA) has constructed a museum near Barkul, on the banks of the Chilika lake, to showcase the marine diversity of Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon. The project has been executed under the National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems (NPCA) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) at an investment of around Rs 50 lakh. Chief Executive of CDA Susanta Nanda said around 80 commercially important varieties of prawns, crabs and fish will be on display in the fish-shaped museum. “A total of 330 species of fish and 12 species of prawns of  Chilika sustain the ... Read more