Category: News

Travel agency Skyscanner’s chief executive officer (CEO) Bryan Dove has stepped down. Vice-chairperson Moshe Rafiah will take over the position. Dove, who has pent five years with the company, said he is stepping down for family reasons. He will remain as a senior adviser to the company. Skyscanner is a meta search engine and travel agency based in Edinburgh, Scotland and owned by Trip.com Group, the largest online travel agency in China. Rafiah said: “Bryan has made a remarkable impact on Skyscanner. While the travel industry faces a challenging time, Skyscanner is a leader in the sector in every way.” ... Read more

Hospitality firm Oyo is trying to assuage the hurt of its furloughed employees, by offering them employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) worth around Rs 130 crore. An internal e-mail from its founder Ritesh Agarwal said the move is part of the company’s efforts to minimise the disruption experienced by these employees, news agency PTI said. On April 8, Agarwal had said in a letter that the company will place a certain number of employees on furloughs or temporary leaves, globally. In an internal town hall note to the impacted employees, Agarwal on Monday said that while he hoped that the ... Read more

DJ Hector Kerala Tourism often markets its rainy season as ‘Monsoon magic’, but this year there is no magic in sight. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Monday said the south-west monsoon has made an onset over Kerala, marking the start of the country’s four-month long rainy season. Pre-monsoon rains have already lashed many areas of the state, signalling the arrival of heavy downpour in the coming days. Tourists usually visit Kerala during monsoon to receive ayurvedic treatment. The weather is cooler, dust-free, with an overhang of moisture during this time. This helps in opening up the pores of the ... Read more

The Mexican Caribbean state of Quintana Roo is preparing to reopen itself to tourism from June 8, Governor Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez has announced. In the interim, area tourism and hospitality companies, particularly in the popular holiday hotspots of Cancun and Riviera Maya region, are bringing back employees to begin training in the ways of the “new normal”, Travel Pulse has reported. “We are getting ready to restart operations,” said Roberto Cintrón Gómez, president of the Hotel Association of Cancun, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres. While Covid-19 has not yet been eradicated in the region, Quintana Roo has just instituted a new certification programme to help ... Read more

Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, has decided to welcome guests from select countries. The Seychelles Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) has identified a number of countries as low risk and in conducting its review, it considered the magnitude of transmission, trends in outbreak, responsiveness of the public health system, advisories from public health authorities and reliability of data. PHEOC recommended to the Public Health Commissioner that the following countries could be designated as low risk. Risk assessment is dynamic, and the list of countries will be kept under constant review and may be amended. ... Read more

Greek Tourism Minister Harry Theoharis has presented a new plan for the promotion of domestic tourism. To start with, there will be an increase in funding of the Greek Manpower Employment Organization’s (OAED) subsidised social tourism programme to 30 million euros. Second is a 10-million-euro tax relief programme for companies, so they in turn can provide holiday coupons to employees. The third is bringing back the ‘Tourism for All’ programme with a 30 million-euro budget, which provides subsidised holidays for the unemployed, pensioners, and others who qualify due to low income. Theoharis noted that some 70 million euros will be ... Read more

Major players in Canada’s tourism and travel sectors have formed a new coalition to restore the industry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Called the Canadian Tourism Roundtable, the cross-Canadian coalition is calling on all levels of government to work together to streamline and clarify rules around travel in order to ensure safe, accessible and timely travel for Canadians as early as this summer. The Roundtable comprises leaders from various sectors, including airports, airlines, hotels, chambers of commerce and others. The $102 billion travel and tourism sector, which has been devastated by the pandemic, supports some 1.8 million workers ... Read more

Tourists can return to Florida Keys from today, after a gap of two months. Highway checkpoints will come down and visitors can once again hit all the restaurants and attractions, a Miami Herald report said. But it won’t exactly be the same as before the pandemic. There will be rules to follow. Here’s what you can and can’t do if you are planning to visit: Monroe County requires masks in public. They should be worn while inside a business, working in public, on public transportation and when around people besides immediate family. They can be taken off while eating in restaurants, ... Read more

The Dekho Apna Desh series, promoted by the Ministry of Tourism, talks about how India is best seen on a bicycle. Over to the cycling duo of Tejaswini Gopalaswamy and Gurdeep Ramakrishna, who run Unventured Expeditions: Having travelled to various parts of India and across different parts of the world, one of the things that makes us interested about India is that every 200 kms food, culture, the way the people speak or their way of life changes. That’s what inspires us to get out and travel and we have chosen the humble bicycle as the means to get around and explore India. So, I ... Read more

MakeMyTrip has said it is laying off 350 employees, as its business continues to suffer on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said that it was not clear when travelling will become a way of life again. The decision was announced by MakeMyTrip CEO Deep Kalra in the form of letter to the employees. “As we revisited some of our strategic imperatives to be able to sustain our business in the long term, it is evident that the pandemic has changed the context and viability of some of our business lines in its current form. Keeping this in mind ... Read more

The Greek digital governance ministry has announced that it would be increasing its cash rebate for film produced and shot in Greece, to 40%. The plan is to enhance the country’s position as an attractive filming destination and bring in investors. The decision was announced during a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. On the initiative of the National Center of Audiovisual Media and Communication (EKOME), Greece is following the example of 30 European countries, including France, the UK, Spain and Italy, offering incentives to producers and investors to film on location. Besides the rebate increase, the new ... Read more

Based on the number of issued air tickets, China’s domestic air travel has reached more than 50% of what it was during the same period last year. This is according to data collected and analysed by travel analytics company, ForwardKeys. In addition, analysis of flight ticketing data reveals a significant uptick in last-minute domestic flight bookings in China between May 11 and 21. During that period, the lead time between ticketing and travel shortened dramatically; 72% of flight tickets were issued within 4 days of the travel date, compared with 51% at the equivalent point in 2019. This phenomenon is ... Read more

For years, Kuoni has been famous for luxury long-haul holidays but now it is planning to sell tailor-made holidays in and around Britain. It has announced plans to launch a new range of bespoke holiday itineraries throughout Scotland, England, Wales and the island of Ireland, as part of the plan. For this initiative Kuoni has partnered with McKinlay Kidd, which has been creating tailor-made holidays throughout the UK and Ireland since 2003, using local knowledge and expertise to design premium road trips with personal touches. A new UK section of the company’s website went live on Friday, featuring a range ... Read more

Dining at a table where each person is enclosed by a clear plastic shield might look and sound futuristic, but it could be one way for some restaurants to reopen, according to a report by international news agency AP. The prototype plastic shields are known as the “Plex’eat,” and they resemble big clear lampshades suspended from the ceiling. They are being showcased temporarily at H.A.N.D., a Parisian restaurant seeking a way to reopen its dining room as coronavirus restrictions are relaxed. As restaurateurs around the world seek to resume in-person dining amid the pandemic, they want to adhere to social ... Read more

“It’s been 18 years working towards this goal, so it’s hard to believe that it’s happened.” SpaceX founder Elon Musk was understandably an emotional man, after his company launched astronauts into space on Saturday. This is the first time a private company has launched NASA’s astronauts into space. “I’m really quite overcome with emotion on this day, so it’s kind of hard to talk, frankly,” Musk said in a post-launch press conference at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from NASA’s historic launch complex 39A, carrying a Crew Dragon spacecraft along with astronauts Bob Behnken and ... Read more