Category: News

A charter flight will take off on Saturday from Cochin International Airport with French tourists, who were stranded in Kerala due to the pandemic. The flight will take off at 8 am tomorrow. All the district coordinators are requested to make arrangements to transfer them to the Novotel Kochi at Info Park, Kakkanad, and from there they will proceed to the airport. These tourists were staying in various properties in Kerala. Payment in this regard will be made by the Consulate of France in Pondicherry. The French Government has also introduced a web site to help french citizens in difficulty ... Read more

Russian tourists stranded in India will be evacuated on Saturday from Thiruvananthapuram. The evacuation by Ural Airlines will take place by 2 pm and the tourists have to register at Uday Suites, Shanghumugham at 7 am on the same day. The details have been shared to the tourists by the Honorary Consul of the Russian Federation in Thiruvananthapuram. The helpdesk contacts in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alappuzha and Ernakulam have been shared with the Russian consul. The state tourism department has been undertaking efforts to evacuate the 175 stranded Russian tourists for the last one week. They had targeted the first week ... Read more

New York is one of the largest metropolitan cities in the world, with a population of more than half of that of Kerala. The US city had enough time to combat the corona virus but it couldn’t handle the health crisis the way Kerala managed, though the south Indian state was affected pretty early by the rampaging pandemic. The Covid-19 virus first came to Kerala through a medical student who came from Wuhan, and that happened a full one month before the virus hit New York. Yet, New York couldn’t handle the virus like Kerala did. And that’s a testimony ... Read more

The Russian government is mulling a complete ban on domestic travel, both by air and rail, in the face of the COVID-19 threat. Further restrictions on all kinds of movements across the country are also being discussed, according to the state-run news agency’s source. From March 27 a ban on international air travel has been in effect, with the exception of special charter flights repatriating Russian citizens, so that the country will have closed all border crossings on March 30. However, no restrictions have so far been imposed on domestic air services and the country’s airlines are continuing to operate ... Read more

Oman Air will operate an evacuation flight on April 3 to three destinations namely Kochi, Bengaluru and Chennai to lift Omani nationals stranded in India. The Sultanate of Oman has secured permits from the Ministry of External Affairs and the Director General of Civil Aviation to operate the flight. The authorities concerned are requested to issue passes for any Omani national wanting to travel to the nearest airport to board the flight without any hindrance, the Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman said.

The Ministry of Tourism has received over 500 requests on its Stranded in India portal which was launched on March 31, to help international tourists. The ministry is is coordinating assistance to tourists with the help of the Ministry of External Affairs and other state officials to address these queries. It has also been coordinating with respective embassies regarding the various problems faced by the guests. The majority of requests received from foreign tourists were related to information on getting back to their home country ot extending their visas to stay back in India. The other issue was getting to ... Read more

Kerala’s healthcare system has always enjoyed an exalted status on India’s tourism map. Medical tourism and ayurveda have been two stellar hotspots attached to the Kerala tourism brand and it’s probably fair to say that the state’s fame as a healthcare destination has gone beyond national boundaries. In yet another story that showcases Kerala’s distinct medical advantage, the Government Medical College (GMC) Ernakulam has been able to treat a British tourist and cure him of the dreaded corona virus. Brian Neil, a 57-year-old British national, who was admitted with severe COVID-19 pneumonia symptoms on March 15 has been discharged from ... Read more

Dubai has promised financial assistance for state-owned carrier Emirates as various international airlines look for government bailouts amid the corona virus pandemic. The government will inject new equity into the carrier, one of the world’s leading long-haul airlines, during this “critical period”, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, the crown prince, said in a statement, according a Financial Times report. Dubai is the latest government to intervene in the sector reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. The global airline industry will burn through $61bn of their cash reserves during the second quarter of this year, according to the latest forecast from ... Read more

Qatar Airways, one of the world’s most premium airlines, has said that there will be a temporary staff reduction of 40% at Hamad International Airport due to the coronavirus pandemic. Reductions occurred across various areas including food and beverage, retail and ground staff, Bloomberg said in a report, quoting a spokesman. The move is being made as a short-term response in light of the reduction in passenger numbers through the airport. Affected staff will either be working at home, on leave or taking unpaid leave, just not physically in the airport, the spokesman said. Airlines are among the hardest hit ... Read more

The Asia Pacific Travel Retail Association (APTRA) is calling on governments in over 45 countries across the region to support 320,000 local and front-line employees working in the duty free and travel retail industry. APTRA has said the various national governments in the Asia Pacific region should look to include the duty free and travel retail industry in the same financial support packages as airlines, airports and maritime industries. This $36bn industry is at risk of being overlooked by politicians as they devise financial rescue measures to cope with the COVID-19 crisis, APTRA said. Airport Retail and commercial services, including ... Read more

There is some good news for Russian citizens. In April, visa application centres of Greece, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands will resume accepting applications. Due to the closure of the Schengen zone, almost all European countries in the second half of March had suspended the application for Schengen visas to Russian citizens. UNITED KINGDOMThe British Visa Application Center in Moscow will be closed from March 28 to April 5. The center will resume its work on April 6, 2020 in accordance with the usual schedule. GREECEAll Greek visa centers had temporarily suspended their activities since March 28, 2020. The ... Read more

The Association of Tourism Trade Organisations India (ATTOI) has conducted a virtual members conference, and said various tourism stakeholders should reach out to tourists who had previously visited the state, in order to rekindle connections. As one of the key members of ATTOI, Baby Mathew said that over time thousands and thousands of tourists have visited Kerala. If hotels and resorts can reach out to them via e-mail or any other suitable platform just to enquire about their well-being, that would be a great gesture. This is a time to keep up marketing efforts and keep in touch with guests. ... Read more

As a progressive measure to sustain livelihoods of those employed in the tourism sector, the Kerala state government should announce a job retention scheme in the wake of the corona virus pandemic, the Association of Tourism Trade Organisations India (ATTOI) has suggested. ATTOI said the government may pay the salaries of tourism employees in the private sector, so that the industry gets some time to crawl out of the crisis. The tourism sector has been heavily impacted due to booking cancellations, resulting a massive drop in inbound tourism. The sector is likely to lose more than Rs 20,000 crore as ... Read more

Firstly, the coronavirus outbreak is a human tragedy, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. It is also having a growing impact on the global economy and the impact would depend on how long the epidemic lasts. Travel and tourism industry has been hit economically due to outbreak of coronavirus with many prospective domestic and foreign tourists cancelling their travel plans. This global pandemic has prompted the Indian government to impose increasingly tough restrictions on travel resulting in further drop in hotel occupancies since the imposition of the ban. Here I would like to emphasize on a few points how the ... Read more

On Tuesday at around 9.30 am, an Air India flight took off from the Thiruvananthapuram airport carrying with it German and other European nationals, after days of ground work by scores of tourism department officials. “Kerala Tourism is happy that we could be of assistance to tourists to enable them to return home during this crisis,” Kerala Tourism secretary Rani George has said. The Department of Tourism and the Consulate of Germany worked together for the successful repatriation of the 232 tourists. For the last one week, the officials of the department of tourism and the various help desks have ... Read more