Category: News

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

Music pillars of Hampi, Karnataka Karnataka Tourism is planning to develop tourism in the state by developing almost 41 destinations. “We have identified 41 focus destinations for priority development and promotion. The master plan for the development of 21 of those destinations has been completed, and implementation of projects has been initiated,” said BS Yediyurappa, Chief Minister, Karnataka. The state government is also planning to increase its gross state domestic product contribution from tourism to 20 per cent. It is also looking to create more than 65 lakh jobs in the tourism sector by 2025. This is going to be ... Read more

India Convention Promotion Bureau (ICPB), marketing arm of Ministry of Tourism, Government of India has launched the second State chapter in Kerala. The Kerala Convention Promotion Bureau ( KCPB) will have Secretary Tourism of the state, Rani George, as Chairman with stakeholders from the private industry as office-bearers. “Kerala Tourism Department will appoint a CEO and set up an administrative section for the bureau soon. The set up will strive to build seamless linkages among the stakeholders of the MICE industry like hotels, tour operators, PCOs, etc. A dedicated budget will be set apart for MICE promotions as well,” said ... Read more

Global icon, Bollywood star and former Miss Sri Lanka, Jacqueline Fernandez visited Sri Lanka as the first guest under Cinnamon’s ‘Bring a Friend Home’ (BAFH) campaign. This unique initiative by Cinnamon is to encourage Sri Lankans living here and overseas as well as expats in the country to nominate their foreign friends to visit the island nation. Hence, the hotel chain hosted Jacqueline from 10th to 14th August and created unique experiences for her in the country. As a Sri Lankan herself who is proud to support the recovery of the tourism industry, Jacqueline kick started the initiative by travelling ... 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

Travel and tourism generated 10.4 percent of the world’s total economic activity in 2018. According to Gloria Guevara, WTTC’s president, travel and tourism now is responsible for creating one out of every five new jobs worldwide. WTTC said in one of its reports that it is expecting travel and tourism to generate 100 million new jobs worldwide over the next 10 years, which would push the total number of people working in travel and tourism to 421 million by 2029. Brian Marrinan, Managing Partner at Journey Partners, will speak on How Innovation in Travel and Tourism is Driving Economic and ... 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

With cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar as the star guest, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will flag off Champions Boat League (CBL) on Saturday alongside the famed Nehru Trophy Boat Race at the Punnamada lake in this coastal city. Hosted by Kerala Tourism, CBL is the country’s first-ever boat-race formatted on the lines of IPL cricket. The league, with prize monies totalling Rs 5.9 crore, will see nine teams rowing for top honours. The three-month championship was originally slated to begin on August 10, but got rescheduled owing to heavy rains that wreaked havoc across the state. As per the new schedule, ... 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

Photo Courtesy: La Paz Group As part of the upcoming Onam celebrations, Kerala Tourism will organise Athapookkalam competition, which allows the participants to create captivating designs through a mix of colours and flowers, on September 10. It will also organise Thiruvathirakali competition, a unique dance performed by women, on the auspicious day of Thiruvathira, on September 14. The winners of both the competitions will receive an amount of Rs 20,000, Rs 15,000 and Rs 10,000 as first, second and third prizes, respectively. An amount of Rs 2,000 will be given as consolation prizes for the commendable performances amongst the participant ... 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

We all know content is the king. Creating good content/story for the brand will help you attract more people towards your brand/business. But, how do you develop good content? Impact-driven traveller and social entrepreneur, Jen Morilla will discuss about ‘Creating good story about your brand’ at the International Conference on Tourism Technology, organized by Association of Tourism Trade Organizations, India. Jen will be speaking at ICTT 2019 on September 27, on the World tourism Day, at Le Meridian, Kochi. Jen aims to speak to the Millennial Market through storytelling and cause marketing. Whether through branding, marketing strategies, or social media, ... 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