Category: News

Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, has bagged the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold Award 2019 for Marketing – Primary Government Destination for its ‘Find the Incredible You’ campaign. The awards will be handed over at the 2019 PATA Gold Awards Dinner and Award Presentation in Nur-Sultan (Astana), Kazakhstan, during PATA Travel Mart 2019. This year’s awards attracted 197 entries from 78 organisations and individuals worldwide, and winners were selected by an independent judging committee. “On behalf of PATA, I would like to extend our warmest congratulations to all the 2019 Grand and Gold Award winners, as well as ... Read more

Kerala Tourism has bagged three PATA Golden Awards –  for its Ethnic Restaurant at Kumarakom, Kerala in Women Empowerment Initiative segment and ‘Come Out and Play’ Campaign of Kerala Tourism Travel Advertisement Broadcast Media segment and the website of Kerala Tourism, (www.keralatouirsm.org) adjudged as the best website in Web Site segment in marketing category. The majority of the RT mission beneficiaries are women, many of them are from the local community involved in traditional jobs. Of the 15500 Responsible Tourism Mission units in Kerala, women groups manage 13500 of them. The ethnic food restaurant – Samridhi – run by a ... Read more

Hong Kong-headquartered, Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts is targeting to open five more hotels in India by 2024. Shangi-La has two hotels in the country, in Delhi and Bengaluru and is scouting for various locations including Mumbai, Goa, Kolkata and Hyderabad, said its Executive Vice President for the Middle East, India & Indian Ocean, John Northern. “The important thing for us is to find the right partner. Out two hotels in India are also under the management contact,” he added. “Of our 102 hotels around the world, 18 per cent are resorts. Goa could be a great place for a resort. ... Read more

The four-day Wayanad Splash 2019, organised in association with the State Tourism Department and Wayanad Tourism Organisation to showcase the numerous tourist attractions and activities in Wayanad, has concluded. Arab bloggers at Contour Island Resort & Spa, Wayanad As many as 396 stakeholders, including 116 sellers and 280 buyers including international tour operators took part in the business meet. Close to 110 stakeholders from Malabar region and neighbouring districts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu put up stalls at the venue to showcase their properties. Inaugurating the concluding ceremony of the B2B meet, Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran said the government has earmarked ... Read more

The time-frame for issuing a normal passport has been reduced to 11 days, while passports under the ‘tatkal’ category are issued within a day’s time, informed V Muraleedharan, Minister of State, Ministry of External Affairs. The minister stated that in India, people are getting a passport within 11 days under normal circumstances. The statement also said that a tatkal passport is issued within a day’s time. The central government has also described the passport as a tool of empowerment. In its effort to cut down on corruption and delays in obtaining passports, the central government has launched an application in ... Read more

As part of its series of initiatives to attract and welcome diverse travellers from key metropolitan and secondary Indian cities to Singapore, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has organised an eight-city roadshow, together with close to 45 Singapore tourism stakeholders, in Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Madurai, Kolkata, Rajkot, Guwahati, Nagpur and Jalandhar. Themed “Growing Connections, Achieving Together”, the trade engagement roadshows will serve to deepen the STB’s and tourism stakeholders’ existing partnerships and foster new ones with the local travel trade fraternity. The STB will present latest developments in the Singapore tourism scene and update the trade on exciting, new offerings, like ... Read more

Kerala’s heritage-preserving Responsible Tourism initiative has drawn up an ambitious project to tap the culinary skills of women at the grass roots, especially housewives, to dish out the distinct flavours of the state’s ethnic cuisine to visitors. The scheme, ‘Experience Ethnic Cuisine”, aims at gainfully engaging up to 50,000 home-makers across the state in three years, by roping in them as key stakeholders in the hospitality sector. The project, which can set a major trend in the state’s tourism sector and empower women substantially, was announced by Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran in the State Legislative Assembly recently. The registration to ... Read more

Nepal Tourism Board has formally launched its ‘Visit Nepal 2020’ campaign in Mumbai during the third leg of its four-city roadshow in India and interacted with key outbound agents here. NTB has come up with an ambitious plan to increase the inflow of Indian tourists to Nepal by 30 percent between 2019-20. The special tourism campaign is organized to draw 2 million visitors to Nepal, especially Indians. “India is very close to us and to me personally. It is a major market for us and we have seen a steady increase in Indian tourist arrivals since 2015 after Nepal experienced ... Read more

As per a recent order of the General Administration Department of Government of Jammu & Kashmir, Navin Kumar Choudhary (IAS), Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce department, will now also hold the charge of Administrative Secretary – Tourism department. In a joint statements, Adventure Tour Operators Association of Kashmir (ATOAK) and J&K Ski and Mountaineering Association (JKSMA) said Choudhary being one of the senior most and experienced administrative officers in the government, tourism in Kashmir which is in distress since last many years will show significant improvement in coming days due to his appointment. “By appointing Navin Choudhry for the top ... Read more

GoAir is all set to add seven new routes to its international network, which will include three new destinations – Bangkok, Dubai, and Kuwait from July 19 onwards. The daily flights, subject to final approval, will include Delhi-Abu Dhabi, Delhi-Bangkok; Kannur-Dubai, Kannur-Kuwait; Mumbai-Abu Dhabi, Mumbai-Bangkok, and Mumbai-Muscat services. “I am very pleased to announce these planned launches which will strengthen GoAir’s presence in the Middle East and Southeast Asian countries. The network expansion is in sync with our vision to expand our footprint in strategic markets and to grow our business profitably. This time, we are entering new destinations – ... Read more

Travel Money, the flagship Foreign Exchange brand of FCM Travel Solutions and Travel Tours, the leisure travel brand of FCM Travel Solutions – Indian subsidiary of Flight Centre Travel Group Australia, further expanded their presence in Maharashtra by inaugurating their eighth retail store in the state, and their very first store in Thane, on 01st July 2019. The stores were inaugurated in the presence of Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, FCM Travel Solutions, Indian Subsidiary of Flight Centre Travel Group, Gagan Malhotra, Brand Leader, Travel Money, Foreign Exchange Brand of FCM Travel Solutions and Anand Menon, Brand Leader, Travel Tours, Leisure ... Read more

Wayanad is all set to welcome travel trade professionals and travellers from across the world for the much awaited Wayanad Splash 2019. This unique festival celebrates Rain Tourism, making the most daunting and dormant period of the year more marketable. This year tour operators, media and travel experts come together at Vythiri Village between July 11 and July 14 to experience and promote the monsoon carnival. Splash, a joint venture by Kerala Tourism, Government of Kerala and the Wayanad Tourism Organisation, is a biannual calendar event held in July to showcase the numerous tourist attractions and activities in Wayanad district. ... Read more

Jaipur, the pink city, has finally become a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is India’s first planned city founded by Sawai Jai Singh II in 1727, and is only the second Indian city to feature on the prestigious list. “In case of need, any World Heritage site can utilise World Heritage Funds for purpose of conservation, training to build capacity for management of WH site. The scale is not that big, can go up to $100,000 at several occasions. It shows solidarity of international community toward a World Heritage in need of such assistance. This happens only in case of ... Read more

By 2020, the government plans to operate two new international airports in Pokhara and Lumbini which will help boost tourism from India to Nepal and vice-versa. Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has recently conducted its destination presentation in New Delhi on 8 July at The Park hotel. The event showcased the country’s many tourism offerings, as the Board targets a 25 per cent growth in arrivals from India. NTB will conduct the presentation in Ahmedabad at Courtyard by Marriott today, at The St. Regis Mumbai on July 11, and then move to Bengaluru on July 15 where it will be conducted at ... Read more

SriLankan Airlines will enhance connectivity to India with new flights to Ahmedabad and Calicut. The operations will begin in 2020. The airlines has started operating 4 additional weekly flights connecting Delhi with Colombo from July 4 taking the weekly flights between the two cities to 18 flights. The launch of four more flights to Delhi will see the weekly flights operated by SriLankan Airlines to various cities in India go up to 221 flights a week. India is an important market for the airline and constitutes almost 24 per cent of the total passengers travelling with SriLankan airlines on its ... Read more