Tag: corona virus crisis

Eleven European Union (EU) member states have agreed on a set of principles to ensure freedom of safe travel, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. The agreement was announced following a videoconference that took place between the ministers of foreign affairs of Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Austria and Slovenia. “Freedom of movement and travelling across Europe is a fundamental part of the European project,” the ministers said in a joint statement. In accordance with the guidelines announced recently by the European Commission for restoring tourism and transport in the post-Covid-19 period, the ministers’ agreement focuses on a phased and ... Read more

Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa has assured hotel representatives that his government will consider granting approval for reopening hotels in the next three days, where they can start dine-in services with limited customers at a time. Many hoteliers met the CM in Bengaluru on Tuesday and threatened to start pushcart service on footpaths if the government does not allow them to restart full-fledged services. The hoteliers said they are ready to take up all measures including sanitising, wearing of masks and other precautions. In Karnataka, there are about 50,000 hotels including darshinis, of which 15,000 are in Bengaluru alone. According to ... Read more

The domestic flight operations in India will resume once the state governments are ready to open airports, civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday. The Centre alone cannot make a decision in this regard, Puri added. “It is not up to Centre alone to decide on resuming domestic flights. In the spirit of cooperative federalism, the state governments where these flights will take off and land should be ready to allow civil aviation operations,” said Puri on social-networking platform Twitter. Commercial flight operations in the country have been suspended since March 25 when the government first imposed a ... Read more

The Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) has criticised the stimulus package announced by the government, completing ignoring the concerns of the hospitality sector. “I am really shocked that tourism and hospitality was completely ignored despite PM Modi mentioning hospitality as one of the five pillars in his speech. We don’t know what was the criteria of importance. Is space programme more important than tourism? We had made 20 representations to the Department of Tourism and Ministry of tourism but not even one has been considered,” said Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice-President, FHRAI (Federation of Hotel & Restaurant ... Read more

Cambodia is hoping that Chinese tourists will drive its tourism growth when the world is cleared of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country’s tourism minister Thong Khon has said. Khon said the COVID-19 pandemic has made a deep impact on the country’s tourism business. However, he was optimistic that Chinese tourists would support the kingdom’s tourism growth when the coronavirus crisis ends. The minister said mutual help and trust between the two countries in the fight against COVID-19 has deepened bilateral ties. China has become the largest source of foreign tourists to Cambodia since 2017. Cambodia’s tourism industry, with revenues of ... Read more

The coordinated rolling out of new health and safety protocols for every part of the tourism value chain – including travel, accommodation, food, and leisure – will make it safer to travel, World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has said. “Trust is the new currency of our ‘new normal’. And tourism is ideally positioned to be the vehicle to channel trust,” said Zurab Pololikashvili, UNWTO’s secretary general. If people trust in governments and in the tourism sector to keep them safe from harm, they will indeed travel tomorrow, he added. “As the ultimate person-to-person sector, and one that promotes solidarity and friendship, ... Read more

The latest hotel booking data from Smith Travel Research (STR) has revealed for the first time in the many weeks since the pandemic took hold, US hotels have sold over ten million room-nights during the week that ended May 9, 2020. These numbers demonstrate an uptick of more than three million room-nights over the week of April 11. US hotel occupancy rose to 30.1% for the weekend of May 9, showing an increase in weekend occupancies for the second week in a row. Revenue per available room (RevPAR) at hotels in resort destinations was still down by 82.4%, as compared ... Read more

The Indian tourism sector must be feeling an orphan right now. Despite being a huge foreign exchange earner and providing jobs to millions, the industry has been left in the cold. The Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package does not have anything significant for travel, hospitality or tourism, and that’s a shame considering that employees working in these sectors have been hit the hardest by the pandemic. Two of the leading tourism associations, the Confederation of Accredited Tour Operators (CATO) and Association of Professionals in Tourism (APT) have come out in the open criticising the stimulus package, which they consider ... Read more

Italy has opened its churches, cafes, restaurants and bars, as it continues to relax its lockdown rules. Italians are once again out in the open, sipping cappuccino and gulping down cold beers, while of course keeping away from other customers as part of social distancing norms. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has said gyms and cinemas would soon be able to welcome the public again, as the government seeks to restart economic activity. “We’re facing a calculated risk in the knowledge that the contagion curve may rise again,” Conte said during a televised address. “We have to accept it otherwise we ... Read more

Bali, Indonesia’s popular tropical holiday island, could reopen to tourists in October. The island is today seen as a model by Indonesian authorities in tackling the pandemic, and hence the government deems it fit for reopening. The virus was curbed in the region with the help of about 1,500 traditional village committees. The island has a population of 4.2 million and is heavily dependent on tourism for its revenues. It was said that Bali may end up being a coronavirus hotspot with its large number of foreign visitors, but the island effectively controlled the outbreak. As of Friday, Bali had ... Read more

Hundreds of skiers hit the slopes at Slovenia’s highest ski resort on Sunday after it reopened following a coronavirus lockdown that lasted nearly two months, news agency Reuters has reported. Slovenia became the first European country on Thursday to declare an official end to its coronavirus epidemic. The small mountainous country of around two million people has so far reported 1,466 coronavirus cases and 104 deaths. Slovenes still have to respect social distancing and are obliged to wear face masks in indoor public spaces as well as disinfect their hands when entering such areas. There were about 200 skiers at ... Read more

Almost all Indian states are concerned about the immediate future of the travel and tourism industry, which has been badly hit by the Covid-19 epidemic, but hardly any of them have come up with decisive steps. In this context what the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government is trying to do, appears positive. The state government should pay 50% salary of at least half of the employees working in the hospitality sector, UP’s director general (DG) of tourism Ravi Kumar has said in a draft proposal. In the proposal prepared for a giving a “bailout package” to the tourism industry, Ravi Kumar ... Read more

All leading industry associations representing the Indian tourism sector have expressed shock over the central government’s position of not addressing any of its concerns in the economic stimulus package, though the sector is in a standstill ravaged by the epidemic. Key industry body, the Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH), said the Indian tourism industry is deeply taken aback by the fact that none of its concerns have been addressed by the government in its economic stimulus package. “Indian tourism industry has gone into a state of disbelief and shock. It was looking forward to a deep ... Read more

Greece is getting ready to present its overall plan for reviving tourism in the post Covid-19 era. This will commence with the announcement of the health protocols for safe operation of air, ferry and road transport in Greece, government spokesman Stelios Petsas has said. The government is drawing up a plan to deal with the impact of coronavirus pandemic, aiming to cushion, as much as possible, the “inevitably large” losses expected for this year’s tourism season. Petsas said the goal was to make the most of the “new common framework” with the guidelines and recommendations presented by the European Commission. ... Read more

By Maneesha Ajit Is our hospitality sector pet ready? In a post Covid environment what measures do we adopt to ensure that our pets are safe and healthy while staying at a hotel or resort? Do we have enough number of trained staff members who can meet the demands of a family travelling with pets? Make no mistake, the lockdown period has been a testing time for pets too. It’s not just us who are feeling the frustration. Though WHO had refuted claims of animals transmitting the disease a lot of unfortunate incidents have surfaced. But on the bright side, ... Read more