Tag: covid-19 crisis

The Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) has welcomed the news that payments under the government’s JobKeeper scheme will be extended for millions of stood-down workers, a report by CMW says. The government has extended the scheme beyond September for an additional six months at a new rate of A$1,200 (US$846.87) a fortnight. The wage subsidy had been A$1,500 a fortnight. AFTA CEO Darren Rudd said the decision was a victory for the travel and tourism industry which had lobbied the government for the six-month extension. “Covid-19 hit travel and tourism operators will continue to feel the impact, so ongoing support is ... Read more

While tourism businesses have called for more government help, Tourism New Zealand is counting on Kiwis spending more on their domestic travels to help the sector recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. New research commissioned by the tourism board found that cost was one of a number of potential barriers to travel, with more than a quarter (28%) of survey respondents saying they believe holidays in New Zealand are too expensive and lack value for money, according to a report by Stuff. “When people travel overseas they tend to spend more because they try new things,” Tourism New Zealand general manager ... Read more

Sajan Joseph, co-founder and CEO of Breakout Hotels, feels trade bodies must be in continuous touch with the government to make a difference in policy making. The associations tend to be in contact with political authorities only during conclaves and when a crisis erupts. He says trade bodies should include people with a wider exposure, not just tourism, to have more impact. Excerpts from an interview: Q: As a hotelier you must be wondering what wrong has the hospitality industry done to deserve the ignominy of getting ignored repeatedly by the State and Central governments. Your thoughts please. Well, the ... Read more

Sri Lanka’s small hotels which have developed from serving tourists through global booking engines will be given provisional licenses to get Covind-19 health certification to operate when the country opens for tourists in the future, the country’s tourism promotion agency said. The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) said about 60% of the industry is estimated to be in the small and medium sector and there were about 50,000 businesses providing rooms through booking agencies like Agoda.com, Booking.com and Airbnb.com, Economy Next reports. “After a series of consultations with the SME sector and to support them during this pandemic and ... Read more

Within 24 hours of the flight ban being lifted on Wednesday, around 1,200 Britons had landed in Greece. By Friday, a reported 200 planes had flown from the UK to the country’s 18 regional airports, according to a report by The Guardian. “Today, we can’t wait to have them,” said Charalambos Varvarigos, the vice-mayor of Laganas, the Zakynthian resort often associated with youthful hedonism. “We have always had a big soft spot for the English. Only 60% of our hotels are open but they are beginning to come,” he said. Britons are Greece’s most lucrative European market, with more than ... Read more

Like governors in at least 15 states of the USA, New Mexico’s governor Lujan Grisham has ordered out-of-state tourists to self-isolate, citing data that about one in 10 of the state’s spiking COVID-19 cases comes from visitors. According to a Reuters report, enforcing the orders is proving difficult, given the lack of a national plan, police reluctance to take on the massive task, and Americans’ penchant for driving hundreds or thousands of miles to vacation, even in a pandemic. A US road trip this summer means navigating through a patchwork of quarantine regulations across various states, most of them voluntary. ... Read more

The number of hotel room bookings under the “Rao Pai Tiew Gun” (Let’s travel together) campaign has reached 3.6 million. The campaign is one of the government’s tourism stimulus measures, providing a 40% discount per night (but not exceeding five nights) to 5 million travellers. Traisuree Taisaranakul, a deputy government spokeswoman, said that travellers are still booking hotels in the major tourism cities, most of them in the western and eastern regions, according to a report by Nation Thailand. People mostly booked hotels near the seaside for largely one-night stays. For slightly longer stays, people mostly booked hotels in the ... Read more

The Chilika Development Authority (CDA) has constructed a museum near Barkul, on the banks of the Chilika lake, to showcase the marine diversity of Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon. The project has been executed under the National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems (NPCA) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) at an investment of around Rs 50 lakh. Chief Executive of CDA Susanta Nanda said around 80 commercially important varieties of prawns, crabs and fish will be on display in the fish-shaped museum. “A total of 330 species of fish and 12 species of prawns of  Chilika sustain the ... Read more

The Japanese government’s plan to revive domestic tourism has run into rough weather, just 48 hours before the launch of its new travel campaign. The campaign, Go To Travel, has been designed to give a helping hand to the pandemic-ravaged tourism industry but policymakers are unable to set details on the contentious subsidy programme with citizens pointing to possible health hazards, a Japan Times report says. The campaign is scheduled to start off from July 22. The programme subsidizes domestic travel in Japan, with the government providing up to half of the costs of travels. Each tourist can get a ... Read more

One of India’s pioneering tour guides, V Balaram, passed away today morning due to cardiac arrest. He was 52-years-old. Balaram was a key driving force in popularising the Kerala Tourism brand in its initial days when very few guides could present a holistic view of Kerala and its culture. Balaram was a well-known German speaking guide, whose professionalism was instrumental in promoting Kerala as a destination of choice in source markets such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Armed with immense knowledge of various international cultures besides supreme command of Kerala’s tourism delights, he was associated with Tour India, one of ... Read more

Omran, the investment arm of Oman’s tourism ministry, will end a partnership with Port Investment Ltd (PIL) that entailed redevelopment of the Sultan Qaboos port. Omran will buy the 70% stake it doesn’t already own in Muttrah Tourism Development Co., established to redevelop Sultan Qaboos port for $1 billion, Bloomberg has reported.  It will make the acquisition at “a value as documented in the shareholders agreement,” Omran said in a statement. PIL is owned by Damac International, which is a joint venture between Damac PJSC and DICO Group. Mina Al Sultan Qaboos Waterfront was designed to include homes, offices, hotels ... Read more

In an effort to persuade more travellers to visit a portion of Eastern Montana, a coalition is seeking improvement to facilities along a 163-mile stretch of the Yellowstone River between Hysham and the North Dakota border. The 12-member Lower Yellowstone River Coalition — composed of business people, conservationists, politicians and recreation-minded individuals — sees the initiative as a way to boost tourism at a time when outdoor recreation is surging amongst a pandemic-anxious public, Billings Gazette has reported. “Outdoor recreation along the Yellowstone has not been promoted, nor seen its potential fully developed east of Billings, and it’s time to improve that situation ... Read more

Saudi Arabia is sticking by its target of attracting 100 million visits by 2030 despite the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its fledgling tourism sector, Arab News has reported. Saudi Tourism Authority Adviser Mahmoud Abdulhadi said that about a half a million tourism visas had been issued between last autumn and the arrival of the pandemic in the Kingdom in the spring, which brought international air travel to a halt. “Whenever there is a crisis of sorts (such as the coronavirus pandemic), tourism is probably the first to suffer but also the first to rebound, so this gives ... Read more

Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, has warned that tourism entities that fail to comply with health and safety protocols designed to facilitate the phased reopening of the tourism sector amid the COVID-19 pandemic, will be shut down. Speaking at the Golf View Hotel in Manchester, during a tour of the newly opened South Coast Resilient Corridor on the weekend, the Minister stressed that: “If you are not COVID compliant we are going to shut you down and whether you’re big or you’re small, because we cannot compromise on health security.” Minister Bartlett said: “The start of the South Coast ... Read more

As Canada’s COVID-19 infections and deaths moderate, the explosion of new cases in the United States presents a challenge for Canadian authorities who must deal with both unwanted tourists slipping through the border and legitimate travellers who break the strict quarantine laws. The problem is compounded by a recent jump in crossings. More than 187,000 truck drivers and individuals entered last week from the US, a 30% increase over the end of May, according to news agency Reuters. While the border has been closed to non-essential travel since March 21, returning Canadians, essential workers and truckers, foreigners coming for family ... Read more