` 50 / us $5 16-30 september 2014Volume III l Issue 21 pages 32 www.travelnewsdigest.in

events 02 india 08 asia 19 middle east 24oceania 23 europe 26 africa 30 caribbean 31americas 28

Shripad Naik launches Sustainable Tourism Criteria for India

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Philippines launches first ever India specialist programme

Fiji updates initiatives to tap the Indian honeymooners market

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Sally Balcombe becomes the new CEO of VisitBritain

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Mexico witnesses a rise of 19.6% in international tourist arrivals

OTM Mumbai 2015 Hall of Fame launchedOTM Mumbai 2015 Hall of Fame, an honor and award programme aimed at recognising the achievers in travel industry has been launched.

The doyens of the industry will be honored at OTM Mumbai 2015, India’s leading travel trade show, where dozens of countries and states have already confirmed their participations.

The OTM Mumbai 2015 Hall of Fame will have three categories:

• Top Travel Producers of India

• Top International Tourism Attractions for Indian Travellers

• Top International Hotels for Indian Travellers

Based on confidential nomina-tions by NTOs, CVBs, destination suppliers, travel operators, travel trade associations and other industry players, a list will be collated, for an industry poll.

Some of the most valued players in travel industry will be asked to nomi-nate the top ten producers, attractions and hotels catering to the booming India-outbound market.

The OTM Mumbai 2015 Hall of Fame winners will have special on-site promotions and honorary men-tions in Fairfest’s monthly pub-lication Travel News Digest and India’s #1 online travel trade channel www.TravelNewsDigest.in.

Selected winner recipients will also be invited to participate in the Inter-national Tourism Summit to share their knowledge, speak and contrib-ute to India Tourism. Those travelling to OTM 2015 will be offered VIP priv-ileges and hospitality, with Fairfest’s compliments.

Sheila Leong of Eon Events (www.eonevents.asia) will be conduct-ing the programme with assured integ-rity and transparency in the process of nominations and final selections.

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Saudi Arabia to debut in WTM, invests £18 billion in tourism

Based on the overwhelming market feed-back, OTM New Delhi 2015 has shifted back to a very prominently located venue in the Capital, India’s first’s eco-friendly sports facility, the Thyagaraj Sports Com-plex near the famous INA Market. This year, the show was organised in Noida for the first time. Although the footfalls were

good, overall participants’ feedback was heavily in favour of shifting the venue back. Respecting customer sentiments, the organisers conducted a search and with the help of the authorities in New Delhi, found out a brand new venue.

OTM New Delhi 2015 is on offer as an attractively priced add-on to the OTM Mumbai 2015 a couple of days ahead, which is India’s leading travel trade show.

Several leading participants instantly confirmed their partici-pation in OTM Mumbai and New Delhi 2015 when this attractive add-on package was floated. In this pack-age, the effective pricing for adding on New Delhi was less than half of the usual price.

A brand-new Hosted Buyer Pro-gram has also been launched, for the accredited buyers to visit the OTM Mumbai and New Delhi.

Concurrent to OTM Mumbai 2015 will be held the International Tourism Summit building up on the success of the Most Influential Person Awards and National Tourism Summit held during OTM 2014.

OTM New Delhi shifts back to the main city

Thyagaraj Sports Complex, New Delhi

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Mauritius holds 4-city roadshow to promote MICE in India

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Jamaica keen on attracting Indian newlyweds

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | sePtember 2014 • 2EVENTS

Travel News Digest (TND) is printed and published by Sanjiv Kumar Agarwal on behalf of Fairfest Media Ltd.

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editor sanjiv Kumar Agarwal

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The Publishers and the Editors do not necessarily individually or collectively identify themselves with the views expressed by respective writers and contributors in this journal. The views expressed are those of the authors only. The magazine assumes no liability or responsibility of any kind in connection with the information thereof.

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Editorial

editor & publisher Sanjiv Agarwal

editorial DirectorGazanfar Ibrahim

Content teamSrimati MitraShaoni BanerjeePriyanka Bangera

Marketing

Advisor Abraham JohnAssociate DirectorsRajarshi DeRaj Kapoor SinghR MaheshTarique EbrahimNitin TelangGeneral managerFatima D’CostaDeputy General managerShruti Aggarwalproject managersKavita KalraPratiksha RajapurePurbita DuttaYC AnilShreyas JainAssistant project managersPhilomena D’SouzaDeepti V MurthyShiv Shankar DuttaRamesh ChauhanKanika Singh

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media DirectorJune Mukherjee

Design teamDilip MannaRitam MaityHirak RoyMaruti MoreSuman Pramanik

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Fairfest media Limited

bumper response to ttF West series 2014, High Diwali & Winter travel season expectedFor a month, the TTF pre-Diwali series toured lucrative Western India markets. Covering Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai and Pune, TTF provided the travel industry access to the travel markets in these cities and their hinterland.

The festival of Diwali marks one of the high seasons for leisure travel for domestic, outbound as well as inbound sectors. As the festival is closely followed by the win-ter season and the New Year period, there are multiple opportunities for Indian travellers to take a break, rang-ing from the long haul, to short haul, and even weekend gateways. The period is also peak season for inbound travellers, helped by pleasant climatic conditions, and the overall festive atmosphere. The season thus acts as a great boon for travel agents, tour operators, hoteliers, airlines, and the entire travel and tourism industry. This is all the more applicable in the high-potential western India markets.

Besides a plethora of fairs and festivals, the period from September to January is also marked by a large number of events, like national and international trade fairs, conferences, seminars, road shows, incentive tours, AGMs, etc. making it a busy time for the MICE segment. To cap it all is the settling down of the political scenario and the resultant uptick in business and indus-try. The Improving economy and new Government’s thrust on tourism are appearing to strongly buoy travel markets in India.

Thus, the TTF West Series is expecting an upbeat Diwali and winter vacation season. To cater to this huge demand, the TTFs, the most cost-effective and

comprehensive networking and marketing opportu-nity for the travel industry, saw participation of National Tourism Organisations, State Tourism Boards, along with a host of travel agents, tour operators, hoteliers, online travel agencies, cruise liners and resorts, all under one roof at back-to-back events over successive week-ends at Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai and Pune. The series provided exhibitors a platform to network with

the travel trade in the respective locations, to inform them about their upcoming packages and offerings, and to strike deals going forward, including contracting and deal-making for even the summer season ahead. For the tourists it was an opportunity to see what destinations and options are being showcased by the exhibitors, and make spot-bookings for best deals and packages.

Among the leading Indians states who participated in the TTF West Series were Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Kar-nataka and Rajasthan as Partner States, and Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, Goa, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Telangana, Andaman and Nicobar, Chhattis-garh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Puducherry as Feature States. Other states represented include Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Delhi, Haryana, Lakshad-weep, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttar

Pradesh and Tripura. Promoting thousands of destinations across Incredi-

ble India was the booth of Ministry of Tourism Govern-ment of India at all the locations. TTF in fact has been getting the uninterrupted support of the Ministry right since its inception 25 years ago, and for this year too, the Ministry has confirmed its participation at all the 10 TTF locations in FY 2014-2015.

The Series saw sizeable direct participation by inter-national boards like Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand, Mexico, China, Thailand, Oman and Switzerland. Other international destinations like Singapore, Bhutan, Cam-bodia, Hong Kong, Nepal, Turkey, UAE Vietnam, Mal-dives, Sri Lanka, Botswana, Namibia, Australia, Antarc-tica, Canada and Egypt were also represented.

“The growth in TTF is also indicative of improving economic sentiments in general and the priority being attached to tourism by the Government,” said Sanjiv Agarwal, Founder & CEO of Fairfest Media, organiser of the show. “It is an important annual forum for the travel industry of the region, to meet sellers from all over India and abroad,” he added.

After the Diwali and winter vacation season, TTF will resume in South India with New Year 2015, first in Chennai (January 9, 10, 11) and then in Bangalore (January 16, 17, 18).

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 3 events •

The state of West Bengal is rich in culture, art and heritage and at the same time blessed with natural

bounties ranging from Sun-derbans in the South to the Himalayas in the North. It has enormous potential to

emerge as the complete desti-nation for tourists of all seg-ments, interests and finan-cial means, both domestic and international. Above all the state truly reflects unity in diversity and harmony of nature and mankind. To showcase all these offerings, West Bengal Tourism has recently held roadshows at TTF Ahmedabad, Surat and Pune.

With Durga Puja, the fes-tival of lights, colour, culture and bonhomie, only a month away, West Bengal Tourism is availing the roadshows to spread tourism awareness and lure in more visitors for

the four-day carnival.For a memorable lux-

ury cruise experience, West Bengal Tourism presents the Sunderbans, a UNESCO World Heritage site, famous for Royal Bengal Tiger and the dense mangrove vegetation.

Under the category of Religious Tourism, the state offers an opportunity for a holy dip at Gangasagar, a visit to the ShaktiPithas out of the 51, the famous head-quarters of Ram Krishna Mission- Belur Math, etc.

The Northern West Ben-gal welcomes the tourists with the mighty Himalayas

and the Queens of Hills, Darjeeling and the vast area of Dooars (Gateway to the Mountains) with dense and lush forest, home to one-horned Rhinos Indian Gaurs and different species of birds. Travellers can enjoy rafting, trekking, mountain biking, bird watching, ele-phant safaris, jeep safaris and forest trail walks.

Places like Malda, Bish-nupur, and Murshidabad locates in the Central Ben-gal housepalaces, mosques, and terracotta temples rich in culture and architec-tural elegance and historical importance.

Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation (TSTDC) recently conducted roadshows in Gujarat and Maharashtra on the occasion of TTF Ahmedabad and TTF Mumbai, respectively, to pro-mote the tourist places in the new state of Telangana.

Telangana poses a perfect fusion of history and moder-nity and offers a vast range of tourism genre, including Heritage, Archaeology, Reli-gion, Wildlife, Eco-tourism and Handicrafts.

The state is a Gateway to South India where one can explore through the luxuri-ous landscapes. Telangana is now the proud home of spicy

kebabs, aromatic biriyanis and pure pearls.

Famous for the marvel-lous tourism sites, Telan-gana include the capital city of Nizams- Hyderabad, a legacy of royal heritage- Warangal, a pilgrimage to Lord Rama’s abode-Bhadra-chalam, the tranquil and wonderful sacred grove- Kondagattu, enchanting eco-destinations- Anantha-giri and Jannaram, perfect blend of history and nature- Nizambad, a heritage expe-rience-Medak, blissful environs and architectural wonders-Nagarjunasagar.

“New tourism initiatives have been taken up recently,

such as adventure tourism activities at Bhongir Fort, Jannaram eco-project des-tination and other packages tours like Road cum rail and Road cum cruise, tem-ple packages,” said Sumeet Singh, Joint Managing Direc-tor, TSTDC.

TSTDC has launched new package tours which include accommodation, transport, sightseeing and religious visit to Lord Balaji. TSTDC also owns transport fleet including high end Volvo and Mercedes Benz coaches, a/c and non a/c coaches, car-avan vehicles and latest mod-els of Innova vehicle. The tourism board also owns

the largest water fleet- about 95 small and big boats and cruises for various kinds of water adventures and leisure tourism.

Furthermore, TSTDC also have a chain of Haritha Hotels, which are spread across 33 major tourist spots in Telangana.

West bengal showcases tourism offerings at ttF

telangana tourism promotes the newly formed state

TTF West Series sees sizeable jump in visitor numbersBesides a healthy growth in number of exhibitors, events in the TTF West Series saw robust increase in visitor turnout. TTF Ahmedabad 2014 ended on a high note with 11,179 visitors – 11% more than the 10,103 who visited last year. Vindi-cating the decision to have two full days reserved for B2B, over 4,064 travel trade visitors attended the show, a spectacular 25% increase over last year. Even the number of general visitors at 7,115 showed a modest increase, though this time the show was open for general visitors only for one day.

TTF Surat, the biggest ever in the city, having grown 25% over last year, also saw a record 9,500 visitors, up a whopping 53% from last year.

Overall, TTF Ahmedabad, Surat and Mumbai saw a 25% increase in visitor turnout – enough indication that the travel industry in India has turned the cor-ner, and is looking forward to a busy Diwali and Winter season.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 4 • events

We would like to invite tourists from Gujarat and Maharashtra to visit one of the biggest festivals on

earth, our Durga Puja in West Bengal, especially in Kolkata. At the same time we still have other tourism offerings

including Sunderban, Gangasagar beaches, Darjeeling, Dooars, Sabuj Dweep, Jhargram as well as colonial and historical places.

Umapada ChatterjeeDirector - Tourism

Government of West Bengal

Gujaratis are very important for Uttarakhand Tourism and we invite all of them to visit Uttarakhand. We have

different incentives and packages, both from Government and private sector.

Poonam ChandDeputy Director

Uttarakhand Tourism

I thank TTF for inviting us so that we can conduct our promotional activities. In fact we are very happy to be

here. We have been aggressively pursuing our marketing and promotional activities, especially cultural and heritage

activities. Many people identify Punjab with only Golden Temple and Jallianwala Bagh, but we are also highlighting Freedom Trails, Natural Trails, Leisure activities and Culinary Tourism besides our core sector- Religious activities.

basanta rajkumarExecutive Director

Punjab Heritage & Tourism Promotion Board

There are lot of travellers who comes to Kerala from Gujarat. And in TTF we are witnessing lot of interactions

with travel agents and other exhibitors. Kerala is doing very well. We have various destinations in one state from beaches,

hill stations, backwaters, etc. We are promoting adventurous tourism and soon we will start the sea-plane service in our backwaters.

Ajith Kumar PManager-Sales & Marketing

Kerala Tourism Development Corporation

TTF is doing a great job in promoting tourism, bringing buyers and sellers together and providing platform for

travel and tourism business. We encourage management of TTF to organise more events and trade shows in Gujarat.

I congratulate TTF on its Silver Jubilee and wish TTF celebrates Golden Jubilee very soon. Foreign tourist arrivals in Gujarat are steadily increasing. Now we are hoping to have a visa on arrival policy.

Vipul mittraFormer Principal Secretary (Tourism)

Government of Gujarat

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 5 events •

TTF gives Goa Tourism and overall tourism business a good exposure. TTF helped in increase our sales and

advertise our properties very well. We are having very good business and TTF helps us to reach greater area in India as

well as internationally.Alvaro Gomes

Asst. Manager - HotelsGoa Tourism Development Corporation Limited

TTF is helping us big time it is helping us to grow. Last time when we were at TTF Kolkata we had three properties and in TTF we

have five properties. In TTF Kolkata we witnessed a huge strength.Gita Chaudhry

Partner, Evoque Hotel Marketing

TTF is helping a lot because we are a new property and we are getting a tremendous response. We wish to visit every TTF

event of India. TTF is a success story and it encourages company like us to grow more.

Anirudh Iyer Marketing Manager

Grand Nakshatra

TTF is very important for us because this is the place we can connect with both travel agents and general public.

So these three days we get an excellent chance to market our business through TTF.

rishabh AgarwalDirector

Ananta Spa & Resorts

TTF is very important for airlines. I never miss it. I will attend TTF as much as possible. Through TTF more and

more people take our flight when visiting China. We offer good services and more frequency for Indian friends.

Liu Zhen HuaDeputy General Manager

China Southern Airlines

TTF is very good, and we are a part of TTF for the last 4 years. The environment of TTF is very good and we are

getting more business from Ahmedabad.K. Venu Gopal

Assistant ManagerSouthern Travels

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 6 • events

Gujarat is a very important market for us. TTF is a very important platform for us to meet the all the Gujarati

travel agents under one roof. This whole experience and result boosts our confident.

shruthika PrakashAsst. Manager, Client RelationsOrange County Luxury Resorts

Most of the business we get is from Gujarat. We are getting a lot of general enquiries, package enquiries, and corporate

enquiries from TTF.sumit solanki

Marketing ManagerKiara Andamans

For us, this is the first time we are associated with TTF and Gujarat is a big market for us. I think this is the best possible

venue for us to start our campaign and we are expecting a very good response.

sooraj Kashiapan Manager, Sales & Marketing

Wild Planet, Nilgiris

The Gujarati people travel a lot and with the festival season on the verge of starting this is the best time and opportunity

to promote our hotel. We offer 50% discount to B2C customers and 10% more for B2B customers.

Narendra seth Manager - Sales & Marketing

Hotel Grand MumtazMushtaq Group of Hotels

TTF is very important fair in IRCTC point of view, especially the Gujarat market. We are getting good response and lot of

visitors from local markets. TTF is the right platform for buyers and sellers. We are participating in TTF for the last four years and are

overwhelmed by the response from TTF. Thank you for organising TTF.Krishna Kumar singh

Deputy General Manager (Tourism)IRCTC

TTF is a very good platform to connect with all the travel agents within 2-3 days. All the travel agents are aware that

TTF is a very big show, so all the important and significant travel agents come here. TTF is also a great platform to promote all our

products to the general public as well. General public find it very easy to come to TTF because it is organised to in a very convenient site in the city.

munjal Fitter Representative

Dattu Tours & Travels

We get lot of Gujarati tourists in Northeast India and Bhutan. The venue of TTF is huge and we are expecting a lot of

response. This is our fourth time here in TTF and we are already seeing a lot of people coming in.

Kanak Das Operation Head

Lets See Tours & Travels

We are getting a good response in TTF and our business is going good. We are promoting Diwali right now that is why

TTF is very important for us. While promoting South Kerala, TTF is of great importance.

Priyesh Vataliya State Sales Head, Gujarat

Kerala Holiday Mart

TTF is helping us to promote Northeast India and Bhutan. We are witnessing many people here, who are willing to

visit us. Pushpak is promoting all the seven states of Northeast and we also have our own 8-sitter chartered flights.

Jubilee Hazarika Counsellor - Outbound Tour

Pushpak Air Travels

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | sePtember 2014 • 8INDIA

Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusa-pati, Minister for Civil Avi-ation, Government of India, announced that there is a sig-nificant growth in number of air travellers of India due to the liberal aviation policy and entry of small air carriers. This growth is further expected to touch the 400-million mark by 2020.

“With the entry of small carriers the number of mid-dle-class passengers and the aviation income enabled by liberal policy was increased. In 2013-14, the number of pas-sengers recorded was 169 mil-lion, which showed six per-cent growth in comparison to

2012-13,” he added.Pusapati further stated

that India’s aviation is the fastest growing market in the world and is currently 10th largest. While in Jaipur, Pusa-pati said that the air connec-tivity to Bikaner will lead to an increase in tourism in the region.

Following the urge of Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, the Civil Aviation Minister will orga-nise a joint committee of the State and Central Govern-ment’s aviation officers and will develop a policy, which will expand air connectivity in Rajasthan.

India expects 400 million air travellers by 2020

Indian travellers keen on exploring adventure tourismMore and more Indian travel-lers are now considering new international destination to explore, thus opting for uncon-ventional destinations which offer them great opportunity for adventure tourism.

To harness this great poten-tial of Indian outbound market Bhutan, Egypt and Oman are aggressively marketing their heritage and tourist destina-tions to attract travellers from India.

Dr Adel El Masry, Direc-tor, Egyptian Tourism Office in India is giving special effort to promote Egypt as a water sports and adventure destination.

Further, while promoting Bhutan, Phuntsho Gyeltshen,

Tourism Officer, Tourism Council of Bhutan explained, “There is lot of adventure activ-ities like white water rafting, mountain biking, spas, medi-tation and wellness that takes place in Bhutan. We are hoping to promote tourism on those lines as well.” He added that Bhutan welcomes about 50,000 visitors from India annually.

“We want the evolved trav-eller to come and visit Oman. We want Indians to look at it as a place beyond the desert, and consider the turtle nesting spot, beaches, mountain camp-ing options, gorges, canyons etc.,” said Lubaina Sheerazi, India Representative, Oman Tourism.

The 30th IATO Annual Conven-tion was held in Delhi this Sep-tember. The event was attended by notable guests including Dr. Subramaniam Swamy, former Union Cabinet Minister and Member of Parliament, Tour-ism Minister of Odisha Ashok Chandra Panda, Major Vijay Singh Mankotia, Vice Chair-man, Himachal Pradesh Tour-ism and Parvez Dewan, Sec-retary Tourism, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India.

A video message of Union Minister of Tourism &

Culture Shripad Yesso Naik was screened during the inauguration.

While welcoming the guests, Rajeev Kohli, Chairman, IATO 30th Convention introduced the IATO programme for the con-vention. He specially mentioned about value additions like IATO Run for Responsible Tourism, Auction wall to raise funds for charity and very thought pro-voking business sessions.

Subhash Goyal, President, IATO said, “We took immense amount of discussions before

finalizing Delhi as our venue for 30th Annual Convention. There is new government with new vision, hopes are high and the budget has clear sign of con-tinuity with focus on tourism. Also with the new government in centre, we were determined to involve maximum decision makers in our business ses-sions. We need to involve all stake holders who can join in numbers in Delhi and luck-ily we also got an excellent venue Kempinski Ambience Hotel Delhi. This has good

conference facilities.”“We have chosen our theme

of the Convention New Begin-nings l Fresh Ideas l Vibrant Futures. The new government’s priority to tourism and relax visa norms, cleanliness and safety comes clearly from the political will. As India emerges from a political crisis and with single party majority, the polit-ical situation seems to be tak-ing a new turn. There is clear cut decision making process not bound by allied partners. New government has long term eco-nomic plan, creating jobs and security for all. All such step augur well for tourism 2014 is thus the time for new begin-nings and fresh ideas and new vision. Being in Delhi will allow us to engage the new political leadership and bring adminis-trative decision makers to our business sessions in the con-vention. We want to focus on the great opportunities future hold for us.” added Goyal.

Ashok Chandra Panda, Ministers of Tourism, Odisha elaborated on the state endeav-ours and how IATO can form

partnership with state gov-ernment. Parvez Dewan, Sec-retary Tourism, Govt. of India in his address elaborated on the new initiatives of the Min-istry of Tourism. He men-tioned that tourism ministry has started Chinese language course as China is going to be the big market for India. Major Vijay Singh Mankotia said that Himachal becomes a major tourist destination in summer months but we need to study carrying capacity so that des-tination is not affected nega-tively. The state needs better air connectivity.

The key note address was delivered by Subramanian Swamy, Member of Parliament. He urged that special focus should be given in the market-ing section, which is unique to Indian culture. He emphasised that everything needs to be pri-oritised and resource mobilisa-tion for implementation of tour-ism policy.

On this occasion, IATO Tour Operators Manual 2014 and IATO Newsletter were also launched.

The 30th IATO Annual Convention held in New Delhi

Tata SIA Airlines Limited (TSAL) has finally revealed the much awaited brand name of their new collaboration – Vistara. The word ‘Vistara’ is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘Vistaar’, which means ‘limit-less expanse’, thus going per-fectly with the band’s domain ‘the limitless sky’. The logo is a ‘yantra’, a mathematical sym-bol that reflects the universe. It is expected to start its service from October, 2014.

Speaking on the occa-sion, Prasad Menon, Chair-man, TSAL, said, “Today is a momentous day for the Tata group and Singapore Airlines. Vistara will redefine the way we travel in India. I can con-fidently say that Tata’s and SIA’s legendary hospitality

standards and service excel-lence will make Vistara a natu-ral choice for passengers.”

Vistara is headquartered in Delhi and will receive the deliv-ery of its first plane, an Airbus A320-200, in September and hopes to increase its fleet to 20 planes by its fifth year.

Swee Wah Mak, Director, TSAL, and Executive Vice-President Commercial, SIA,

said, “From a global inves-tor’s perspective the Indian aviation sector has a lot of potential for growth and I am delighted that SIA now has a fruitful role to play here. SIA’s world renowned tradi-tion of service excellence will contribute to the creation of the finest flying experience in the Indian skies through Vistara”.

Tata-SIA joint venture airline named Vistara

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 9 INDIA •

The Ministry of Tourism (MoT) has unveiled a free mobile app, ‘Incredible India Walk-ing Tours’, which will help the travellers to travel indepen-dently and experience 16 cit-ies in the country. By the end of next year, the self-guided tour app will cover as many as 36 Indian cities.

Currently the app will cover Agra, Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chandi-garh, Chennai, Delhi, Coastal Goa, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Patna, Pune and Surat. Tourists can use the app to comfortably sight-see free of cost with the help of walking tours especially developed by

travel experts.Shripad Yesso Naik, Tour-

ism Minister, said, “We are extremely excited about this because it is the first time an app can enable users to discover India on their own. It’s free, easy to use and, most importantly, comes with 360 degree street views and information put together by a panel of experts. It’s like having a local take you by the hand and show you his city, at your convenience.”

For the time being, the app is only available on Blackberry mobile handsets, but very soon an Android version of the appli-cation will be developed and launched in coming weeks.

ministry of tourism launches free mobile app for tourists

Indian Medical Tourism to touch $6 billion mark by 2018Following a recent study by PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry (PHDCCI) on the topic of Medical and Wellness Tour-ism opportunities in India, it has been calculated that Indian medical tourism has high chances of touching the mile-stone of U.S. $6 billion by 2018.

Special mention has been given to states like Gujarat and Maharashtra in Western India, which has high potential in Medical Tourism and is devel-oping further.

In 2012, India has welcomed almost 166,000 medical tour-ists from all across the world, which resulted in India acquir-ing a place among the top five

medical tourism destination of the world. India is popular for

wellness, orthopaedic and car-diac procedures.

AAI to construct new low-cost airport sites in four Indian states

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) will soon construct new low-cost airport hubs in Karnataka, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. Apart from Karnataka, which will receive two low-cost air-ports, the other three states

will get one each.“The new airports will

be located in Jharsuguda in Odisha, Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, Kishangarh in Rajasthan and Hubli and Bel-gaum in Karnataka,” said Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Civil

Aviation Minister.This development id the

part of government’s new air-port project, in which a total of 50 locations were selected for developing new airports in smaller cities and towns across the country.

The Ministry of Tourism (MOT) has recently accepted the Adventure Tour Oper-ators Association of India’s (ATOAI) standard rules to carry on adventure activities.

MoT will further urge the state governments to fol-low these basic norms while recognising adventure tour

operators.“This is the first step

towards coming up with min-imum standards for adven-ture activities in the country. The biggest challenge we face is to get tour operators to reg-ister as adventure tour oper-ators,” said Akshay Kumar, President, ATOAI.

From November 2014 onwards, Air India has announced an extra 1,500 seats a week from India to Birmingham. “Air India is committed to develop and grow in this market and once we have taken the deliv-ery of our 18th Dreamliner air-craft in November, we hope to launch the daily operation from Birmingham Airport. This will provide an extra 1,500 seats a week and give passengers greater choice, flexibility and opportunity to travel from the convenience of Birmingham Airport to Amritsar and Delhi, and onwards on Air India’s extensive global network,” said Air India Commercial Director

Pankaj Srivastava.Paul Kehoe, Birmingham

Airport’s Chief Executive fur-ther added, “We are extremely thankful to Air India for rec-ognising the demand from travellers needing the flexi-bility of daily services from Birmingham. The West Mid-lands receives more foreign direct investment from India than any other region out-side of London. It’s therefore not surprising that the route has been such a success in its first year and I am certain that a daily service would make the Birmingham route even more appealing to Midlands’ travellers.”

Air India to start India-birmingham daily service

mot accepts AtOAI’s norms for adventure activities

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 10 • india

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy announced that the State Government is eyeing to complete its dream project “Air Kerala”, under which low cost carrier ser-vices will operate from Kerala to Gulf region. The state gov-ernment is asking the Centre for securing sanction to this project.

“Government had already written a letter to Union Civil Aviation Minister in this regard and I will take up the matter personally during the meeting with the minister” stated Chandy.

Chandy further explained that the main objective behind the project is to start service between Kerala and Gulf coun-tries to help the Non-Resident

Keralites (NRK’s), most of whom are ordinary workers. The NRKs usually face exploi-tations by airline companies through frequent hike in fares.

Kerala makes efforts to complete dream project Air Kerala

Puducherry urges AAI to revive commercial flights

Bengaluru airport offers heavy concessions to become aviation hub

The Puducherry Tourism Minister P Rajavelu has asked the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to restart the com-mercial flights’ operations from the Union Territory.

Rajavelu announced that due to the lack of proper air connectivity from Puduch-erry, growth of tourism and economic development is being hampered. Rajavelu recently met with the airlines

operators regarding the mat-ter. Puducherry Government has approached Spicejet, Jet Connect, Air Coasta and AIR India.

The government is focus-sing on other issues like pro-viding night landing facil-ities and Air Turbine Fuel (ATF) facilities to attract the private airlines and further announced a cut in VAT on the ATF.

With an aim to become the avi-ation hub in South, Bengaluru has offered many conces-sions to the airlines operating from its International Airport. Experts stated that these con-cessions will eventually make the flights, which are depart-ing from Bengaluru, cheaper, thus ultimately benefitting the passengers.

BIAL, which operates the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (KIAB), has announced that those fly-ing during non-peak hours i.e. between 11 am and 5 pm and those airlines which connect Bengaluru to newer destina-tions will receive concessions between 25 - 100% on landing and parking charges.

Furthermore, greater con-cessions have been provided under BIAL’s ‘Home Carrier’ concept, developed to urge the airlines to make Bengaluru airport their main operating base.

Bengaluru has already given major concessions to AirAsia and meanwhile recently the Airport Economic

Regulatory Authority (AERA) has more than halved airport tariffs for what it calls a ‘Home Carrier’. The discounts are also applicable to the interna-tional operations of the car-rier. Tony Fernandes, CEO, AirAsia has recently said that he is planning to make Bengaluru an international aviation hub.

Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli invest `1,360 crore in tourism sectorTwo new destinations are emerging as significant tour-ism destinations of India. The Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli have recently announced a major investment of `1,360 crore to further develop

the regions’ tourism sector. They have also launched a new joint tourism logo with the theme, ‘Big is Small’.

Bhupinder S. Bhalla, Admin-istrator, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, said, “We have been planning this for

over a year and our main focus is to attract domestic tourists.”

Union Territory Diu will soon get India’s first mega oceanarium, a project costing over `500 crore. The oceanar-ium is expected to attract more serious visitors, both domestic and international.

Commenting on the ocean-arium project, Bhalla said, “It would be built on the lines of international oceanari-ums, such as Atlanta’s Geor-gia Aquarium, Dubai’s Mall Aquarium and Japan’s Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium.”

“Also, the average number of days a tourist stays in Diu is 1.7; we want it to increase it to three days,” Bhalla added. “That can be achieved only if there is better infrastructure and entertainment.”

Jet Airways: Codeshare partnership with Alitalia and Vietnam AirlinesJet Airways and Alitalia announced that they have expanded their code share partnership, resulting in a better network connectivity between India and Italy. The expansion has also provided several Indian and Italian cit-ies with touristic and business importance.

Following the expansion, Jet Airways will place its marketing code on the Alita-lia operated flights between Abu Dhabi and Rome and further to Bologna, Flor-ence, Naples, Turin, Ven-ice and Verona in Italy. On the other hand Alitalia will place its code on Jet Airways

flights operated between Abu Dhabi and Delhi, Mumbai and Kochi and further to Amritsar, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Udaipur.

Furthermore, Vietnam Airlines and Jet Airways also entered into a codeshare part-nership, connecting Indian passengers to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi through Sin-gapore and Bangkok. Upon arriving at Singapore and Bangkok, passengers from Vietnam can then take Jet Airways flights to Chen-nai (only from Singapore), Mumbai and Delhi.

The codeshare flights will further provide more options for travellers between the two countries. Vietnam Airlines will place its marketing code on Jet Airways’ Bangkok/Ho Chi Minh route. Jet Airways’ Ho Chi Minh City service will begin on November 5.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 11 INDIA •

Gujarat is planning to set up a diamond hub in Surat which will serve the purpose of ‘only-for-exports’, probably the first of its kind in India.

Moreover the state govern-ment is also proposing that Surat should have an interna-tional airport. To discuss the topic, Gujarat Finance Minister Saurabh Patel recently met with the Union Civil Aviation Minis-ter Ashok Gajapathi Raju.

Patel further urged Raju to commence direct flights to Dubai from Vadodara and Surat, and from Ahmedabad to London and New Jersey.

“An international airport

in Surat will help to help boost business as well as tourism,” he said.

Commenting on the Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Patel said that upon its completion, the jewellery exporters can bring in diamonds and have them processed in the notified area.

“The diamond polishers are very keen to set up SEZ. Surat is a diamond hub. Polished dia-mond goes to Antwerp, Dubai and other places. Diamond pol-ishers have the confidence in building up the SEZ and state government will support them,” added Patel.

Surat plans India’s first diamond SEZ, international airport

Chhattisgarh receives green signal for its first international airport

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju has given the green signal to Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister Raman Singh to commence international flights from Swami Vivekanand Airport.

Singh explained that the new airport in Raipur fulfils all the parameters required to be

allowed to operate international flights. The air traffic in Chhat-tisgarh has rapidly increased in past five years due to the prog-ress in service sector and indus-trial sector.

The Chief Minister further demanded inclusion of Bilaspur, Jagdalpur and Ambikapur air-ports in the scheme, on the basis

of Centre’s claim to develop new airports in Tier I and Tier II cit-ies in the budget.

Officials of Raipur airport authorities said, “As per trend, we are expecting commencement of flights for Middle East and South east Asian countries. Travellers’ cost would come down by almost 50%.”

Maharashtra Tourism develops Nalasopara as the centre of Buddhist CircuitThe Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) is placing the small coastal town of Nalasopara higher up on its tourism offer-ings, by developing Nalasopara as the centre of Maharashtra Tourism’s ‘Buddhist Circuit’. MTDC has decided to com-mence the circuit from this town.

“We chose the stupa in Nalasopara because it’s from here that Emperor Asoka’s son, Mahendra and daugh-ter, Sanghamitra are believed to have left for Sri Lanka to spread the faith,” said

Dr Jagdish Patil, Managing Director, MTDC.

The journey will then con-tinue to Chaityabhoomi in Dadar, Pagoda in Gorai, and other Buddhist destinations, and will conclude at Deekshab-hoomi in Nagpur. The initiative will help in promoting Buddhist Spiritual Tourism in the state.

Punjab tourism minister releases book Experience Punjab: On the RoadA travel guide of Punjab, ‘Expe-rience Punjab: On the Road’, has been released by Sohan Singh Thandal, Minister for Tourism, Government of Punjab.

The Book is being published by Times Group Books and is supported by Punjab Heritage and Tourism Promotion Board.

Speaking on the occasion the Tourism Minister Than-dal said, “This is a good effort by a Times Group Books, the publishing arm of The Times of India, to showcase Punjab in an extensive yet very simplis-tic way which will be helpful to the travel enthusiasts. Pun-jab Tourism started its mar-keting activities over past two years aimed at creating aware-ness among travel industry per-sons. Several activities aimed to attract travel industry to pro-mote the state are being under-taken, like exhibiting in travel

exhibitions in key markets of India, inviting trade tour operators for familiarisation tours, linking the travel trade of country with that of Punjab. Guide books like these help in reaching out to potential tour-ists highlighting the lesser known interesting places of Punjab as well.”

‘Experience Punjab: On the Road’ is not just a travel guide,

but it’s the ultimate help book of a travel enthusiast on a road journey. The book provides first-hand account of places to see, delicacies to eat and options to stay at while visiting Punjab. Moreover, it also focuses on some main and some offbeat destinations, places of interest, anecdotes, trivia, listings for hotels and farm-stays, restau-rants as well as shopping.

Goa Tourism is roped in as the destination partner for the Eng-lish- Hindi satirical Bollywood movie Finding Fanny. With the movie plot surrounded by 5 contrasting characters set in a village of Goa, the State’s tourism body was chosen to be the perfect destination part-ner keeping in mind Goa is the world’s only tourist destina-tion that has the maximum con-trasts in the smallest geograph-ical space.

Goa Tourism has recently undergone a brand make over to encapsulate the State’s con-trasting rich tangible heritage which is in the form of forts, temples, churches, natural beauty and even richer intan-gible heritage in the various forms of dances, music, tradi-tions and culture.

The State’s new identity is an Ambigram that appears the

same from either side and in this case, captures the contrasts within the same geographical space. The other unique feature being a dynamic logo, making Goa the third place in the world to use dynamic logos. The colors of the logo will change based on seasonality and focus of the state.

Goa Tourism also has a new brand line which is the world’s first dynamic tourism brand line – kenna, which means ‘sometimes’.

Nilesh Cabral, Chairman, GTDC said, “We have launched a Facebook contest on Finding Fanny where people can partic-ipate by giving their thoughts on what they think of Goa’s con-trast through the word kenna. The winners will win a 3 nights, 4 days stay in Goa and a chance to meet the cast of the movie in addition to free tickets, etc.”

Bollywood film Finding Fanny selects Goa Tourism as destination partner

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 12 • india

Indian Hotels Company: raymond bickson quits, rakesh K sarna new mD and CeOAt the Indian Hotels Com-pany Ltd. (Taj Group of Hotels), Raymond Bickson, the long-serving CEO and Managing Director (MD) of the Group, stepped down from the position recently. He has been replaced by Rakesh K Sarna.

Bickson, who has spent 11 years at Indian Hotels Com-pany Ltd. (IHCL), will pur-sue his professional interests elsewhere, according to a release. He has not only been instrumental in expanding the legacy of IHCL globally, but also for the expansion of the brand to include luxury, upscale, mid-scale and econ-omy hotels.

Cyrus P Mistry, Chair-man, IHCL, said, “We’re grateful to Bickson for his many years of leadership at the Taj Group. His hospi-tality expertise has helped place the Group and its brands among the most respected names in the inter-

national hotel and resort industry. We’re fortunate to have more than 20,000 ded-icated employees, a strong senior management team, and an experienced Board to help us move forward into the next phase of Taj’s growth.”

Sarna’s appointment took effect from September 1, 2014.

The Ministry of Tourism (MoT) has announced that it is delink-ing hotel classification from liquor service, a much awaited demand of the hotel industry. This is a decision which can result in a boost to the hotel industry.

This new decision is appli-cable to four and five star hotels under non-heritage and classic category hotels in heritage sec-tor. Up until now, fulfilling the criterion of alcohol service was essential for hotels to seek clas-sification under the categories of 4 Star, 5 Star, 5 Star Deluxe, Classic Heritage and Grand Heritage.

But from now on, hotels in the categories of 5 Star and 4 Star in non-Heritage sector and Classic category Hotels in Her-itage sector will be classified as ‘5 Star with alcohol service’, ‘5 Star without alcohol service’, ‘4 Star with alcohol service’, ‘4 Star without alcohol service’, ‘Clas-sic Heritage with alcohol ser-vice’ and ‘Classic Heritage with-out alcohol service’.

According to an official statement, it reads, “This deci-sion would provide flexibility to hotel owners and management to take considered decision on whether to provide alcohol ser-vice or not in their units.”

Ministry of Tourism simplifies hotel classification

mot promotes buddhist tourism in Uttar Pradesh and bihar

India grants visa relaxation for selected Bangladeshi category

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Culture & Tour-ism Shripad Yesso Naik has recently launched a strategy for the development of Bud-dhist heritage circuits in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar- ‘Investing in the Buddhist Circuit’.

Parvez Dewan, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism said, “The strategy provides an inte-grated framework to fast-track tourism growth on the circuit by focusing on critical chal-lenges and opportunities along the destination value chain which will serve as a guiding

framework for investment in tourism development on the circuit over the next five to ten years.”

Naik explained that the strategy focuses on infrastruc-ture development, skill devel-opment, increased market access, involvement of com-munities and enhancing the visitors’ experience.

For the promotion of Bud-dhist heritage and sites of the country, the Ministry of Tour-ism (MoT) is carrying out regu-lar promotions in the domestic and overseas Buddhist source

markets. MoT is also organis-ing road shows and FAM trips to Buddhists sites and inviting tour operators and media in them. Moreover, MoT is hold-ing various exhibitions and producing literature on Bud-dhist heritage.

Every two years, the Min-istry also organises Interna-tional Buddhist Conclave to boost inbound tourism to the Buddhist sites in India. Several international tour operators, policy makers, media person-alities and Indian stakehold-ers participate in the event.

The Government has recently announced the relaxation of visa rules for a specific category of Bangladeshi nationals, who are planning to cross the borders. Children below the age of 13 years and citizens above the age of 65 years will be given multiple-entry tourist visas for five years on their arrival to India. The deci-sion has been taken to strengthen the ties between the two nations.

The decision was taken during a meeting between Sushma Swaraj, Minister for

External Affairs, Government of India, and her Bangladeshi

counterpart, Abul Hassan Mah-mood Ali.

India introduces new liberal visa policy for AfghansThe Government has intro-duced a new liberal visa pol-icy for Afghan nationals, vis-iting and staying in India. The decision has been taken on humanitarian grounds and is for two years.

The elements of the policy are as follows:• Government may allow

Afghan nationals to stay in India on stay visa/resident permit upto two years at a time.• Exemption from police

reporting will be granted for Afghan nationals, upto the age of 12 years or those above

65 years of age.• There would be lib-

eral provisions in relation to exemption from the require-ment of police reporting under various categories, including for Afghan stu-dents, medical patients,

short-term visitors, busi-nessmen, scholars, eminent persons etc.

Furthermore, new facili-ties have been introduced at Foreigner Regional Registra-tion Office (FRRO), Delhi for the Afghan nationals.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 13 INDIA •

Both domestic and international Hotel chains are now acknowl-edging the fact that domestic traffic is the primary source of income, irrespective of desti-nation and tourism sub-sector. And nowadays these domes-tic travellers demand comfort and high standards of services wherever they go, thus widen-ing the field of work for the hotel developers.

Keeping in mind the above mentioned demands, develop-ers and hoteliers are now focus-sing on utilising the potential of

religious destinations. Every year, a large number of Indians streams into destinations such as Tirupati, Shirdi, Vaishno Devi and so on. One such exam-ple is the fact that this year the 45- day-long Amaranth Yatra to the holy cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas attracted as many as 3.7 lakh pilgrims. Pil-grims visiting such religious places have now understood the need of quality accommoda-tions and other services, which they easily receives while vis-iting other popular tourism

destinations across India.“Pilgrim cities have stable

potential of business primar-ily from families and devotees. Despite very little or no corpo-rate business in these cities, there is potential for round-the-year business. A large percent-age of guests who visit pilgrim destinations have strong pay-ing capabilities and willingness to spend for the right product and comfort along with modern amenities,” said Partha Chatter-jee, Chief – Sales and Marketing, Berggruen Hotels.

Hoteliers and developers focus on religious tourism in India

India to complete world’s highest railway bridge by 2016India is building world’s high-est railway bridge, expected to be 35 m taller than the Eiffel Tower upon its completion in 2016, reaching a total height of 359 m. An engineering mar-vel, it is being constructed over the Chenab River to con-nect the parts of the moun-tainous region of Jammu and Kashmir. The bridge will sur-pass the current tallest rail-way bridge of the world,

which is over the Beipanji-ang River in China’s Guizhou province, standing at 275 m high.

The project is under the Konkan Railway Corpora-tion, and is worth $92 million. The bridge will link Baram-ulla to Jammu, resulting in a total travel time of six and half hours, which is almost half the time that it currently takes.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 14 • india

India sets up multilingual helpline with 12 languages for tourists

shripad Naik launches sustainable tourism Criteria for IndiaThe Union Minister for Tour-ism Shripad Naik recently launched the Comprehensive Sustainable Tourism Criteria for India (STCI) for Accom-modation, Tour Operators and Beaches, Backwaters, Lakes & Rivers Sectors and the Inaugu-rated the Sensitisation Work-shop for the stakeholders on Sustainable Tourism Criteria for India (SCTI).

The launch of the Com-prehensive Sustainable Tour-ism Criteria for India (STCI) and Indicators for the Accom-modation, Tour Operators and Beaches, Backwater, Lakes & Rivers and the Sen-sitisation workshop are part of activities/programmes that have been taken up by the Min-istry of Tourism for comple-tion within the 100 days of the incumbent Government. The launch was followed by a sen-sitisation workshop for the stakeholders on Sustainable Tourism Criteria.

Speaking at the occasion, the Union Tourism Minister Shripad Naik said, “My Min-istry is committed to develop tourism in India based on the principles of sustainability, minimising the carbon foot-prints. We ensure our strate-gies for development of tour-ism are not in conflict with the environment and have minimal negative effect.” George C Varughese, President

of the Development Alterna-tives spoke about the Impor-tance of Sustainability in Indian Tourism.

The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India consti-tuted a Steering Committee with representatives from all the 14 sectors of the tourism and hospitality industry of India to formulate the Sustain-able Tourism Criteria to final-ise the STCI.

The Ministry of Tourism (MoT) is soon going to build a telephonic contact centre through qualified and expe-rienced partners. The deci-sion has been made to offer information services to tour-ists coming to India, before and after their arrival.

Talking about the ser-vice, Shripad Yesso Naik, Minister of State (Indepen-dent Charge) for Culture & Tourism said, “This service will primarily serve those who would call from abroad, knowing very little about

travel within India and those who do not understand Indian systems and lan-guages, not even English.”

The Ministry of Tourism further planned to outsource back offices for guidance services. The languages that will be offered by the contact centres include Arabic, Chi-nese, French, German, Ital-ian, Japanese, Korean, Por-tuguese, Russian, Spanish besides English and Hindi. It is expected that the sys-tem will be ready to serve by March 31, 2015.

After 15 years, Air India resumes India-Russia servicesAfter 15 years, Air India again started its services between India and Russia, with the introduction of a direct non-stop operation between Delhi

and Moscow. This service will operate four days a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

The new service is

expected to greatly serve Indians travelling to St Petersburg as well as the over 1000 Indian students in Russia.

The second most popu-lous city of Europe, Moscow is emerging as one of the fast-est growing tourist destina-tions in the world.

Air India is also in conver-sation with other carriers of Russia to provide services between other Russian cities and India.

The only regular direct air connection between Russia and India has been Aeroflot’s daily service connecting the national capitals.

TajSATS, Air India tie up to provide the ultimate on-board diningTajSATS and Air India entered into a partnership with an aim to introduce its new in-flight dining concept called ‘Table set-up’. The concept is being under-taken in order to offer a superior on-board dining experience to the passengers.

Ranjiv Ramanathan, Chief Operating Officer, TajSATS commented on the partner-ship, “TajSATS is proud to take the lead in partnering Air India to provide an elevated dining experience with the launch of ‘Table set-up’. We are privileged to join hands with India’s old-est airline to design and deliver a fresh and innovative on-board meal experience to guests.”

Chef Satish Arora, Direc-tor, Food Production, TajSATS added, “With the introduction

of this concept, Air India will adopt a more pleasant and elab-orate dining experience that will be far different from the traditional meal offering. The ‘Table set-up’ has been con-ceptualised to provide first and

business class guests the oppor-tunity to savour tailor-make dishes based on their individ-ual tastes and preferences. This concept will help both Air India and TajSATS go the extra mile in presentation and service.”

The government is planning to allow the non-scheduled air operators (NSOPs) and air-charter firms to convert to scheduled operators and fly on those routes, which are not regulated by the existing air-lines. The step is being con-sidered to promote air travel

between the unconnected des-tinations of Tier-II and Tier-III cities. There are currently about 130 NSOPs which are registered with the DGCA.

Officials further informed that the NSOPs would be allowed to have codeshare with existing scheduled air-lines or with other such NSOPs.

The proposal is now being discussed among some state governments, like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal.

Indian budget carrier, GoAir is all set to get its 20th A320 jet very soon, thus qualifying to start its overseas flights.

Giorgio De Roni, Chief Exec-utive Officer, Go Airlines (India) Ltd., said, “GoAir is planning to begin flights to overseas desti-nations during the fiscal year that starts next April. We are working on a strategic partner-ship with a foreign airline. We are open to giving equity.”

GoAir is further planning to sell a stake to a foreign airline, to raise more money for new aircraft. The airline will start receiving the delivery of 72 Air-bus A320neo planes from 2016.

GoAir has achieved its

highest ever market share of 10.1% in June 2014. “We have committed our attention to this, by allotting 70% of our capacity on routes such as Sri-nagar, Pune, Goa, Nagpur and Patna, which are the strongest Non-Metro catchment areas. GoAir wants to play a bigger role in the Indian aviation mar-ket in the coming years,” added De Roni.

Govt may allow private charters to function like scheduled airlines

GoAir plans to start overseas flights after achieving eligibility

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TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | sePtember 2014 • 19ASIA

Meghalaya’s Chief Minister Mukul Sangma recently put forward his state at the India-Bangladesh Business Con-clave in Dhaka, and encour-aged a possible trade and tourism connection between the two destinations, which will prove beneficial for both the nations.

“The chief minister pro-posed a joint investment initia-tive between Bangladesh and Meghalaya as the northeast-ern state has a rich deposit of granite and very high quality

limestone,” said an official.Sangma further showed his

keen interest to develop a sep-arate conclave on tourism, as Meghalaya is rich in tourism potential while being at close proximity to Bangladesh.

Union DoNER Minister and Union MoS for Exter-nal Affairs V K Singh fur-ther announced to strengthen the relations between the two countries, especially between Bangladesh and the northeast.

Bangladesh has been taking numerous strategies to boost

the tourism of the nation, both inbound and outbound. For the first time ever, Biman Ban-gladesh Airlines have intro-duced its own aircraft, which will only fly the Hajj pilgrims from Bangladesh.

“Biman will take care of all the Hajj flights with its own planes this time,” Civil Avi-ation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon said. “Biman would ferry at least 50,000 passengers this sea-son. But preparations will be made to handle 2,000 more.”

Bangladesh-Meghalaya tourism alliance on the table

Taiwan collaborates with Google for tourism promotional campaignTaiwan joined hands with Google to develop the coun-try’s tourism competition- “Anytime for Taiwan-Film Tai-wan, Action!” The competition is a joint campaign between Google and Taiwan Tourism Bureau in order to showcase the country’s tourism sector globally.

Involving YouTube in the mix, the competition invites visitors coming arriving in Taiwan to capture the best scenes of Taiwan on video and create on-line videos of their trips. The tourism officials are hoping that this competi-tion-cum-campaign will act as personalised and more inti-mate connections between the tourists and Taiwanese cul-ture. The grand prize winner gets an around-the-world air-plane ticket.

“The tourism industry plays a significant role in Tai-wan’s economic development,” said David W. J. Hsieh, Direc-tor-General of the Taiwan

Tourism Bureau. “We believe that this global campaign is the best of two worlds, leveraging technology to bring innovation to the tourism industry.”

Tourism generated $12.3 million for Taiwan’s economy in 2013, marking an increase of 9.6% in tourist arrivals to 8 million. For 2014, Taiwan Tourism is expecting 9 million visitors.

After showcasing the busi-ness hub Taipei, snow topped mountains, hot springs, a thriving whiskey industry, stunning beaches, beautiful cities and the most comfort-able weather all year long, Taiwan Tourism now wants to focus on promoting LGBT Tourism as well.

Pakistan to reinstate country’s tourism imageThe Pakistan Tourism Devel-opment Corporation (PTDC) is planning to develop its tour-ism sector and enhance the revenue generation. PTDC Managing Director Chaudhry Kabir Ahmad Khan explained that the main focus is to turn PTDC into a self-sustaining organisation. “A comprehen-sive security policy has been made to promote the sense of protection among domestic and foreign tourists,” Khan stated.

He further announced that PTDC had re-launched its summer tour packages and has also revised hotel, motel and resort rates of the popular tourist destinations.

“The PTDC will introduce Tourism Friends Club Card for overseas Pakistani tour-ists in the coming week. Incen-tives will be given through this card, like discounts on room rates, tour packages and transport services to tourists,”

Khan continued. “The pur-pose of this card is to promote tourism-related activity in the country and provide better facilities to local public, as well as national and international tourists at affordable rates.”

“The PTDC land at Gad-dani Beach and in Balo-chistan would be utilised for

launching projects like devel-oping a beach resort, outdoor and indoor games facilities and water-sports club which would help in generating income. The current government is making earnest efforts to promote tour-ism sector and reinstate the soft image of Pakistan across the globe,” Khan concluded.

bhutan offers Honeymoon, silver Hair and Luxury tourismIn order to increase the travel and tour image of the coun-try, The Tourism Council of Bhutan is planning to tap the Wedding/Honeymoon seg-ment, the Silver Hair (senior citizens) segment and Luxury Travellers.

Namgay Wangmo, Mar-keting and Promotion Divi-sion, Tourism Council of Bhu-tan said, “India is currently one of the top source markets for Inbound Travellers to the Kingdom of Bhutan and will continue to maintain this posi-tion for the next decade. This is also evident from the trend of Indian economic growth and change in social behav-iour where people are rap-idly becoming more adven-turous, ready to explore new destinations.”

Wangmo further added that it is easy to travel between India and Bhutan as Indians

do not require visas and they are exempt from minimum daily package rates. “We rec-ommend visitors to avail of the services of our local tour oper-ators and guides to spice up travel experience with an in-depth sightseeing along with detailed narration.”

Bhutan Tourism contin-ues to participate in various travel fairs and tourism events in India as well as hold road-shows and seminars, in order to spread awareness about the tourism offerings of Bhutan.

Bhutan’s national air-line, Drukair launched flights from Paro to Mumbai in May this year.

China: Domestic spending on tourism to double by 2020China plans to double its domestic spending on tour-ism by 2020, through financial and related support to develop the sector. The country aims to increase the spending at home to spur economic growth. In recent years, Chine witnessed significant number of tourist numbers, both domestic and foreign.

In order to improve any shortcomings in the tourism offerings, new guidelines have been introduced which encour-ages the Chinese to spend more of their money at home. The government is currently focus-sing on shifting its model away from being depending on only exports and investment for growth. By 2020, the govern-ment hopes to make the domes-tic tourism reach 5.5 trillion yuan ($894 billion), which is

more than double the 2013 fig-ure of 2.6 trillion yuan. Tourism accounts for over 5% of GDP in China.

The plan also added that special emphasis will be given on environmental and cultural protection, better parking spaces and restricted number of people visiting the popular destinations.

“Tourism companies will be

encouraged to list on the stock market and loans and other financial support given to small firms operating in the sector, especially at the village level,” the plan reads.

To attract more foreigners, China is currently perfecting the new system, which offers 72-hour visa-free access to sev-eral major cities, mostly for Western tourists.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 20 • asIa

During the first seven months of 2014, Sri Lanka’s lucrative tourism indus-try increased 33.9% to $1.24 billion. The destination is focussing on attracting 2.5 million tourist arrivals by 2016. In July, these earn-ings have risen by a massive 34.4% to $193.6 million.

Recently, The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau has appointed Media Agency Group to under-take its advertising cam-paign. Sri Lanka Tourism is widely promoting its latest

marketing strategy- ‘Visit Sri Lanka’ and the tourism web-site- www.srilanka.travel.

In UK, Sri Lanka has arranged fleet of 300 cabs, 100 each for Manches-ter, Birmingham and Lon-don, which will display 600 Taxi Supersides with stun-ning visual imagery and the tagline, ‘Sri Lanka 2014, A journey awaits.’

The campaign has been launched to showcase Sri Lanka as a destination of beauty, excitement and history.

Sri Lanka Tourism promotes latest strategy, website

Considering India’s potential as one of the most important emerging markets, the Philip-pines Tourism Marketing Office launched the Philippines Spe-cialist Programme (PSP).

The Philippines Specialist Programme builds on the theme of Its More Fun in the Philippines to help travel agents understand and therefore sell Philippines as an ideal tourist destination. The course offers information in a visually appealing format that gives a glimpse of Philippines as a country and as a tourist attrac-tion too. There are videos too that will make the learning engaging and interesting.

Talking on the occasion, SanJeet, Tourism Attache, Phil-ippines Tourism Marketing Office, India said, “This certi-fied Programme provides travel

professionals the perfect oppor-tunity to familiarise and enhance their product knowledge on the destination, thereby becom-ing Specialists and ambassa-dors of the Philippines. As Spe-cialist, they will be able to work closely and promote Philippines to clients.”

With eight modules in Level 1, providing general infor-mation on the Philippines, to visas, attraction, shopping, nightlife, hotels and food to cities like Manila, Cebu, Boracay, Pala-wan and Bohol, travel agents will be super motivated to encour-age their clients to experience Philippines through an unique itinerary.

Thus the programme will provide travel agents with all the relevant information about Philippines.

malaysia tourism targets 700,000 Indian travellers this yearMalaysia Major Events (MME) General Manager Tony Naga-maiah announced that India is one of Malaysia’s top tourist markets, with over 650,000 Indian travel-lers visiting Malaysia in 2013. This year target 700,000 Indian tourist arrivals have been set.

Indian Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi has recently accepted an invitation from Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak

to visit Malaysia.For his future visit to Malay-

sia, Modi has shown keen inter-est to strengthen the trade, invest-ment, and tourism, educational and cultural ties between the two countries.

Recently, Malaysia has been selected as the host country for this year’s South Indian Interna-tional Movie Awards (SIIMA) to be held in September. The event,

which highlights Malaysia’s potential to successfully show-case itself as a MICE destina-tion, is expected to generate over RM25million tourist.

Malaysian Tourism Promo-tion Board Chairman Tan Sri Dr Ng Yen Yen announced that Malaysia is working hard to meet this year’s revised tourist arrivals target of 1.8 million as well as two million for 2015.

Nepal, India sign moU to develop pilgrimage route and other tourism plans

Nepal and India has agreed to enter into a significant MoU to boost the tourism activities between the two nations and equally promote the Buddhist circuit—a pilgrimage route. The Buddhist circuit connects four main sites in India and Nepal—Bodhgaya in Bihar, Sarnath and Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh and Lumbini in Nepal.

Apart from the Buddhist circuit, India will also pro-vide its help to develop two of the major pilgrimage sites of Nepal- Baraha Kshetra

and Janakpur.The tourism ministry offi-

cials further announced that apart from the MoU, other pacts will be signed between the countries, which will lead to the conservation of the archaeological monuments and constructing a Dharma-sala in Pashupatinath area.

To promote art and culture of both the nations, Nepal and India will further strengthen ties between Lalit Kala Acad-emies and Natya Pratisthans. Moreover, India will aid in the construction of the U-Thant

World Peace Auditorium in Lumbini.

Both the countries will focus towards reviewing the airspace agreement to develop more entry routes for airlines coming into Nepal. Nepal is planning to open three cross-border bi-directional airspaces over Biratnagar, Bhairahawa and Nepalgunj. The country is also showing keen focus on the Trans-Himalaya 2 air-space (Kathmandu-Bagdogra-Guwahati-Silchar-Imphal-Kunming), one of the lucrative routes for Nepal.

Philippines launches first ever India specialist programme

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 21 asia •

Tourism Authority of Thai-land has set a new goal of welcoming 1.05 million tour-ists from India in 2014, while it vigorously promotes the destination.

“We expect 1.05 million tourists from India to visit Thailand this year. In 2013, over 1 million tourists had vis-ited the country. India is the sixth largest market for Thai-land. On an average Indian tourists stay for seven days in Thailand and spends around `10,000 per person per day. Currently the tourists are a mix of leisure and business travel-lers with leisure contribut-ing to more than 50% of arriv-als,” said Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) New Delhi Director Runjuan Tongrut.

She further stated that there is another segment which is also emerging as a major reason for Indian arriv-als to Thailand, and that is wedding tourism. Many Indi-ans are deciding to tie the knot Thailand.

“It is an interesting and important segment for us. Thailand is a popular wedding destination for Indians. Last year, over 200 weddings and celebrations such as birthdays, anniversaries, and graduation parties took place there,” Ton-grut added.

Tongrut also said that ‘Thai hospitality’ and its ability to have attractions for everybody are two main reasons for the country being a popular desti-nation for Indians.

Thailand expects 1.05 million Indian tourists this year

North Korea introduces surf tours to attract visitorsIn order to attract more tour-ists, North Korea is introducing surf tours at three resorts along its 1,550-mile coastline. Korea International Travel Company, North Korea’s tourism board organised these four-day, five-night surf tours. This trip will allow the tourists to visit Song-dowon, Lake Sijung and Majon resorts.

“During their stay they can look round monumental struc-tures, places of historic interest

and other tourist attractions in Pyongyang and local areas,” the Pyonyang Times reported. “The first surfing tourism ran between July 28 and August 6. North American surfers said they had a very good time in a bathing resort of the DPRK with fascinating scenery and refreshing environment.”

This year, North Korea also launched its very first luxury ski resort, featuring “vintage” chairlifts and snow cannons.

Vietnam keen on developing tourism ties with India

Vietnam is planning for a pos-sible visa exemption for the Indian travellers besides wel-coming the Indian filmmakers to shoot in the country, all with the objective of tapping the huge outbound tourism mar-ket of India. Last year more than 7 million visitors trav-elled to Vietnam out of which 10,000 were Indians.

Ding Ngoc Duc, CEO of the Vietnam Chapter of Pacific Asia Travel Association, said “Vietnam sees a big potential in tourism inflow from India. Incidentally, a large number of

Vietnamese visit India, espe-cially Bodh Gaya in Bihar.”

Hoang Thi Diep, Vice Chairman of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tour-ism stated, “We are talking with the Ministry of Finance to find out the best way to attract Indian filmmakers. We are also looking at hosting an Indian Film Awards show here.”

External Affairs Minis-ter of India, Sushma Swaraj, while visiting Vietnam, announced that India is planning to open a cultural

centre in Hanoi. She further encouraged the Vietnam-ese to have a cultural centre in India. Swaraj also showed keen interest in telecasting Indian shows and movies on Vietnamese television and increasing the commercially availability of Indian films.

Although, there are no direct flights between Viet-nam and India currently, it is expected that from November 2014, the MoU signed between Jet Airways and Vietnam Air-lines will result in flight ser-vices between the nations.

thailand organises events to win back international travellersThailand has recently under-taken an extravagant ceremony in an effort to attract the tourists to visit the destination. The cere-mony, known as Thailand Hap-piness: Street Festival, sent out friendly invitations to travellers from around the world through the symbolic release of thou-sands of smiley faced balloons into the skies above Bangkok.

The streets were closed for two days while people cel-ebrated two main events – Happiness Music and Hap-piness Street– under the

theme “Colour Your Life with Happiness”.

Thawatchai Arunyik, Gov-ernor of TAT said, “The spec-tacular release of thousands of smiley-faced balloons will sym-bolise that Thailand is always ready to welcome tourists to the kingdom with friendly Thai smiles. And, as the event has been jointly organised by rep-resentatives of all the Thai peo-ple, it sends out a single mes-sage of unity and welcome.”

Over 900 members of the international media and travel

bloggers and tour agents from over 47 countries participated in Thailand Happiness Street Festival, and along with that in one of the largest FAM trips ever hosted by the Thai tourism industry.

Called “Thailand’s Best Friends Forever Mega Fam Trip” (Thailand’s BFF), it was aimed at conveying a signifi-cant message that the country is back to normal and is ready to welcome travellers from all over the world for leisure, busi-ness and MICE events.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 22 • asIa

SilkAir to start five weekly Singapore-Bengaluru services

Singapore to introduce wearable RFID tags to boost tourism

SilkAir announced that it will start its services from Bengaluru to Singapore upto five times a week from December 14, 2014 to January 18, 2015. Currently the airline only offers four weekly flights to Bengaluru. To further cover the growing passengers’ demand of two nations, the air-line will also fly on Sundays

Apart from this, passen-gers from Bangalore can now

enjoy the airline’s latest air-craft – the new Boeing 737-800 from October 2014. The new aircraft features 12 Business Class seats and 150 Economy class seats. The new 737 fur-ther boasts modern sculpted sidewalls and window reveals, LED lighting, larger overhead stowage bins, along with the special SilkAir Studio- the air-line’s wireless entertainment system.

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is now planning to use the radio frequency identi-fication technology (RFID) to boost the tourism sec-tor of the nation. The deci-sion has been inspired by the

success of wearable RFID tags at Walt Disney World in Florida, U.S.

STB wants to use about 1,000 wearable tags and 20 tag detecting devices in a particu-lar tourist destination and in a conference venue to keep an eye on consumer behaviour.

Once tourist behaviour

is being monitored, STB can gain insights about their likes and dislikes and plan tourism development strategies accord-ingly. STB is focussing on building a strategy on how to use these devices in the future.

The system will satisfy all the security and personal data requirements. Moreover, it will sync with social media and will also suggest purchases based on registration information and social media interaction. STB is also planning to use the technology to explore gamifica-tion at events and attractions.

India contributes in Maldives’ tourism growthMaldives witnessed an increase of 13.9% in the foreign tourist arrivals. A major portion of this increase has been driven by a strong rise in numbers from India to Maldives. A total of 100,191 overseas visitors trav-elled to Maldives during July, and Indian arrivals saw a boost

of massive 38%.“The growth rate has

remained positive and above average which is great news for all of Maldives source markets, including India which has also shown an upward swing,” said Shikha Mishra, Media & PR Manager, Maldives Marketing

& Public Relations Corpora-tion’s India office.

For Maldives, India is the second largest source market after China in the Asia Pacific region. The first seven months of the year saw a boost of 16.7% in total tourist arrivals in Maldives.

The Ministry of Tourism & Creative Economy of the Republic of Indonesia recently organised a three-city Sales Mission in three major cities of India- Hyderabad, Ahmed-abad and Kolkata. The Sales Mission aimed at promot-ing various aspects of Indo-nesia. The beautiful destina-tion has a rich, varied history and a lot to offer to the discern-ing traveller. The beaches in Bali, scuba diving sites in the island of Lombok and various national parks in Sumatra are just a few examples of popular scenic destinations in the country.

On the whole, Indonesia con-sists of 33 provinces and about 7,500 islands. The country has about 50 national parks out of which six are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Indonesia’s wildlife ranges from the prehistoric Komodo dragon to the orangutan and the rare Java rhinoceros. The country is also a land of volcanic

mountains, some of which are tourist destinations for adven-ture activities like hiking and camping. It is a highly family friendly destination with great food and shopping.

Indonesia is an apt MICE destination with its many state-of-the-art facilities with venues equipped to host large interna-tional conferences, world class exhibitions and entertainment events.

Bali, Lombok, Jakarta, Batam, Yogyakarta and Manado are among the most popu-lar MICE destinations in the country.

During the Kolkata event, Iyung Masruroh – Deputy Director International Tourism Promotion for ASIA, Ministry of Tourism & Creative Economy, Republic of Indonesia, said, “India is a key emerging mar-ket for tourism and we are con-fident to achieve our objectives and set targets for the current year. We will continue with this type of promotions and sales mission in 2015 as well.”

During January-April 2014, Indian tourist arrivals num-bered at 72,056, marking a growth of 14.48% compared to the same period of 2013.

Indonesia conducts three-city sales mission in India

The one of its kind event revolving around corporate travel, the Corporate Travel World (CTW) will be hosted in conjunction with Incentive Travel & Conventions, Meet-ings Asia (IT&CMA). 2014 will mark 22nd year of IT&CMA and 17th edition of CTW Asia-Pacific respectively. The events are scheduled to take place from September 30- October 2, 2014 at the Bangkok Conven-tion Center.

The events provide

excellent platforms for the delegates to smoothly expand their network, successfully do business and learn more about the latest trends of the travel sector, all under one roof. Recently, “Luxury Travel” has also been added to the mix to tap into a wider range of markets.

Recently, more than 100 top-tier buyers, travel manag-ers, leading hoteliers, media and partners congregated at the preview reception of the

upcoming IT&CMA and CTW Asia-Pacific 2014.

As organiser of IT&CMA and CTW Asia-Pacific, Dar-ren Ng said, “As part of our continuous engagement with the local industry, we have col-laborated with Holiday Inn Bangkok Sukhumvit to host our annual preview recep-tion this year. Through this preview reception, we seek to keep the industry informed of upcoming highlights at this year’s IT&CMA and CTW

Asia-Pacific, and at the same time, garner support and

strengthen our relationships with important local players.”

It&CmA and CtW to focus on luxury and corporate travel

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | sePtember 2014 • 23OCEANIA

According to UNWTO, there will be 50 million Indian out-bound travellers by 2020. Tourism Australia’s The India 2020 Strategic Plan has been developed to maximise the tourism potential offered by India. The Tourism 2020 Strat-egy states that for Australia’s tourism industry, India has the potential to be worth between A$ 1.9 billion and A$ 2.3 billion by the end of the decade.

Australia received the high-est number of Indian arrivals in May 2014, marking a year on year increase of 39%, highest in the past seven years.

Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager, India & Gulf, Tour-ism Australia said, “We are extremely pleased with the results achieved during the peak summer holiday season and the growing popularity of Australia amongst Indian travellers. Tourism Austra-lia is geared up to keep the momentum going and opti-mistic that the impending launch of our food and wine

centric ‘Restaurant Austra-lia’ campaign, and the mega sporting fervour that the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 will bring, will lead to fur-ther growth in visitor arriv-als from India in the coming months.”

Moreover, Tourism Aus-tralia has also included the food and wine experience as a prominent part of the ‘There’s Nothing like Australia’ cam-paign. Highlighting food and wine, ‘Restaurant Australia’ has been launched in India recently to attract more Indi-ans. Further interest is being generated by showcasing Australia on popular Indian drama series and movies frequently.

Australia to harness India’s outbound tourism potential

The term ‘Dronies’ came into use very recently. Dronies or short videos of a person cap-tured using a drone is the latest ongoing trend for few months now. But it seems like Tourism New Zealand became the first tourism organisation, which has already adopted this trend and is using drones to promote their destination.

The authorities of New Zea-land Tourism are now plan-ning to cash in on the trend. The tourism board has bought a $1400 DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ drone to tour the country’s ski slopes, Queenstown and Lake Tekapo, to capture tourist dronies.

Tourism New Zealand Aus-tralia General Manager Tony Saunders stated that the drone project has been developed to

appeal to the tourism mar-ket’s “younger audience, who we know are all about selfies”.

“Obviously, everyone is aware how popular selfies are and dronies are getting a lot more attention. Dronies are an innovative way to cap-ture their favourite memo-ries. After their use on the ski slopes, the drone could be used to capture dronies of cycling, touring or golfing hol-idays in the country,” added Saunders.

Kajal Somaiya, India Rep-resentative, Tourism Fiji announced that Fiji has been witnessing a steady growth in Indian traffic – a 30% increase in 2013, and this growth largely came from honeymooners and couples. “While our main focus remains honeymoon-ers and couples, we will continue to develop the family market and niche segments such as adven-ture, diving and high-end incentive groups,” she added.

Additionally, Fiji Tour-ism has updated its market-ing initiatives to make pro-mote a stronger presence in the Indian honeymoon segment. “The main aim is to make the couples’ hon-eymoon the most memora-ble experience possible by applying all their knowl-edge, expertise to catering to all their needs and com-forts,” Somaiya added.

Fiji is conducting a webi-nar to further strengthen their connections with the Indian travel trade.

Qantas and Jetstar have been voted as best airlinesIn the 2014 Skytrax World Air-line Awards, Qantas and Jetstar have been honoured as the two leading airlines in the Austra-lia-Pacific region. Qantas was awarded Best Airline Australia-Pacific for the second consecu-tive year, while Jetstar Airways won the award of Best Low Cost Airline Australia-Pacific. Qan-tas also received the accolade for the Best Premium Economy Class Catering.

Qantas Group Executive, Brand, Marketing and Corpo-rate Affairs, Olivia Wirth said, “The awards – judged by over 18 million passengers from more than 100 countries – con-firmed that Qantas customers were experiencing some of the world’s best travel experiences.”

Jetstar Airways has been voted Best Low Cost Airline

Australia-Pacific for the fourth consecutive year. “The air-line is delighted to once again be recognised by thousands of customers across Austra-lia-Pacific as the region’s lead-ing low fares carrier. We have invested in technology, product

and our delivery to improve and enhance the customer experi-ence.” Jetstar Group CEO Jayne Hrdlicka said. “During the past 12 months, we’ve set a new stan-dard for long haul low fares with the introduction of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner to our fleet.”

Victoria, Australia to forge tourism and cultural relations with India

A meeting was held between Shripad Yesso Naik, Minister of State with Independent Charge for Culture and Tourism, Gov-ernment of India, and Heidi Vic-toria, Minster for Arts, Women’s Affairs and Consumer Affairs of the Australian State of Victoria to further discuss and strengthen the cultural and tourism rela-tions between the two. Both India and Victoria agreed to develop a Joint Forum of tour operators to pave the way for people-to-peo-ple contact.

Naik urged the Victoria’s

investors to invest in India’s hotel industry, tourism and infrastruc-ture development. He further announced that India allows 100% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in hotels on an automated basis.

Both India and Australia expressed keen interest on invit-ing the travel agents/tour oper-ators, travel writers/photogra-phers from each other’s country to promote the tourist destina-tions and attractions of the host country.

Inviting Naik to Australia,

Victoria offered collaboration between the two countries in museum, galleries and teaching institutions. Both the nations agreed to exchange their details of the training facilities avail-able in the field of tourism, hotel management, catering technol-ogy, etc.

Being one of the top ten source market of India, last year, 218,967 Australians visited India, as compared with 202,105 in 2012. The number of Indians that vis-ited Australia in 2013 was 159,279, as compared with 148,191 in 2012.

Dronies: The latest trend of New Zealand Tourism promotion

Fiji updates initiatives to tap the Indian honeymooners market

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | sePtember 2014 • 24middle east

Saudi Arabia announced that the country will exhibit at this year’s World Travel Market (WTM) for the first time. Saudi Arabia will send representa-tives from The Saudi Commis-sion for Tourism & Antiquities (SCTA), as well as from Saudi Airlines and budget airline fly-nas, to WTM, held at Excel from November 3 to 6, 2014.

Saudi government has recently invested £18 bil-lion in the tourism sector for the period of 2013-2023. It is expected that tourist arriv-als in Saudi Arabia will rise to 21.3 million over the next decade.

Hamad A Alsheikh, VP for marketing and programs at the SCTA, said, “Saudi aims to highlight the historic potentials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a crossroad of civilizations through displaying part of its history, heritage, achievements and tourism potentials by way of print material and direct communication. We plan to highlight and introduce the existing tourism investments in the Kingdom of Saudi Ara-bia in different fields, espe-cially in the convention and exhibition sector and accom-modation sector, in addition to

other tourism and investment areas.”

World Travel Market Senior Exhibition Director Simon Press said, “I am delighted to see Saudi at World Travel Mar-ket this year for the first time; it’s great that the government has put the spotlight on tour-ism within the Kingdom and can see the huge potential and benefits it is likely to reap. I am confident that WTM will aid Saudi with their ambitious plans, and ensure plenty of net-working and business deals are facilitated over the four days of the event.”

Saudi Arabia to debut in WTM London, invests £18 billion in tourism sector

Saudi Arabia’s budget air-line, Flynas announced that for the first time ever, it has started its services to India with two weekly flights each from Jeddah to Hyderabad, operating on Saturdays and Wednesdays, and Jeddah to Kozhikode, operating on Mon-days and Wednesdays. Biz-pros Management Pvt. Ltd. has been announced as the official passenger sales agent.

“The launch of flights to destinations in India is an exciting new development in the Flynas global flights pro-gramme. I am sure it will be welcomed by the huge num-ber of Indian expatriates who work in Saudi Arabia. We now keenly look forward to extend-ing Flynas hospitality to our guests’ onboard flights from

Jeddah to both Hyderabad and Calicut,” said Sajid Nadeem Hazari, Managing Director of Bizpros Management.

“In addition to benefiting from the affordability of our low-cost fares, Flynas guests on flights to India will enjoy the comforts of our new wide-bodied Airbus A330, free meals onboard and a generous baggage allowance of one bag weighing 30 kg,” said Wael Al Sarhan, Director of Mar-keting and Communication at Flynas.

saudi budget airline Flynas starts service to India

Abu Dhabi Tourism’s India roadshow witnesses a huge successAbu Dhabi’s recent five-city Indian roadshow pulled in more than 500 travel profes-sionals from over 400 com-panies with stakeholders believing the destination will now attract great numbers of travellers from the republic with many of them staying longer than ever.

The roadshow – organ-ised by Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) featured 13 stake-holders and took in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and New Delhi.

“The travel trade frater-nity responded favourably to Abu Dhabi’s range of afford-able accommodation options at the best of hotels at very compelling value such as the Hilton, Rotana, and Yas Vice-roy,” said Bejan Dinshaw, Country Manager, India, TCA Abu Dhabi.

For John Bahr of the five-star Dusit Thani Abu Dhabi

prospects for the meetings business emerged strongly. “India has a lot of poten-tial and DMCs are positively thinking to grow and increase the leisure and MICE market to Abu Dhabi,” he said.

India is currently Abu Dhabi’s leading over-seas source market for hotel guests which further

uplift expected with next February’s planned launch by Etihad Airways of a daily service from Kolkata. Abu Dhabi welcomed 124,912 Indian hotel guests from Jan – July 2014 at a growth rate of 35% over the same period last year. 475,177 guest nights were recorded, which is up 24% year-on-year.

sharjah tourism reveals 2015 projectsMarwan Serkal, Execu-tive Director of the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq) recently announced that several new projects are in queue and will be launched very soon as part of the celebration of select-ing the Emirate of Sharjah, as the Capital of Arab Tour-ism-2015. “These new projects aim to raise the standard of the tourism services and enhance the environmental and cul-tural aspects in the emirate,” Serkal said.

While elaborating on some of the projects Serkal said that development work on the Flag Island in Sharjah, includ-ing service and entertainment facilities, an open theatre, arts gallery and a cafe, is currently under construction. He fur-ther added that there is also

a commercial project and a resort for the environmental tourism in the city of Kalbaa will be announced in the next period.

“There are also other 3 new projects which will be estab-lished in the city of Khor Fak-kan. The first is the mountain

resort, the second is devel-opment of the beach through filling a part of the sea in one phase, while in another res-taurants, cafes, entertainment and sport facilities will be established. Meanwhile, the third project will be a flagpole for the UAE’s flag,” he added.

Etihad Airways to start daily Kolkata flights from February 2015Etihad Airways is going to introduce six new routes dur-ing the first half of 2015. Daily flights will be available to Madrid (Spain), Edinburgh (Scotland), Kolkata (India) and Entebbe (Uganda).

The airline will also oper-ate four flights a week to Hong Kong, and three flights a week to Algeria’s capital and largest city, Algiers.

Additionally, Etihad Air-ways’ existing daily flights from Abu Dhabi to Brisbane (Australia), which is currently operated via Singapore, will become a direct service from June 2015.

James Hogan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Etihad Airways, said, “These new destinations have been selected to expand our cover-age and strengthen our cus-tomer proposition in the stra-tegically important markets of Europe, Asia and Africa. The expansion will also create

new opportunities to enhance our codeshare agreements and align operations with key air-line partners, such as Virgin Australia, Jet Airways, Air Seychelles, Air Europa and Kenya Airways.”

Furthermore, Etihad will also continue to increase fre-quencies on existing services and network depth to impor-tant markets across the North America, Middle East and Indian subcontinent regions.

A total of 6.7 million pas-sengers travelled with Eti-had during the first half of 2014, marking an increase of almost 22% than the same period of last year, and gen-erating the total revenue to U.S. $3.2 billion.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 25 middle east •

Jordan launches online chat facility for international touristsJordan became the first tourist office in the Middle East to offer the facility of live chat facility on its website. The facility is available for five days a week.

With the help of this ser-vice the international visitors can plan their Jordan trips more smoothly. The online chat service is available at

www.visitjordan.com from Sunday to Thursday from 08:00 to 17:00 local Amman time (GMT +3:00) in both Ara-bic and English.

Available in most pages of the website, Jordan Tourist Board announced that the two-week testing period of the chat facility has gained ‘overwhelm-ingly positive’ feedback from users globally.

Commenting on this fea-ture, Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) Managing Director Dr Abed Al-Razzaq Arabiyat said, “These new developments allow guests to ask any question they might have about tourism in Jordan live and get an imme-diate answer by qualified staff managing the chat feature.”

One of the most sought after tourist destinations in the Middle East, Oman is a perfect juxtaposition of comfort, pan-oramic beaches and golden deserts. The Sultanate of Oman is further making great efforts to develop and enhance tourism infrastructure.

The Discover Oman Spe-cialist programme is an ideal medium to explore the vibrant Oman. A Webinar was recently conducted to enlighten the audience about the top destinations of Oman. The aim of this webinar is to spread awareness of the

Sultanate of Oman and pro-mote it as a growing tourist destination in the Middle East.

During the webinar, multi-ple topics related to Oman was brought into light, including tourism products, things to do, various attractions, how to package and sell Oman as a tourist destination, MICE tourism, leisure tourism, hon-eymoon tourism, religious tourism, visa and booking formalities, new develop-ments and upcoming projects and a chance to interact live with the speakers from Oman Tourism.

Oman promotes the destination via Webinar

Qatar Airways connects Chennai with 7 U.s. destinationsQatar Airways has announced that it will now connect Chen-nai with seven destinations in U.S. The decision has made Qatar Airways the first and only airline to offer non-stop service from Middle East to Miami. The airline also flies to New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia.

Henry Moses, Country Manager India, Qatar Air-ways said, “Chennai – US is one of the key routes for Qatar

Airways in India and we see tremendous growth poten-tial from this market. Our aim is to bring the world closer by delivering multiple frequen-cies, maximum connectivity and efficient travel time on key routes across the globe. With the launch of the much antici-pated world-class hub, Hamad International Airport (HIA), Qatar Airways will continue to offer an unparalleled five-star aviation experience to passengers.”

egypt outlines projects to boost the tourism sectorEgypt’s Tourism Ministry announced that the department will undertake a major inter-national campaign in October to boost the country’s tourism sector.

“First up is a decision by the foreign ministry to grant Indian tourists visas upon arrival, without having to apply at Egyptian embassies back home,” Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou said.

Apart from India, Egypt’s Tourism Ministry will further focus on reactivating the cul-tural tourism from European destinations such as the UK, Germany, Italy and Russia.

“We have convinced tour operators to direct their flights to Egypt in the middle of the tourism season,” added Zaazou.

Zaazou also added that a new project is under develop-ment to offer tourist-level pub-lic transport means between Cairo and new cities.

“Safe parking lots were set for the urban buses and for the cars of citizens who will use the

service. The tourism and local development ministries and Cairo City Hall are coordinat-ing to set the stops and routes of the buses. Initially three routes were proposed in the first phase on which 10 buses will be operating on each route with a 10-minute interval,” Zaazou added.

The national carrier, EgyptAir has recently entered into a partnership to introduce

a direct flight line between Cairo and New Delhi, and fur-ther adding three more routes between India and Egypt. There are already four flight routes existing between the two nations.

Apart from India, Egypt is also working towards reacti-vating cultural tourism from several European destinations, such as UK, Germany, Italy and Russia.

Emirates introduces first double-deck flight service from IndiaEmirates Airlines recently started its first scheduled superjumbo A380 service from Mumbai. The A380 fea-tures 14 first class suites, 76 business class fully-flat seats and 399 seats in economy.

Emirates Senior Vice Pres-ident Ahmed Khoory said, “Emirates has been serving India since our founding year in 1985, and it is our largest market today which we serve with 185 flights each week. We look forward to working with the new government in India to grow India’s economy through enhanced aviation connectivity and to realise

India’s ambition to grow its international aviation mar-ket to 85 million passengers by 2020.”

The Dubai carrier has fur-ther introduced the the larger B777 aircraft to Delhi and

Hyderabad to serve growing demand, resulting in an addi-tional 980 one-way weekly seats to Delhi and an extra 672 one-way weekly seats to Hyderabad.

Four gateway air-ports in India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad have acquired the permission to accommo-date A380s.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | sePtember 2014 • 26europe

Christopher Rodrigues, Chair-man, VisitBritain, announced that Sally Balcombe has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of the organ-isation. Prior to this, Balcombe has fulfilled the responsibili-ties as the Managing Director of British Airways Holidays, the Commercial Director of Opodo and the Chief Market-ing Officer at Travelport.

Most recently, Balcombe has been a Board member of VisitBritain, Governor of the Museum of London, Com-missioner of English Her-itage. Meanwhile, Christo-pher Rodrigues also stated that he will continue with

his term as the Chairman beyond the expiry of his cur-rent term.

sally balcombe becomes the new CeO of Visitbritain

Ásbjörn Björg¬vins¬son, the Director of the Icelandic Tour-ism Association, has stated that the Icelandic government should focus on the tourism sector that earns major reve-nue for Iceland. He has pro-posed that the country should form its own tourism ministe-rial jurisdiction.

“We have a Minister of Fish-eries and Agriculture under the jurisdiction of the Minis-try of Industries and Innova-tion,” he said. “We believe the time has come for a Minister of Tourism. This is only natural, as tourism has been an employ-ment sector that generates the move revenue, and we don’t see

that changing any time soon.”The number of tourists to

Iceland has increased by 20% last year and will be growing

by further 20% in the coming year. Subsequently, 5000 new jobs would be also created over the next decade.

Portugal promotes wine tourism and routesVisit Portugal is currently promoting the country as a culinary destination, with a special focus on wine tour-ism. Portugal is a country with a strong wine growing tradi-tion, and while exploring the different types of wines and wine producing regions, one can enjoy the stunning land-scapes, rich heritage and cul-ture, and friendly, loving peo-ple of Portugal.

Porto & Duoro Wine region is the oldest wine region in the world. The Alentejo is a region rich in wine tourism units, being the home of several lead-ing Portuguese wine produc-ers. Known as “The Pearl of

the Atlantic” the “Madeira” wine shows unusual qualities and features, such as its lon-gevity. Portugal’s wine routes

provide the best tour for exploring the history of these elegant wines.

The Vinho Verde Wine

Route runs from the Minho to the Douro Green. They are easy to drink wines, fruity, that go very well with

appetisers or light meals.Another significant wine

route is the Bairrada. It was one of the first regions in Por-tugal to produce great wines which include the sparkling wines.

The Setúbal Peninsula Wines Route is another area of great beauty which pro-duces one of the most reputed wines in Portugal, The Setubal Moscatel.

And then comes the Alen-tejo Wine Route, proving the best scenic beauty with pic-turesque surrounded with cork oaks and lakes, offering the visitors one unforgettable holiday experience.

Scotland: New 30-mile route steam train to boost tourism

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond announced that train services will start from Tweed-bank in the Borders to Edin-burgh from September 6, 2015. Currently, work is underway on the multi-million pound project.

Upon completion, a steam train will travel on the 30-mile line, through seven new sta-tions, in order to boost tourism.

Scottish Borders Council Leader David Parker stated, “I am delighted that the First

Minister is able to come to the Borders and announce significant plans to further strengthen the tourism poten-tial of the railway. The First Minister’s pledge to work jointly with the council to deliver the Great Tapestry of Scotland visitor centre and other improvements is fantas-tic news.”

Liberal Democrat politi-cian and Member of Scottish Parliament Jim Hume has urged the government to

extend the line to Hawick.A number of measures have

been announced to further increase the tourism potential of the new train service. These measures include, extending the platform at Galashiels Sta-tion for longer tourist trains, constructing new footpath at Newtongrange Station for direct access to Scottish Min-ing Museum, Wifi access and a trained displaying advertising, promoting the tourist poten-tial of the Borders.

Icelandic tourism Association urges govt to form ministry of tourism

London has topped the list of “The World’s Most Influential Cities 2014” by Forbes. The ranking has been done on the basis of criteria that include amount of foreign direct investment attracted, concen-tration of corporate headquar-ters and ease of travel to other global cities.

London witnessed the best ever tourist arrivals in its first quarter this year, i.e. over 3.6 million overseas visits, marking a year-on-year rise of 8.6%. Moreover, it is expected that London will host 18.7 mil-lion international visitors in 2014. London & Partners, the official promotional com-pany for London, explained that the city is currently wit-nessing a significant increase in the number of international

companies, who want to make new investments in the capital.

Focusing on the cultural tourism of the city, Gordon Innes, CEO of London & Part-ners, said, “London is one the most popular tourist destina-tion in the world, with peo-ple coming from around the globe to experience its excep-tional cultural mix of history and heritage, museums and art galleries, and theatre and dance. Many of our museums and galleries are completely free, thus people on any bud-get can experience some of the world’s best collections of art and history – at leading institutions such as the Brit-ish Museum, Tate Modern, or National History Museum – at no cost at all.”

London tops Forbes’ list of World’s Most Influential Cities 2014

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 27 EUROPE •

Nine areas in Romania have been selected to replen-ish and improve the state of their ecological tour-ism value. The decision has been taken under the proj-ect of €154,741, launched by the Ecotourism Association of Romania (AER) and the National Authority for Tour-ism (ANT). The project has been introduced to offer tech-nical support to those areas which are keen to gain the tag of ecotourism destination. The value of the grant, under which the nine areas will be redeveloped, is €139,015.

“I am sure that by means of ecotourism the chances of attracting tourists to this kind of destinations in Romania grow. A first result of the partnership between ANT, non-governmental

and private organizations is to nominate the first two ecotourism destinations in Romania – the area Mara-Cosau-Creasta Cocosului and Zarnesti. The areas which obtain the status of Eco-tourism Destination benefit

from an efficient promotion at national and international levels of cultural assets and natural attractions, and make an important step in applying the concept of responsible tourism,” said Razvan Fili-pescu, President, ANT.

Romania replenishes eco-tourism destinations

Having completed tenure of three years as The Tourism Counsellor and Current Direc-tor at the Tourism Office of Spain in Mumbai, India, Arturo Ortiz Arduán, is taking new respon-sibilities at the Instituto de Tur-ismo de España (TURESPAÑA) headquarters in Madrid.

Ignacio Ducasse, who is currently the Assistant Direc-tor General of Knowledge and Tourism Studies, Instituto de Turismo de España (TURE-SPAÑA), has been appointed as the New Director and Tourism Counsellor at the Tourism Office of Spain in Mumbai, India.

Previous positions of

Ducasse include Turespaña offices in Tokyo, Los Ange-les and Toronto. His roles and responsibilities will remain the same as the previous director. He commenced his operation in this office from this September.

Hunting Tourism in Bulgaria increases by 13%Grigor Gogov, Executive Direc-tor of the Forestry Agency announced that last year Bul-garia witnessed a signifi-cant increase of 13%, as com-pared to 2012, in the revenues from hunting tourism, which exceeded 4.5 million leva.

“In the period under review, 4,558 hunters were registered as practising hunting tour-ism, compared to 3,557 in 2012. A total of 3,750 people passed successfully proficiency exams after completing a relevant training course. 114,000 hunt-ers renewed their hunting

cards,” Gogov further added.During the recent times,

most of the tourists prefer hunting wild boar. During big hunt, deer, mouflon, and doe are preferred species, while during the small game, wood-cock, turtle dove, quail, pheas-ant and partridge are preferred species for hunting. Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Greece are the major source markets of foreign hunters in Bulgaria.

Gogov has further stated that new measures have been taken to curb any hunting related violation.

Turkey targets 50 million visitors,$50 billion revenues expected by 2023The Turkish Association of Travel Agencies (TURSAB) is expecting that in 2014, the tour-ist arrivals will rise to 43 mil-lion and the sector’s revenues will grow to $36 billion. Last year, Turkey witnessed a reve-nue generation of $32.3 billion while 39.2 million tourists vis-ited the destination.

Last year, Germans grabbed the top position in the list of foreign visitors to Turkey, accounting for 14.9% of the total, closely followed by Rus-sians with 12.6% and Britons with 7.4%. However, the Japa-nese tourists proved to be the biggest spenders with $1,156 per tourist, while visiting Tur-key. On the other hand, Turk-ish nationals, who are based abroad, spend the most while visiting their home land, spending $1,252 per person.

The Turkish Hoteliers Fed-eration further announced that last year, the Mediterranean city of Antalya in Turkey has attracted 12 million tourists, ranking third in the world just after London and Paris. Anta-lya, Istanbul, Mugla, Izmir, Aydin, Nevsehir, Denizli, Konya, Adiyaman and Bursa are the current top ten destinations

of turkey, which are being pro-moted extensively.

TURSAB Chairman Basa-ran Ulusoy said, “In our esti-mates for 2023, we target 50 million visitors and $50 billion in revenues. Yet, I believe we can achieve those targets earlier. In previous years, Turkey would be waiting for tourists to come. Now we are sought after.”

Tourism Office of Spain appoints new Director

Following the phenomenal suc-cess of the Travel Tech Show at WTM last year, the Travel Tech Show at WTM 2014 will be an impressive 20% bigger than last year’s inaugural event, seeing it retain its position as the larg-est dedicated travel technology event in the UK.

Anna Chomse, Indus-try Head at Google Travel and Andrew Jones, Head of Search Account Management at Yahoo! will both offer valuable knowl-edge to keep the industry up to date; delving into the right tac-tics to increase search engine optimisation

The Search Engine Update Session will take place on Tues-day November 4 from 12.30 – 13.30 in WTM Platinum Suite 3 & 4 is one of six seminars for The Travel Tech Show which are being organised by Paul

Richer, Founding Partner at travel technology consultancy Genesys.

The first day at WTM (Mon-day November 3), which is by exhibitor invitation only, wel-comes John Straw, Chairman of Thomas Cook’s Digital Advi-sory Board to the panel along with Fleur Hicks-Duarte, Head of Ecommerce at HolidayTaxis and Alec Dent, Partnership Manager at BlaBlaCar to the WTM Travel Innovation Sum-mit in association with TTI.

The WTM Travel Inno-vation Summit, which takes place at 14.30 – 17.00, on the WTM Global Stage, will look at the newest technology that the industry is adopting and how delegates can ensure they offer the best customer service possible.

Other technology sessions

taking place on Tuesday at WTM will look at mobile, big data, social media and the latest trends. For the full list of ses-sions and speakers please visit www.wtmlondon.com/events

The Travel Tech Show at WTM Sales Manager Jo Mar-shall said, “We’re delighted with this year’s line-up for The Travel Tech Show at WTM. Search Engine optimisation is central to the success of travel compa-nies and Google and Yahoo! are best placed to inform delegates of the most effective strategies.”

“Anna and Andrew are just two of many senior executives sharing their expertise at WTM – it is an indication of the high calibre of speakers that WTM and The Travel Tech Show at WTM can attract and demon-strates why our seminars are must-attend events,” he added.

Google and Yahoo! to discuss future paths at Wtm 2014

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | sePtember 2014 • 28americas

Las Vegas to boost medical tourismDuring recent meetings attended by health care and tourism professionals, organ-isations, and nonprofit groups, the Las Vegas Regional Strate-gic Plan for Medical and Well-ness Tourism was launched.

Medical tourism has been calculated to generate $50 bil-lion to $60 billion a year. And it is expected that this indus-try will be worth $100 billion annually in the next 10 years, while the balanced sector of medical and wellness tourism could be as high as $500 billion annually.

“This is about taking what our community already does well and collaborating to forge new and unexpected eco-nomic opportunities in medi-cal and wellness tourism,” said Tom Skancke, President and CEO of the Global Economic Alliance.

Moreover, due to the niche

disciplines with the health care industry of Las Vegas, including fertility, plastic sur-

gery, age management, bariat-ric and orthopaedic surgery, diagnostic imaging and dental, it attracts significant amount of both domestic and interna-tional travellers.

The event has been spon-sored by the Las Vegas Con-vention and Visitors Author-ity, the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, Las Vegas Health, Education, Advocacy and Leadership in Southern Nevada and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The official destination mar-keting organisation of South-ern Nevada, Las Vegas Con-vention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) has announced that Sartha Marketing, their Mar-keting Representatives, will also act as LVCVA’s Public Rela-tions agency in India.

“We are extremely delighted to be entrusted the task of handing public relations activ-ities for the LVCVA in India. Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world and offers an unparalleled range of hol-iday options for visitors from India. Our objective would

be to highlight the destina-tion’s appeal via integrating trade and media efforts” said Sheema Vohra, President, Sar-tha Marketing.

Las Vegas is expected to attract more than 41 million tourists in 2014, breaking the previous record of highest tourist arrivals of 39.7 million in 2012. For the first six months of 2014, convention attendance witnessed a rise of 4.5% to 3 million attendees. The first six-month average daily room rate has been recorded at $121.05, a 6.8% increase over the year-earlier period.

INPROTUR (National Insti-tute of Tourism Promotion in Argentina) recently conducted its multi-city interactive sem-inar to promote Argentina as an ideal tourist destination for Indians. Being the maiden inter-active seminar by Argentina in India, the country also became the first South American nation to tap into the Indian Market.

The seminar was held in three major Indian cities in India which include Banga-lore, Kolkata and Mumbai. Showcasing Argentina into mainly six segments, including

Buenos Aires, Cuyo, Patagonia, Córdoba, Norte Argentina and Litoral, the destination offers ample opportunity to experi-ence the stunning natural sur-roundings, participate in active adventure sports and discover a culture that is rich in history, tradition and an appreciation of life’s pleasures.

Medha Sampat, Director, KNACK, India representa-tive for INPROTUR said, “We have been thrilled with the overwhelming response. The interactive seminars provide a great opportunity to meet and

present the innovative prod-uct to the Indian travel trade. With the diverse portfolio the positioning strategy varies for each product. Each product is unique and special. It will help explain the different Argen-tine destinations in depth to create a better understand-ing and develop the right per-ception about the country. The destination offers an assort-ment of products which can be packaged in an innovative way, so it is important to edu-cate the trade on this amazing destination.”

Canada and India enter into Audiovisual Coproduction treatyTo further support the tour-ism and entertainment indus-try of the two countries and strengthen the bilateral ties between them, Canada and India have entered into an Audiovisual Coproduction Treaty.

“The Treaty, will allow pro-ducers to combine their cre-ative, technical and financial resources to create audiovi-sual co-productions between both nations and will also boost Canada’s tourism sec-tor,” Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander.

“Celebrating the Canada-India Audiovisual Coproduc-tion Treaty, we look forward to a deeper level of engage-ment between our respec-tive audiovisual sectors, greater cultural and economic

benefits to both countries and increased access to audiences worldwide,” he added.

The Minister further explained that this treaty will be henceforth applicable for the media and entertainment

industry across India.Meanwhile, on other hand

the Canadian Tourism Com-mission has won the award for Best International Tour-ism Board at the India Travel Awards – West recently.

Hornblower Niagara Cruises brings thrilling Niagara Falls toursHornblower Niagara Cruises introduced 2 new boats recently- Niagara Thunder and Niagara Wonder. The magnifi-cent voyage to the Niagara Falls includes 30 minutes boat tour of the great gorge, American falls, Bride Veil Falls and the horse shoe falls.

The boats can accommodate

700 passengers and features new onboard comforts includ-ing tiered decks for 360o unob-structed viewing, dry view-ing areas, on board seating and passenger washrooms. The tour timings are from 08:00 to 19:15 with these cata-marans leaving every 15 min-utes. For an adult the tour will

cost $19.95 while its $12.25 for a child. Discount is also available for boarding before 10:30 and after 16:30, under which the cost of ticket for per adult will be $17.95 while cost of ticket per child remains the same.

Apart from the regular tours, Sunset Cocktail Cruise takes place from 20:00 to 21:00 and Falls Illumination Cruise com-mences from 21:30 and ends at 22:30. The Falls Illumination Cruise is of two types- with or without fireworks. Set against the beautiful backdrop of sunset and after that starry night, these extended one hour tours offer dry viewing and reduced capac-ity on boats for a more intimate tour. They also feature onboard music, licensed bar and compli-mentary snacks. Ticket prices are $35 per adult and $31.50 per child.

The boats will run until November 16, 2014.

LVCVA appoints sartha marketing as their Pr Agency

Argentina tourism holds maiden three-city seminar in India

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | september 2014 29 americas •

United Airlines: New and improved in-flight menu for passengersUnited Airlines has announced its new and improved lunch, dinner and beverage choices for domes-tic first-class customers. The upgraded dining expe-rience will include chef-inspired meals and premium beverages.

Further changes include, new, premium salads, sand-wiches and wraps for United First and United Business class customers, who are fly-ing within North America, Prosecco sparkling wine in premium cabins, premium-cabin meals for short duration flights and fresh meal options for United Express premium-cabin customers, with last two beginning in 2015.

The Premium-Cabin cus-tomers can now select from four new salad entrée choices. They can also enjoy newly introduced chilled sand-wiches and wraps as well as the warmed dishes.

The freshly made new meals will be served along a gluten-free soup and United’s

signature service elements- warmed nuts, premium snacks and warmed cookies.

Passengers will get contin-uous service of a pasta dish and a chicken or beef option during the transcontinental flights and longer mid-conti-nental dinner flights.

“These changes mark the beginning of an extensive overhaul of our North Amer-ica and international food ser-vice, offering travellers a level of service above that offered by our peers,” said Lynda Coff-man, United’s Vice President of Food Services. “Our new selections offer customers more of what they tell us they want when they travel – vari-ety, bold flavour combinations and higher quality.”

Golf Tourism is rapidly setting a strong foothold in U.S. and according to the data released by International Association of Golf Tour Operators (IAGTO), U.S. has emerged as the fast-est-growing destination for golf tour operators last year.

IAGTO controls over 85% of the world’s golf holiday packages, which generated more than $2.2 billion in sales last year.

“Regionally, Asian oper-ators report that golfers are starting to explore more golf destinations, with operators worldwide featuring more des-tinations and attracting new cli-ents. In the USA, operators are seeing the return of the ‘mid-dle market’, with high-end golf

travel having remained strong throughout the economic cri-sis,” explained IAGTO Chief Executive Peter Walton.

“The strength of the

outbound Australian market is expected to continue, while the Canadian market may level off in line with a weakening Cana-dian dollar,” he added.

u.s. emerges as the fastest growing golf tourism destination

Canada witnesses a rise of 12.9% in Indian visitorsDuring the first five months of 2014, Canada witnessed a growth of 12.9% in visitor arrivals from India as com-pared to the same period in 2013. “Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) is work-ing hard to strengthen its roots in Tier-II cities as well as the metros cities. So far it has been a good year. We have seen a growth each month. We hope to have rising num-bers throughout the year,” SanJeet, India Representa-tive, CTC.

Recently Canada has implemented several strate-gies for a simpler and faster visa process in India. Addi-tionally, CAN+ (visa pro-gramme) was launched in New Delhi. Such initia-tives resulted in maximum

number of visa issuance to long-term and multiple entry visas from India to Canada.

CTC is further conduct-ing workshops and training programmes in the Tier-II cities to spread more aware-ness about the destination and its visa processes. CTC wants to enter into vari-ous partnerships with India agents and promote Canada as a four-season destination. Currently, Canadian Visa centres are operational in 10 Indian cities.

The IMEX Online Inspira-tion Hub has received 7500 views even before it is officially launched. The Hub, which is now home to 1600+ articles, blogs and international meet-ings, events and incentive travel industry research reports and is free to all users. It’s filtered, relevant and updated several times a day, potentially saving the users a lot of time and desk research.

It is to be noted that the online hub will not provide any IMEX related information, but it will offer third party information about different aspects of the global meetings industry and good business practice in gen-eral. The hub is easy to use and has clearly visible tags. It can be used for several purposes, including, finding a topic expert, speaker or commentator, look-ing for the latest research on a

specific industry topic, getting a quick overview on who’s been saying what, finding inspira-tion for new stories, features or columns, and locating industry guides, forums or blogs.

The tags also reflect educa-tion tracks that are being offered each year at IMEX in Frankfurt and IMEX America, includ-ing, Association Management, Business Skills, Creative Learn-ing, etc.

ImeX Online Inspiration Hub set to launch amidst high popularity

Mexico’s central bank recently announced that the interna-tional tourism arrivals in the country have increased a mas-sive 19.6% during the first half of 2014, as compared to the same period last year.

The Bank of Mexico fur-ther said that 14.2 million foreigners arrived in Mexico between the period January-June and spent $8.4 billion.

Mexico’s cruise and bor-der tourism is seeing a boost with border tourism grew 35.5% in the first six months of this year, reaching 6 mil-lion visitors while the number

of cruise visitors rose 25% to 3 million.

The development of Maya Ka’an, a programme which combines Mayan culture and ecotourism with an aim to protect and nourish the region’s Maya communities and natural environments, has also attracted the foreign travellers in a significant way.

On the other hand, Cirque du Soleil has launched its new custom theatre at the Grand Mayan resort, with regu-lar performances of “Joya”, attracting a large number of overseas tourists to Mexico.

Mexico witnesses a rise of 19.6% in international tourist arrivals

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | sePtember 2014 • 30AfricA

Alain St Ange, Minister of Tourism and Culture for Seychelles was commemo-rated with Mahatma Gandhi Honour Award presented by India recently for his con-tribution and tireless effort in building and strength-ening the Indo-Seychelles relations. Alain St Ange has also received the invitation to be the Chief Guest at the Golden Triangle in India in January.

“On this occasion I also take the opportunity to invite the Honourable Min-ister for our Golden Triangle event to be held in January and we invite him to be our Chief Guest of 2015,” said Gurinder Singh as he invited Seychelles Minister St Ange back to India.

“Today you have shown that when we work hard,

our work is recognised well beyond our own borders,” said Minister St. Ange.

Speaking to the media, the Seychelles Minister expressed that Seychelles and India have always had good friendly relations and that this award bestowed to him was only another way by India to recognise not only the unique ties that exist today, but that has also existed ever since the first migrants from India trav-elled across the seas to make Seychelles their home.

Seychelles Tourism Minister receives Mahatma Gandhi Honour Award

mauritius holds 4-city roadshow to promote mICe in India

Kenya is full of wonders and the country’s tourism sector offers an array of products, be it safari, beach vacation, vibrant nightlife or mouth watering cuisine, the country provides the visitors a perfect destination for an all-round holiday.

The unique experience of the hot air balloon to have a bird’s eye view of the fantastic wildlife and Kenya’s scenic beauty or a swim with dolphins make the

holiday unforgettable.Famous for its dense wild-

life, a privately escorted walking safari can provide the travellers with exhilarating experience like a close encounter with an elephant, lion or buffalo. Vis-itors can also get up close and personal with the wild giraffes at The Giraffe Centre or feed the infant elephants, rescued and rehabilitated at The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

Just like the wildlife, Kenya’s marine life is wonderful place, simply dive around or go snor-kelling in the warm, tropical waters and witness dolphins, turtles, whale sharks and colourful, exotic fish.

Additionally, a visit to a tra-ditional tribal village to get in touch with Kenya’s rich cultural history is a must. Kenya offers a beautiful boat safari at Lake Naivasha. Lake Naivasha is also an excellent place to watch birds and hippos up close and go sail-ing by joining the nearby sail-ing club.

Nairobi is famous for its fast paced nightlife, with few local nightclubs in Nairobi and Mom-basa stay open until dawn.

Kenya offers a safari or beach vacation accompanied by a vibrant nightlife and all the global tastes are found in one destination.

The world famous Herma-nus Whale Festival is all set to take place this year from October 3-6. Attracting over 130,000 visitors, the Hermanus Whale Festival is celebrating its 23rd year as the only enviro-arts festival in South Africa.

Bringing the whales under the spotlight and alongside the top performers and musicians is an event to experience. Fol-lowing that, visitors also enjoy great food, quality crafters, great sport events, kids’ enter-tainment, the Two Oceans

Wine Music stage with over 20 artists performing over the fes-tival and Marine Endangered Species Expo Marquee.

Hermanus is one of the few places in the world, which is famous for its Southern Right Whales. Whale Watching Tourism is very popular in Hermanus. Tourists can uti-lise a number of methods to watch whales, such as Whale Watching boat trips, Whale Watching walking tours, sea kayaking and even flying over the Whales in a Cessna plane.

Ethiopian Airlines names aircraft Taj MahalEthiopian Airlines is trying to benefit from the heavy tour-ism business of India and the Indian travellers.

In order to attract more Indian travellers, the flagship carrier of the African nation Ethiopia has named its new-est Boeing 787 Dreamliner after the Taj Mahal, one of India’s most famous monu-ments. This happened for the first time that Ethiopian Air-lines has named an aircraft of its Dreamliner fleet after a his-torical or heritage site, which is situated outside Africa.

India has become a signifi-cant market for the airlines as over 13 million people travel out of India every year. To meet the demand from the Indian

market, Ethiopian Airlines is exploring new direct destina-tions in India.

Ethiopian currently flies daily to New Delhi and twice daily to Mumbai, and is further planning to start other major Indian des-tinations like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.

Ethiopian Airlines also has a code sharing agreement with Air India and will soon start services to Chennai, which acts as a gateway to a larger market.Kenya offers latest products

from all tourism sectors South Africa Tourism invites all to the annual Hermanus Whale Festival

Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) is conduct-ing a 4-city roadshow in Chan-digarh, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata to showcase this picturesque destination, which has made its mark in every tour-ism genre, be it MICE, Leisure, Honeymoon, or Adventure.

“India is a very important emerging market for Mauri-tius and the target is to achieve 100,000 Indian arrivals, which we will comfortably achieve this year. MICE is a big thrust area for us. MTPA in conjunc-tion with the other government organisation and Air Mauritius is offering a lot of facilities and incentives to MICE tourists. A group of minimum 100 people staying for minimum two nights will be eligible to avail the incen-tives. For weddings that are being conducted in Mauritius, we give special facilities, such as duty free import of jewelries, flowers, fruits and other things required for a wedding. We also provide duty free liquors at one point to one person. If you

have VIPs we provide secu-rity, special counters at immi-gration, special spaces to park the coaches. Apart from MICE Tourism, Honeymoon Tour-ism is also an integral part of MTPA. MTPA is holding road-shows, Mauritius themed wed-ding couture shows and partic-ipating in various travel trade shows in India,” said Vivek Anand, Country Manager- India, MTPA.

He further stated that the Mauritian stakeholder will have an excellent opportunity net-work with the Indian travel fra-ternity and showcase new and existing products which will be of great interest to the Indian travellers.

“The capacity we have right now is sufficient to cater the growing market. When we have a MICE group, we give them additional baggage allow-ance; if it’s a bigger group of 150-200 people we do their branding and provide separate counters for check-in. The preference is always Air Mauritius for Indian

travellers when flying to Mau-ritius as we are the only direct carrier to Mauritius,” explained Vinith G, Manager- India & South Asian Sub-continent, Air Mauritius.

In the past few years Mauri-tius has also established itself as a strong Golf Tourism destina-tion and is now counted among the top 10, worldwide.

“We have several convention halls and hotels to hold conven-tions of every size in Mauri-tius. We are also trying to woo the Bollywood industry by ear-marking a series of incentives for them. We also cater for pure Indian cuisine for the Indians travelling to Mauritius. We are participating in various road-shows and trade fairs to pro-mote the destination. We will think of appointing a brand ambassador in near future,” concluded Vijaye Haulder- Dep-uty Director, MTPA leading the delegation of 20 private opera-tors who came to participate in the road show under the flag-ship of MTPA.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | sePtember 2014 • 31CAribbeAn

The Caribbean Tourism Organ-isation (CTO) will hold the State of the Industry Confer-ence (SOTIC) in September to discuss the strategies which will strengthen the position of Caribbean tourism and pro-vide the best case practices for a wide range of issues that impact the region’s tourism sector.

“The conference theme dovetails nicely with the organ-isation’s own vision for Carib-bean tourism. The CTO’s vision is to position the Caribbean as the most desirable, year round, warm weather destination, while the conference them is Realizing the Vision: Position-ing Caribbean Tourism for Major Change,” said CTO’s Sec-retary General Hugh Riley.

“Working towards that vision and measuring the steps to get there is really a very important part of what we do. We’ll have experts from throughout the Caribbean

region and across the world talking about these issues that affect the lives of Caribbean people,” added Riley.

SOTIC will be organised on September 17-19, 2014.

Caribbean to hold conference for complete tourism revival

Jamaica keen on attracting Indian newlywedsThe island destination of Jamaica is showing a keen interest in the honeymoon seg-ment from India.

“While other islands may offer sun and sand, Jamaica presents a fantastic diversity of options for couples in search of rich cultural experiences in addition to a setting of extraor-dinary beauty. Jamaica offers the world’s most renowned all inclusive honeymoon resorts such as Sandals Montego Bay and Couples Sans Souci, Ocho Rios” said Kavi Ghei, Chair-man, TRAC Representa-tions that represents Jamaica

Tourist Board (JTB) in India.He further added, “Growth

in stop-over arrivals by per-manent residence from India in Jan–Feb 2014 as compared to Jan – Feb 2013 has been 23.4%. The increasing num-bers prove that Jamaica has been gaining popularity in the Indian market.”

Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) is also using an inte-grated marketing strategy with maximum thrust on public relations and promo-tional activities to reach both the travel trade sector and the consumers.

Meet Puerto Rico (MPR-Puerto Rico Convention Bureau) recently announced that that its annual goal has been reached after booking 409 groups and more than 100,000 delegates. These del-egates will visit the island in the next few years for meet-ings, conferences, conven-

tions or incentive travels, giv-ing a significant growth to the MICE Tourism and add-ing around $110 million to the local economy. These groups include multinational com-panies, medical conferences, educational seminars, sport-ing events, etc.

“The future looks strong, too: Puerto Rico has been selected to host 49 events–including, conferences, annual meetings and sports activities–for this fall season. This rep-resents an estimated 25,509 room nights and a total direct

spending of $14.3 million into the local economy,” Milton Segarra, president & CEO of Meet Puerto Rico, said.

“One in four rooms occu-pied in hotels that can accom-modate large-scale meetings belongs to the groups and conventions segment,” added Segarra.

Segarra continued, “For August alone, there were 13 groups for a total of 2,718 room nights with an impact of $1.5 million in direct spending for the benefit of the tourism industry.”

Significant events which have Puerto Rico as the host country include Caribbean Golf Merchandise Show 2014, the Conference of the Associ-ation of Electoral Organiza-tions of Central America and the Caribbean and the Latin America Federation Bonsai Championship.

Nevis tourism conducts weeklong Nevis Race WeekThe Independence Day cel-ebration of the Caribbean island of Nevis on September 19 witnessed three world class sporting events. A series of events were conducted from September 15-22, 2014 and were promoted by the Nevis Tourism Association (NTA) as ‘Nevis Race Week’.

The 2014 competition

included a Horse Racing, a Running Festival and a Motor Sports. The signature horse racing event in Nevis for the year, The Annual Dan Bartlette Memorial Horse Race, took place at The Indian Castle Race Track on Septem-ber 16, i.e. on Nevis’ National Hero’s Day.

The spirit of the celebration

continued as both domes-tic and international run-ners gathered around to take part in the 3 day Nevis Mar-athon and Running Festival from September 18-20. The marathon was accompanied by another half marathon, a 10,000 m, a 5,000 m and kid’s race.

To promote this stunning tourist destination, the run-ning routes passed along the Caribbean seaside, pictur-esque land mass and beauti-ful villages of Nevis.

The third event was the two day ‘Annual Indepen-dence Invasion Drag Race’, which took place at the St. James raceway. One of the finest drag racing facilities in the Caribbean, the event drew huge crowd from not only Nevisians but international visitors as well.

Dominican republic: significant summer season increases tourist arrivalsThe Dominican Republic’s tour-ism is touching new peaks as demand rises. The first half of 2014 witnessed a tourist arrival of just below 2.7 million, mark-ing a growth of 8.4% over the same period of 2013, according to the data released by Carib-bean Tourism Organization.

The summer season proved to be very strong for the region’s tourism, witnessing an increase of 13.8% during the summer of 2014 over the summer period in 2013. The Dominican Republic also saw a 6.1% increase in stop-over arrivals in the winter sea-son of 2014.

Dominican Republican received the most tourist stop-over arrivals than any other

country of the Caribbean region, followed by Cuba, which was

second with a total of 1.48 mil-lion arrivals.

Puerto rico’s mICe industry touches new heights