Pages 32 50 / us $5 INDIA 02 AsIA 13 … · 2017-08-02 · visited ‘Rann Utsav’ which surged by...

Fairfest launches techforum@OTM to promote cutting edge innovations

Diu Fest and Rann Utsav to give major boost to Gujarat Tourism

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Thailand highlights 7 venues to discover Thainess culture

Sharjah Tourism sheds light on new tourism initiatives

Spain Tourism records 68,000 Indian visitors from Jan-Sept 2015

Rio 2016 will shine a light on Brazil, says Tourism Minister

Fiji Airways offers new route to Indian travellers

Mauritius registers 10.4% increase in tourist arrivals

CTO launches first tourism and hospitality investment guide

Technology has changed the traditional landscape of the travel

and tourism businesses.Constant innovation and increasing

penetration of smartphones married with powerful Internet technologies is fast rendering the present techniques of doing travel and tourism business obsolete.

The web based online revolution has meant that the traditional distribution systems are being supplemented and competed by immensely powerful and efficient distribution systems of travel products and content.

Some of the tech companies have proved that fast-emerging technologies like ‘Big Data’, ‘Internet of Things’ and Mobile Apps are more than just buzzwords for the travel

industry and can be used to deliver highly personalised content and seamless user experiences across multiple channels.

From bookings, payments, cab-hailing and activity planning/ reservations, each aspect of the travel experience is going under a sea-change. The era of automation and technology is upon us and we are seeing evidence of its impact every day.

As with any generational shift in technology, however, the opportunities arrive hand-in-hand with the potential for significant disruption, which naturally bring many challenges – competitive and creative – for our industry to consider.

The techforum@OTM is a niche platform to connect, engage and deliberate on these aspects, mainly

for prospective buyers and sellers of these technologies. It is conceived as ‘show in show’ concept which means a distinct area in the OTM will be earmarked for the segment, with a well equipped tech theatre and a tech cafe, on the lines of other international travel shows.

There are a number of travel technology sellers who have been participating in the OTM in the past. The idea is to cater to their needs and engage many more sellers and buyers of this important and fast growing segment, from OTM 2016 by creating a distinct segment as above, with a differentiated stage catering to the unique needs of this segment where product presentation and education are integrated part of selling and buying.

Volume V l Issue 2 Pages 32 www.travelnewsdigest.in `50 / us $5 01-15 december 2015

Posted at NDPSO, New Delhi - 110002 on 5/6 & 20/21 of every month | Date of Publication 01/02 &15/16 every month | Postal Registration No. DL(S) - 01/3404/2015-17 | RNI No. DELENG/2011/40217

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Marriott International acquires Starwood Hotels in $12bn deal

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Expedia India launches loyalty programme with benefits

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Travel & Tourism companies 20% cleaner than 2005

I wish luck for the n e w f e a t u r e Fairfest is coming

up with in OTM 2016 i.e. ‘techforum’, which will be focusing on Technology, eCommerce Systems and Software for the travel industry to cater to the needs of B2B travel trade visitors. I am sure it will provide a much needed networking platform, to discuss challenges, evaluate technology needs and source latest technologies available.

Jaal shahFounder – RezLive.com

Group Managing Director – Travel Designer Group

Change being the constant, the travel

industry is always on the lookout for a solution to

be one step ahead of the game. Fairfest has conceptualised this event at the most opportune moment and I am very confident of its success and offering pragmatic approaches to all.

Prashant menonVice President-Sales (APAC)

BusyRooms

File picture of travel tech theatre at the WTM London. A tech stage will also be created at OTM Mumbai

File picture of Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis taking a virtual tour at OTM Mumbai

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 2INDIA

Editorial

editor & Publisher Sanjiv Agarwal

editorial directorGazanfar Ibrahim

Marketing

Advisors Abraham JohnSheila LeongAssociate directorsRajarshi DeRaj Kapoor SinghR MaheshTarique EbrahimHema ManghnaniNitin TelangGeneral managerFatima D’Costadeputy General managersShruti AggarwalPratiksha RajapureShreyas JainProject managersKavita KalraYC AnilPhilomena D’SouzaAssistant Project managersDeepti V MurthyShiv Shankar DuttaRamesh ChauhanKanika Singh

Production

media directorJune Mukherjee

Project executivesGopanjali RoyDipalim Koushik

design TeamDilip MannaRitam MaityMrityunjay KumarSuman Pramanik

Administration

Joint managing director Rajiv Agarwal

executive directorHarsh Agarwal

chief Technology OfficerRudradeb Mitra

senior manager - Accounts & FinanceUma Sureka

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

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Vinod Zutshi, Secretary at India’s Ministry of Tour-ism, informed that India is aiming to attract one million arrivals from the UK by 2020. He made the announcement at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London. This would mark a 19% increase from the 838,860 UK travellers who visited India in 2014.

In order to achieve this target, measures are being taken which include the launch of India’s electronic tourist visa scheme, which was expanded to include UK travellers earlier this year. Plans are also in place to extend the e-visa’s validity from 30 to 180 days in 2016.

“We are committed to make it easy for travel-lers wanting to come to India, not least through

our e-visa scheme but by improving air connectiv-ity between the UK and India,” said Zutshi. “We aim to attract more visitors through the promotion

and development of our niche tourism experiences such as adventure, wellness, golf, pilgrimage and the ‘Paradise Unexplored’ northeast. In addition, we are working to improve the infrastructure at many of our beach destinations,” he added.

To widen India’s appeal as an all-year-round destination, Zutshi also announced the creation of a new Medical Tourism Board and Golf Promo-tion Committee, which are charged with develop-ing infrastructure and promoting their respective sectors.

India welcomed a total of 7.68 million interna-tional visitors in 2014, up 10.2% year-on-year, with UK arrivals increasing 3.8% to 838,860.

India aiming to draw one million uK tourists by 2020

Diu Fest and Rann Utsav to give major boost to Gujarat TourismTourism in Gujarat is set to get a major boost as two major tourist festivals get underway, with Gujarat government’s flagship tourist festival ‘Rann Utsav’ in Kutch in the union territory of Diu beginning on December 1.

The union territory of Diu would be hosting the first ever 75-day interna-tional festival ‘Festa Di Diu’ (in Portug-ese), which is likely to go on till Febru-ary 2016, while Kutch is expected to play host to over two lakh tourists during the three-month long ‘Rann Utsav’, which began in November.

“Both the festivals have brought a boom time for tourism industry. Although there will be competition between the two, it will benefit the tour-ism in the state at the end of the day,” said Manish Sharma, Chairman, Tour-ism Development Society.

President Pranab Mukherjee would be inaugurating the 75-day long Diu Fes-tival. “President Pranab Mukherjee has given his consent to inaugurate the Diu Festival, named as Festa Di Diu, to be cel-ebrated at Diu for 75 days. The President will inaugurate the festival on December 1,” said the Administrator of Union Ter-ritory of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Ashish Kundra.

According to Kundra, this festival would have several attractions, includ-ing beach tents, bungee jumping, adven-ture sport, hot-air balloons, etc. “Last year, Diu attracted around 17 lakh tour-ists. Now, with this initiative, we are hop-ing to attract at least 35 lakh tourists this calendar year. This festival is part of a

national publicity campaign launched recently to promote Diu as a favoured tourist destination,” said Kundra.

He also announced the commence-ment of regular flight between Diu and Mumbai, which started from October 26.

In case of ‘Rann Utsav’, the tourism department of Gujarat has brought in a new private player to set up tents and provide other facilities in a bid to make the services competitive. For the last two years, the state tourism department was holding the festival in Kutch in partner-ship with White Rann Hospitality Pvt Ltd (WRHPL). This year along with WRHPL, the government has brought in White Rann Resort (WRR), a sub-sidiary of an Ahmedabad-based firm. With two players in tow, the total num-ber of tents at the fest is likely to be around 400.

In 2013-14, around 1.17 lakh tourists visited ‘Rann Utsav’ which surged by 61% to 1.90 lakh tourists in 2014-15. “We expect around 20% increases in number of tourists to ‘Rann Utsav’ this year. We will be setting up 350 tents under three categories,” said Nikhil Agarwal, part-ner, WRHPL.

Travel Agents Association of India enters its 65th year Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) enters its 65th year. The new TAAI team elected on September 30, 2015, is led by its President, Sunil Kumar, who promptly got into action with several aims and goals for the term 2015-2017. The goal is to support TAAI to steer well into challenging areas that needs immediate attention. While, the focus will be on an efficient administration and to support Brand TAAI to accomplish a renewed positive image.

Team TAAI shall endeavor to identify a new path to support members and work towards preparing them to successfully encounter the ‘challenge’ called a fast-changing-tomorrow.

The four Office Bearers of TAAI – Sunil Kumar, President; Marzban Antia, Vice President, Bettaiah Lokesh, Secretary General and Jay Bhatia, Treasurer – make a formidable team and are committed to take TAAI to its next level.

Contact us:Tourism Authority of Thailand, New Delhi Office:Tel: 91-11-46741111 | Email: [email protected] | www.facebook.com/TAT.newdelhiTourism Authority of Thailand, Mumbai Office:Tel: 91-22-22042727 | Email: [email protected] | www.facebook.com/TAT.mumbaiFacebook: www.facebook.com/TourismAuthorityofThailandIndia | Twitter: www.twitter.com/ThaiAmazesYouWebsite: www.tourismthailand.org


Let's Celebrate New Year 2016 in Amazing Thailand



Let's Celebrate New Year 2016 in Amazing Thailand

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 4 • india

IrcTc now lets you book train tickets 30 minutes prior to train departure

Indian Railways introduces 294 special trains during the Sabarimala seasonStarting from November 12, you can book a railway

ticket on the IRCTC website, 30 minutes before the departure of a train. In a passenger-friendly move, Rail-ways has also made changes in its system of preparation of chart, which would now be prepared twice.

The first reservation chart would be prepared four hours prior to departure of a train while second and final one, 30 minutes before the train departs, a senior Railway official said. According to the revised rules, booking would be allowed on the internet as well as at the reservation counters for a particular train, subject to availability of berths, even after the preparation of the first reservation chart.

This is a significant move to provide additional book-ing facilities, enabling passengers to buy tickets even after the preparation of reservation charts, an official said. A second and final chart of reservations would be made available before the departure of a train and

handed over to on-board ticket checking staff.This exercise would guarantee optimum utilisation

of train accommodation as well as enhanced earnings. Also, there were complaints of delay in finalisation of reservation chart, giving scope to touts for indulging in illegal ticketing activities.

Ministry of Railways amends refund rulesIn a major move to help the genuine passengers and to plug the scope of misuse of ticketing activ-ity by unscrupulous elements, the Ministry of Rail-ways has further amended its refund rules and has notified under the title Railway Passengers (Cancellation of Ticket and Refund of Fare) Rules, 2015. The new Refund Rule became effective w.e.f. November 12, 2015.

The objectives of the new changes in the refund rule are as under:-

• Toplugthescopeofmisuse.• Facilitate passengers with mobile ticketing/pro-

posed paperless ticketing etc.• Discourage touts/agents on black marketing of

tickets.

Under the revised rules, beyond the working hours of PRS counters or when no current counters are available at stations or no PRS counter is available at stations, the Railways has decided to enable certain UTS counters as UTS-cum-PRS counters and allow refund of PRS counter tickets across them. Additionally, with effect from July 1, 2015, automatic refund of fare on e-tickets came into force in case of cancellation of trains. No TDR (Ticket Deposit Receipt) filing is required in this case.The clerkage charges under the revised rules have been doubled for unreserved, RAC, and Wait Listed tickets. The minimum cancellation charges per passenger for AC, Sleeper and Second Class have also been doubled when cancelled 48 hours before the departure of the train.

Southern Railways has introduced 294 special trains and add additional coaches to existing trains to enhance 3,700 berths in an effort to handle surge in pilgrim traffic during the Sabarimala season.

This decision was taken at a review meeting held in Thiruvananthapuram by Manoj Sinha, Min-ister of State for Railways, Government of India, with top officials of the Southern Railways, includ-ing Vasishta Johri General Manager, Southern Rail-way, Sunil Bajpai, Divisional Railway Manager Thiruvananthapuram.

Besides the 294 special trains, if required, more trains would be added after analysing the traffic.

Additional coaches have been added to existing trains to enhance 3,700 berths. Like last year, unre-served special trains would be run from major sta-tions closer to the date of the Makaravilakku, to assist the increased number of pilgrims at Sabari-mala. Special stoppage is being provided for trains at Thiruvalla and Chengannur’.

To provide hassle-free ticketing, additional ticket counter has been opened at Ernakulam, Kottayam, Chengannur, Thiruvalla stations. Smart Card oper-ated automatic ticket vending machines have been installed in 19 stations, including Chengannur, Kot-tayam, Tiruvalla and Ernakulam.

Additional security measures, provision of medi-cal facilities, pre-paid auto / taxi facilities, have been made available at major disembarkation points at Tiruvalla, Chengannur, Kottayam, Ernakulam for Sabarimala.

Hello Curry, a food start-up, announced its association with online ticketing system for railways IRCTC, to supply rail passengers with “wholesome healthy meal options” during their journey by placing orders on IRCTC website www.ecatering.irctc.co.in.

“With Hello Curry selling Biryanis and parathas with our array of curry pots in our award-winning packaging, passengers now have access to complete Indian meals on the train”, Hello Curry Founder & CEO Raju Bhupati said.

The menu of Hello Curry would be available for all the passengers boarding different trains at Secunderabad sta-tion. The home delivery brand also informed that plans are afoot to offer the Hello Curry menu for passengers from Delhi, Bengaluru, Vizag and Pune “very soon”.

Food startup Hello Curry ties-up with IRCTC

Ministry of Railways increases minimum chargeable fare for non-suburban servicesMinistry of Railways had in the last Budget revised the price of platform ticket from `5 to `10 with a view to control the rush on platforms. How-ever, the objective could not be realised as passen-gers started purchasing the minimum single jour-ney second class tickets priced at `5 in lieu of the platform ticket.

Therefore, Railways has now decided to increase the minimum chargeable fare from ̀ 5 to `10. It is effective from November 20, 2015 to make it at par with the platform ticket charges. To begin with, this will be applicable only to Second class Non-suburban services. It is hoped that this step will bring down the rush on the platforms to man-ageable levels.

Telangana to star as the Theme State for Surakjund Mela Telangana will feature as the Theme State for the 30th Surajkund International Crafts Mela-2016, an annual event organised from February 1 to 15 at Surajkund in Haryana’s Faridabad district.

The Theme State for the Mela was conceptualised broadly with a view to promote and focus on art, craft and cuisine of each state of India every year.

A meeting of Haryana senior officers with those of Telangana Tourism had also been convened to assess the quantum of works required to be initiated by both the states. The Telangana officers have assured a grand show on behalf of the state.

The Surajkund International Crafts Mela offers a lifetime experience where one explores an exquisite mix of thatched huts, folksongs, flamboyant colours, ornate crafts and aroma of different cuisines. The Mela is an endeavour in the right earnest to showcase the tra-ditional arts and crafts of rural India in a unique ambi-ence, said Haryana Principal Secretary, Tourism, Sum-ita Misra.

Managing Director, Haryana Tourism Corpora-tion Vikas Yadav said that the Mela offers a display of Telangana’s rich culture, tradition and exclusive arte-facts made by the artisans that are in great demand throughout the world. The skilled crafts persons,

talented artistes and expert master chefs from the state will also participate in the Mela. An ethnic ambience

representing the state’s rural ethos will be created on the Mela grounds, he added.

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Jammu and Kashmir constitutes Tourism Advisory board

Government of Rajasthan signs MoU with union tourism ministry to boost tourism

The Jammu and Kashmir government for the first time has constituted an Advisory Board for tourism industry. The tourism advisory board is aimed at accommodating recommendations and suggestions of industry protagonists and devise policies to promote tourism. Farooq Shah, Sec-retary, Jammu and Kashmir Tourism said this

initiative of the state government will revive tourism industry in a big way.

“Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has keen interest to promote tourism and bring as many tourists to state as possible. He has con-stituted the board only to bring in prosperity to state with the promotion of tourism industry,” said Shah who is Member Secretary of the board.

On choosing local stakeholders, Secretary Tourism said those who have a lot of experience in the tourism industry have been inducted in the Board. “The members in the Board have vast experience in the tourism industry. Their suggestions are valuable for tourism industry,” he said.

J&K Hoteliers Club has hailed Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for framing a much-awaited Tourism Advisory Board and inducting local stakeholders as its members. J&K Hoteliers Club said setting up of a tourism advisory board will reinvigorate tourism Industry.

“On behalf of J&K Hoteliers Club, we extend our thanks to Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for the momentous decision of framing the Tourism Advisory Board first time in the his-tory of Kashmir. The CM has set up this Board consisting of domain specialists to advise the government on the way ahead of the tourism sector,” said Mushatq Chaya, Chairman, Hote-liers’ Club.

First mega tourism circuit to be developed in KeralaKerala will soon house one of the first mega tourist circuits in the country with the Centre approving the state Tourism Department’s proposal for creating a world class eco-friendly project in Gavi-Vagamon region. The 150-km long circuit in the Pathana-mthitta-Gavi-Vagamon-Thekkady region in central Kerala will have a variety of new facilities such as trek-king, archery and rock climbing.

The Pathanamthitta-Gavi-Vagamon-Thekkady project will be among the first such tourism projects to be built under the new ‘Swadesh Darshan’ scheme of the Union Tourism Ministry, which are meant for theme-based development of destinations. “We are happy to announce that the empowered committee has cleared our proposal to develop a mega tourism circuit in the Pathanamthitta-Gavi-Vagamon-Thek-kady region focussed on eco-friendly tourism,” said State Tourism Minister A P Anilkumar. Based on the theme of eco-tourism, the Gavi-Vagamon project will have an expenditure of ̀ 95 crore, funded by the Union Tourism Ministry, he said.

The state tourism department had submitted a proposal for the circuit estimated at `200 crore. Under the sanctioned project, `30 crore will be spent for Pathanamthitta and Gavi and `65 crore for Vagamon and Thekkady. Kerala Tourism Direc-tor P I Sheik Pareeth said the project would extend from Angamoozhy in Pathanamthitta to Vagamon

covering about 150 km. Facilities for trekking at view-point, boating surveillance camera, security arrange-ments, eco-friendly accommodation and adventure sports activities will also be developed in the area. The Vagamon-Thekkady area will develop adven-

ture tourism activities like buggy walks, shooting arena, archery arena, pain ball arena, Burma Bridge, trampoline walk, rock climbing, multi-line walk and earthquake walk. A 6 km nature trail along the pain valley forest will be another attraction besides com-mon signage, solid waste management and walk ways throughout the project.

In the presence of Dr Mahesh Sharma, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Tourism and Culture and Vasundhara Raje, Chief Minister of Rajasthan, 111 Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with a total value of `40,550.99 crore were signed in Jaipur with an aim to foster direct employment for 82,840 persons in Rajasthan.

Dr Sharma drew attention to the state’s tourism potential in terms of its history, culture, hospital-ity as well as law and order, a lot of which is yet to be exploited. The air connectivity within the state needs to be improved for which appropriate steps will be taken, he said.

The Minister further announced that the Union Tourism Ministry would extend all help for the devel-opment of the sector in the state. For the Sambhar Project, `63.97 crore, `13 crore have already been dis-bursed. Similarly for the Pushkar-Ajmer project worth `41 crore, `8 crore have already been disbursed. The Krishna Project worth `100 crore is also on the anvil.

The Union Minister has also sanctioned Hotel Man-agement Institutes for Sawai Madhopur and Jhalawar. The Food Craft Institute in Udaipur has been upgraded to Hotel Management Institute. The Food Craft Institute at Dholpur and Baran have been sanctioned `20 crore.

Goa’s tourism industry has welcomed the Foreigner’s Regional Registration Office’s (FRRO) move to allow online registration of foreign guests. The FRRO in Panaji launched an online initiative whereby foreign nationals can fill the mandatory ‘C’ Form online. The ‘C’ form is a key document which requires foreigners, under Section three of the Foreign-ers Act, 1946, to fill up their passport number and other key information for record.

Goa, with three million tourist arrivals per year, is the second state after Kerala to start the online ‘C’ Form facility. According to Section 14(6) of Foreigners Registration Act, 1939, not filling the form is tantamount to violation of visa norms.

“It is a step in the right direction. We no longer have to manually fill in the form. Foreigners put the form in a sealed envelope and give it to the police station,” said Ralph de Souza, spokesperson, Travel and Tourism Association of Goa.

Online registration would help effective collation of data related to tourist arrivals in the state and allow the police to swiftly learn about the identity of the foreign nationals arriv-ing in their jurisdiction, de Souza said. “From a tourism per-spective too, it will help the department maintain better records of tourists who come, how many days they stay and where they have come from. It will give us an idea on whether our tourism promotion activities are on the right track or not,” he added.

Goa launches online registration for foreign visitors


AccorHotels opens a dual-branded hotel at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International AirportA new dual-branded hotel complex has been opened by AccorHotels close to the Indira Gandhi Inter-national Airport in Delhi. The new Pullman and Novotel New Delhi Aerocity project would add 670 rooms and suites to the Indian gateway. The two hotels are set around a central garden and outdoor heated pool. The hotel marks a milestone in the brand’s development, becoming the 100th Pullman hotel to open globally.

The Novotel New Delhi Aerocity offers 400 mid-scale rooms, a “web corner” with Apple iMacs, a business lounge, two F&B outlets and virtual con-cierge in the lobby, which provides flight details and other information. The Novotel is also offering free accommodation for two children up to 16 years of age when they stay with their parents.

The two hotels are also targeting the MICE mar-ket, offering a combined 3,700 sq m of event space, including 13 meeting rooms and a ballroom.

Zubin Karkaria appointed as ceO of Kuoni Group

Thomascook.in launches India’s first foreign exchange mobile app

Zubin Karkaria, CEO of VFS Global, has been appointed as the CEO of Kuoni Group – VFS Glob-al’s parent company – effective November 5, 2015. He is the first Indian to be appointed as the head of the 109 year old travel services company, and will con-currently continue in his function as the CEO of VFS Global. He will continue to be based in Dubai, UAE.

Kuoni is in the midst of implementing a strategic directional shift whereby it has exited from its tradi-tional tour operating business and is increasing its focus on three core activities – global travel distri-bution, destination services and visa services. After exiting the tour operating business, Kuoni is aiming to accelerate the implementation of its new corporate strategy, and that will be one of Karkaria’s key prior-ities in his new role.

Heinz Karrer, Chairman – Kuoni Group said, “The Kuoni Group has been transformed from a broad-based travel company pursuing a wide range of very different activities into a focussed global service pro-vider for the professional travel industry and gov-ernments. The Board of Directors has decided to

accelerate the implementation of this new strate-gic direction, and we have great confidence in Zubin Karkaria, who has so successfully developed VFS Global into a global leader, to lead the Kuoni Group forward.”

Thomas Cook India profits boost 58%Thomas Cook India registered a sharp rise in profits for the quarter, which ended in September 30, 2015. The company’s operating profit jumped 58% year-on-year to `9.6 billion ($147 million) in the three-month period. Thomas Cook India accredited the improve-ment to “strong delivery from its key travel business lines”, including corporate travel, MICE and outbound leisure.

Earnings before tax and other items (EBITDA) increased nine percent.

In the corporate travel sector, Thomas Cook India’s EBITDA climbed 182% to `131 million, following a 58% surge in revenue, while a 400% MICE EBITDA increase (to `82 million) mirrored the company’s “successful foray into the outbound events segment,” Thomas Cook India said. EBITDA in the leisure out-bound sector increased 54% to ̀ 131 million, owing to “a healthy increase in overall passenger numbers”.

The company’s two recently acquired units, Quess Corp and Sterling Holiday Resorts, also witnessed a rise in profits.

“Despite the quarter ended September being a tradi-tional low season across the travel and tourism indus-try, our core travel businesses have delivered very well for us,” said Madhavan Menon, Managing Director of Thomas Cook India.

Thomas Cook India also recently enhanced its Cen-tre of Learning training facility by forming a new part-nership with Singapore’s Nanyang Technological Uni-versity (NTU). Under the new agreement, NTU will be offering seven-day ‘Global Immersion Program’ for Thomas Cook’s Indian students. The weeklong course would combine academic classes with corporate vis-its, and upon completion, students receive a certificate signed by the Dean of Nanyang Business School.

“With India becoming one of the world’s fastest growing economies, education and training will form a critical element to skilling its young population,” said Mona Cheriyan, Thomas Cook India’s Chief Operat-ing Officer and Head of HR.

The first Global Immersion Program is set to run from January 11-17, 2016.

Thomas Cook (India) Ltd launched its unique and user friendly ‘Foreign Exchange app’, a consumer empowering one-stop-shop for foreign exchange transactions.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), smartphone shipment in India grew 44% to 26.5 million units in June 2015. And equipped with his hand-held device, today’s digitally native Indian traveller (including business travellers, leisure, ad-hoc groups and last min-ute travellers) is increasingly impatient for information / transactions on the go. Thomas Cook India’s research having identified this blue ocean potential for secure and convenient foreign exchange transactions created its Foreign Exchange app to equip customers with easy, safe and smooth currency transactions with fulfilment while on the go.

Thomas Cook’s android mobile app features Live Rates across major global currencies including USD, Euro, Swiss Franc, to cover both buying and selling of for-eign exchange; also a Block my Rate option as protection against rate fluctuations. The application also provides customers a handy tool of Rate Alerts for specified cur-rencies via SMS & Email.

Commenting on India’s first ever transactive mobile-app for Foreign Exchange, Amit Madhan, Chief Operat-ing Officer - IT & E Services, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd said, “Thomas Cook India’s internal research has high-lighted that while over 40% of our online transactions are via a mobile device, for foreign exchange this is truly

noteworthy - at over 65%. Hence launching our Thomas Cook Forex app was clearly the need of the hour.”

He added, “With mobile data reiterating the Indian travellers’ shift to M-commerce, coupled with India’s booming smartphone market, as pioneers in the For-eign Exchange space we are delighted to present the first ever mobile application and its slew of unique and customer empowering features for India’s Forex consum-ers on the go.”

The mobile application is available on Android (2.3.3 and up), with iOS expected in the next two months.

AccorHotels is hopeful of launching ibis Hotel in Chennai and Goa by the end of this year or by early 2016. Slated for launch by next year, ibis and Novotel Hotel would be the next combo offering by AccorHotels on the OMR Road in Chennai. ibis Hotel at Coimbatore and Kochi would be unveiled thereafter. Novotel Jaipur will be launched by July 2016 along with the Jaipur Exhibition and Conven-tion Centre (JECC) debuting either by year end or by mid 2016, revealed Jean Michel Casse, Senior Vice President – Operations, AccorHotels, India outlining that a total of 14 hotel openings are slated to open in the next year.

Casse revealed that AccorHotels is grow-ing by volumes. “The average room rate has also increased but I hope there is still a room to grow even more, which is our clear focus for the next year. MICE and corporate are becoming a bigger contributor with each year and the Pullman and Novotel New Delhi Aerocity hotels will further boost the business,” he averred.

Michael Issenberg, Chairman and CEO – Asia Pacific, AccorHotels added, “India is a relatively small but important future market for AccorHo-tels. When it comes to Asia Pacific, India is the 3rd largest growth market after China and Indone-sia, in terms of hotels under pipeline. The fastest growing brands in the India market are ibis and Novotel and we are aggressive for growth in metro cities in the future. 45 hotels are under-develop-ment in India which will come up in the next 3-5 years.”

AccorHotels plans 14 hotel openings in India


Varanasi becomes the 12th Indian destination for VistaraVistara touched down in Varanasi for the first time, marking the start of scheduled services to its 12th Indian destination. Using Vistara’s three-class Airbus A320 aircraft, flights will now operate daily, direct from Delhi.

“The addition of Varanasi to our network perfectly complements Vistara’s versatile ecosystem that now offers leisure, corporate, and pilgrimage options. With the positive feedback of our customers Vistara has established itself as a preferred brand in a short period of time,” said Phee Teik Yeoh, CEO of Vistara, when the route was first announced.

Varanasi becomes the second new destination launched by Vistara this month, following the launch of services to Bhubaneswar on October 1. It also becomes the airline’s second destination in the state of Uttar Pradesh, after Lucknow.

New airport terminal in Chandigarh commences operation

Flight operations commenced at Chandigarh’s new air-port terminal, after the facility was officially inaugu-rated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

All flights will arrive and depart from the newly con-structed Integrated Terminal Building at Chandigarh International Airport. Developed at a cost of `9.39 bil-lion ($145 million), the new facility covers more than 60,000 sq m and can handle 1,600 passengers at any one time, with 48 check-in counters.

The other facilities that have been provided are four aerobridges, a baggage handling system, pre-paid taxi counters, car parking and F&B outlets. The new

terminal is also designed to operate in an energy-effi-cient manner, with a double insulated roof and a water harvesting plant.

Currently, six airlines operate to Chandigarh, includ-ing AirAsia, Air India, GoAir, IndiGo, Jet Airways and SpiceJet. Passengers are keenly waiting for interna-tional flights to start from the airport.

Although there have been deliberations over nam-ing the airport after martyr Bhagat Singh, presently, it is simply known as ‘Chandigarh Airport’ by IATA (Inter-national Air Transport Association). The new termi-nal’s official name is ‘New Civil Air Terminal’.

Virgin Atlantic calls on UK visa fee reduction for IndiansVirgin Atlantic has called on the UK Government to slash the price of a 10-year visit visa for Indian nation-als to the cost of a six-month visa. This would mean a cut from £737 (`73,700) to £85 (`8,500).

After UK visa changes for Chinese residents, the British airline has asked the UK Government to open access to Indian nationals, whether they are travelling for work or leisure.

The call comes a week after research revealed India and the UK are “not as close as they could be”. The study conducted by British Council indicated that the UK is losing out on vital opportunities as ignorance of India among young Britons threatens the relationship between the two countries. The report, India Matters noted, “The colonial legacy presents a barrier for the UK in forging relationships with India today and in the future. There is a growing sense of frustration in India as some feel that a colonial mindset still lingers with some people in the UK, as at times it appears that India is still not perceived or treated as an equal to the UK.”

Nick Parker, Head of India and Middle East, Virgin Atlantic said, “We have been working with the UK Gov-ernment on a range of proposals to reduce the cost and

complexity of visit visas for Indian and Chinese custom-ers. We were delighted with the recently announced visa changes for Chinese visitors. Now is the time to extend the same courtesy to Indian nationals”.

Virgin Atlantic operates a daily service between Lon-don Heathrow and Delhi on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, the newest aircraft in its fleet.

Vistara and Taj offer new combined hotel and flight dealVistara has teamed up with Taj Holidays for a new ‘Fly and Stay’ offer. Designed for travellers who need to be in Delhi early in the morning, the new packages offer passengers accommodation at the Vivanta by Taj Dwarka, New Delhi.

Travellers flying to Delhi from Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Bhubaneshwar can now book an economy class fare on Vistara including a night’s stay at Vivanta by Taj Dwarka, with rates starting at `10,616 ($163). The offer is being promoted through agents including Hermes, Via, Thomas Cook India and Cox & Kings.

“Since our launch in January this year, the offers we introduced in partnership with the Taj Group have been well received by our customers for the value proposition. These strategic partnerships help expand our customer base as travellers appre-ciate deals which are aligned to their business and leisure travel needs,” said Giamming Toh, Vistara’s Chief Commercial Officer.

In addition, all Club Vistara Members can now receive a 10% discount on Taj Holidays’ range of var-ious packages, including Family Getaways and Royal Retreats.

The Eco-Tourism Project, which is currently being implemented on Pachamalai hills in Uppliyapuram block in the district, is expected to give a boost to the tourism infrastructure of Tiruchi district.

Work on almost all major tourism infrastructure facilities has been completed. The project is being executed on the hills located at a height of 1,072 metres above the sea level. The project, being exe-cuted by the Forest Department, includes tree-top houses.

Top Sengattupatti or Thenpuranadu is the major area where the suits, designed in the form of treetop houses, have been built. Very close to it is a sprawl-ing dormitory for men and women, restaurant, and a mushroom house.

Each of the four treetop house covers an area of 400 square feet. The windows have been designed in a manner which adds to the serene beauty of the hills. The large mushroom house is about 650 sq feet in area.

“The absence of a motel on the hills has remained

a major bottleneck for the tourists, Hence, a restau-rant has been constructed very close to the tree-top suits,” said an official.

According to a study conducted by the Forest Department, the hills, which form part of the East-ern Ghats, account for 154 species of birds and 135 species of butterflies. It has a population of 500 deer with three deer habitats. So to provide the tourists with a treat, the Forest Department has constructed an Interpretation Centre, which has three distinct chambers — one for administrative unit, second for the cries of animals and birds, and the third for the butterflies.

The other works completed include a 4-km trek-king trail from Maamarathusolai with two rest rooms; a safe access to waterfalls by constructing 80 steps; watch towers at a couple of places and renova-tion of the British-built guest house and construction of a new building for the Forest official.

The entire infrastructure will be maintained by the tribal communities. The Forest Department has

formed four Eco-Tourism Management Commit-tees, one each at Top Sengattupatti (Thenpuranadu), Keezhakarai, Semboor, and Chinnamangalam village panchayat.

A nominal entrance fee would be collected from the tourists and the funds raised would be utilised for community development of the panchayat concerned.

Eco-tourism project in Tamil Nadu nears its completion

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 11 INDIA •

Ahead of Konark festival, Odisha gears up to lure touristsThe Odisha Tourism Department are leaving no stones unturned to ensure a smooth management to attract tour-ists, ahead of two of its most coveted events, The Konark Festival & Interna-tional Sand Art Festival.

Director Tourism Anil Kumar Samal conducted a coordination meet-ing with District Administration, Police Administration, I & PR, Handi-crafts and Cottage Department, CESU, PHED, ASI, IDCO, NAC, Konark, OTDC and other line Departments to carry out their responsibilities in a sys-temic and efficient manner to make the event successful.

The Konark Festival will be held in Open Air auditorium with famous Sun Temple at the backdrop with five renowned Odissi troupes along with famous artists of Manipuri, Satriya, Kuchipudi, Bharatnatyam and Kathak.

The International Sand Art Festival

shall have 35 stalls with reputed inter-national and national artists. Women sand artists and differently-abled sand artists shall also participate in the festi-val coordinated by Sudarshan Patnaik. Awards and trophies shall be given to the winners. OTDC shall sponsor free stays in Panthanivas for the winners.

The Department is looking into the maintenance of law and order, safety and security of VIPs, foreign tourists and traffic management and parking of vehicles. Since both the events are of international importance and unique in nature, it is giving emphasis on has-sle free management and taking sin-cere efforts to attract tourists and art lovers through media campaign and tour packages through OTDC, said Anil Samal, Director Tourism & MD, OTDC. He also advocated active co-ordination of all line Departments, media and local populace, for making these events a grand success.

A single window clearance system in India is set to become a reality for film-makers across the world. A Film Facil-itation Office would be operated by the National Film Development Corpora-tion (NFDC), quashing all channels of bureaucracy and multiple stops for getting clearance for a film’s shoot.

The move of making NFDC a ‘sin-gle-window clearance’ system was for-mally announced at the Film Bazaar in Panaji. The annual film market, which is organised alongside the Interna-tional Film Festival of India (IFFI), was held from November 20-24.

The move is aimed at removing all obstacles and hassles while obtaining permission for filming and attracting

more international filmmakers, thus taking a step towards making India a global filming destination.

The NFDC organised Film Bazaar held a Film Tourism Symposium, pre-sented by the Ministry of Tourism in association with the Ministry of Infor-mation and Broadcasting and NFDC, to give a road map to the Film Facili-tation Office. The symposium delved into the economic potential of film tourism in the country as a whole.

Managing Director of NFDC India, Nina Lath Gupta said, “Tourism is one of the highlights of our country and we think it’s important to showcase this to the filmmakers in India and interna-tionally as well.”

NFDC to facilitate single-window clearance point for film shoots

Uttarakhand to exploit its winter potential for tourism growthThe Uttarakhand Tourism Department is nurturing significant plans for promoting winter tourism with an objective to link it with the economy and mitigate the prob-lems of unemployment and migration from hill areas.

The government is planning to invite tourists to enjoy the bright sunshine that is available in abundance on most of the days during the winter, taking advantage of the fact that most of the cit-ies in the plains of North India are cov-ered with a thick cloud of fog and people reel under severe cold conditions. Win-ter spa and massage facilities for tour-ists are also being promoted so that they feel more interested in staying in the state, said Sandeep Sahni, a member of the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board.

Snowfall during the winter is another major attraction and the government has

plans to promote winter sports at Auli, near Joshimath, in a big way. A winter car-nival at Auli in January, if the weather per-mits, is also being proposed to promote winter sports such as skiing and snow-boarding. The ropeway has started func-tioning there and plans are afoot to organ-ise national and international level skiing competitions to attract tourists to Auli.

Further to this will be the Mussoorie Winterline Carnival, to be held from December 25-31, in which the Tour-ism Department plans to invite tours and travel operators to take part in the events and promote them in their cities as part of the winter tourism promotion programme.

The department is also planning to encourage home stay facilities and link it with village tourism. Sahni added that adventure tourism will be a part of the plan as well, to promote winter tourism.


SpiceJet unveils direct flight from Chennai to Bangkok

Etihad Airways to begin Airbus A380 services to Mumbai from May 2016Etihad Airways will begin operating its award-winning Airbus A380 between Abu Dhabi and Mumbai from May 1, 2016, with India’s commercial capital joining the carrier’s other destinations of London, New York, Syd-ney and, from June 2016, Melbourne.

The aircraft will operate daily on flight EY204 from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai, and EY203 from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi, both of which would carry the 9W code of Jet Airways, Etihad Airways’ strategic partner. The flights would help connect seamlessly with Etihad Airways’ A380-operated services to New York, allowing guests to experience the double-decker aircraft throughout their journey.

Passengers onboard the Etihad Airways’ A380 ser-vice will also have access to popular connecting desti-nations over Abu Dhabi such as Chicago, San Francisco or Toronto in North America, and Bahrain, Doha or Jed-dah in the Gulf region.

James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ President and Chief Executive Officer said, “The Etihad Airways A380 has set a new benchmark for luxury and innovation and

we are delighted to announce that this world-class ser-vice will soon be available to guests flying to and from Mumbai. Furthermore, the A380 out of Mumbai will connect seamlessly at our Abu Dhabi hub to the A380 service to New York, offering our New York-bound guests the comfort, convenience and superior in-flight service of A380 flights all the way.”

Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, welcomed the news saying, “This announcement by Etihad Airways is yet another sign of international con-fidence in the powerhouse economy of Maharashtra. I look forward to the growth in tourism and business that this service can bring to our state.”

SpiceJet has unveiled its plans to launch a new inter-national flight service from Chennai to Bangkok.

The Indian low-cost carrier, which plans to begin the service on December 10, 2015, would operate the route six times a week (departing Chennai every day except Tuesdays) using its Boeing 737 aircraft.

Flights would leave Chennai at 2210, arriving at Bangkok’s Suvarnabumi Airport at 0305. The return service would then depart the Thai capital at 0355, arriving back in Chennai at 0555.

“It gives us immense pleasure to announce our second international flight to Bangkok. Our first Bangkok flight started from Kolkata last year and had an excellent market response,” said Shilpa Bha-tia, SpiceJet’s Senior Vice President and Head of Sales and Distribution. “We strongly believe that there is a tremendous potential in the southern markets too, and this flight will help us to connect passen-gers from the rest of India to Bangkok, via Chennai.”

AirAsia, Thai Airways and Air Austral presently operate the direct flight route between Bangkok and Chennai.

Thai VietJet has launched a new series of flights to India, to cater to the Buddhist pilgrimage market.

The Bangkok-based airline has started operating weekly flights from the Thai capital to Bodh Gaya, the religious site in Bihar. Services will run every Saturday using a 180-seat, all-economy Airbus A320 aircraft.

With this new route, Thai Vietjet will create attrac-tive opportunities for followers of Buddhism and monks as well as residents and guests of Vietnam and Thai-land to travel easily and affordably between Bangkok and Bodh Gaya. Flights can be snapped up for VND8 million ($366 / THB13,000) including taxes/fees, 7 kgs of hand-carriage luggage and 15 kgs of check-in luggage.

The new flights follow an earlier charter service operated by Thai VietJet between Bangkok and Bodh Gaya during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Under the new weekly schedule, flights will depart Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport every Saturday at 11:30, landing at Gaya Airport three hours later. The return flight will leave the same day at 14:10 and arrive back in Bangkok at 18:40.

VietJet launches periodic weekly flights to Bodh Gaya

Air Canada relaunches non-stop Toronto-Delhi flightAir Canada has relaunched its non-stop Toronto-Delhi flight, after a gap of seven years. The first 787-900 Dreamliner flight from Toronto touched down recently at Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport. Air Canada will operate four weekly flights on the route (Toronto-Delhi on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and the return leg on Tuesday, Wednes-day, Friday and Sunday). According to Arun Pandeya, Country Manager–Air Canada, the airline will convert the existing frequency of four weekly to daily opera-tions from September next year.

The airline has deployed brand new Boeing 787-900 aircraft with three-cabin configuration on the route. Out of the 287 seats on offer, 237 are Economy, 21 in Pre-mium Economy and 29 Business Class seats. Duncan Bureau, Vice President-Global Sales, Air Canada, said that the 787-9 is a world-class product suited for non-stop service. It is not the non-stop value proposition between India and Canada that the airline is offering, but it’s extremely seamless connectivity to 52 destina-tions in the U.S., Mexico, Caribbean, Havana and des-tinations in the South America.“While providing this non-stop value proposition, we are sure that there is a strong market for it here,” he said.

Asked about the distribution strategy for the mar-ket, he said that the strategy is to sell the seats through all available channels. Travel trade, he said, is quite important for the airline globally, and has invested in building relationships with trade globally. However, he said that commissions for agents are governed by the quality of traffic they bring for the airline.

Pandeya said that the product has been well curated for Indian passengers with onboard offering of Indian and Western meals, Bollywood music and movies for entertainment, besides friendly crew. “We will try to improve and evolve the product offerings in due course,” he said.

Air India to launch direct flights between Ahmedabad and London from January 2016

Air India’s eSuperSaver fares expanded to economy class

Air India announced that it will introduce a direct daily flight connecting Ahmedabad with London from January 15, 2016, instead of December 15, 2015.

A senior Air India official said, “Our Ahmedabad-London connection will be via Mumbai initially and we will convert it with a direct flight only from Janu-ary 15, 2016, when we have the adequate crew required for the flight.”

While addressing 60,000 wildly cheering British Indians at the iconic Wembley Stadium in London, Modi had said, “From December 15, there will be direct flights between London and Ahmedabad.”

The new service AI-131 will be operated by a Boeing B-787 Dreamliner. The plane will be operated on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai-London sector.

The daily flight will be a boon to the 1.5 million-strong Indian diaspora living in Britain, catering to the strong demand of more than 6 lakh Indians

from the state of Gujarat. The passengers travelling by the direct flight will not need to change aircraft at Mumbai.

It will take off from Ahmedabad at 4.30 a.m. to reach Mumbai at 5.45 a.m., depart Mumbai at 7.05 a.m. and reach London at 11.30 p.m. (local time).

On the return sector, flight AI-130 will leave Lon-don at 1.30 p.m. (local time), arrive Mumbai at 4 a.m. the following day and land in Ahmedabad at 6.45 a.m.

Air India has expanded its ‘eSuperSaver’ scheme to include economy class travel. The initiative was orig-inally launched for business class travellers, but now, economy class passengers are able to purchase eSu-perSaver fares for domestic travel in India.

“Air India’s economy class travellers will now reap the benefits of popular eSuperSaver scheme as Air India has enhanced the benefits under the scheme for its Economy Class passengers, effective Novem-ber 1,” said the airline.

The eSuperSaver scheme has two variants – one for travel on sectors up to 750 km and another for all domestic sectors, irrespective of distance. It is

applicable for solo travellers only. Each variant offers three booklets of four, eight and 12 flight coupons.

For the option on routes up to 750 km, travel-lers can purchase a four-coupon booklet for `18,000 ($277), an eight-coupon booklet for `34,000 and a 12-coupon booklet for `48,000, inclusive of all sur-charges and fees. Passengers booking these cou-pons have been offered 25 kg of baggage allowance per flight.

For all domestic sectors irrespective of the dis-tance, the four-coupon booklet is priced at `24,000, the eight-coupon booklet at `46,000 and the 12-cou-pon booklet at ̀ 66,000.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 13ASIA

Thai Airways launches DreamlinerThai Airways is giving its customers a whole new in-flight experience with cabin enhancements, more seating comfort and almost limitless enter-tainment options with B787-8 Dreamliner aircraft. The Dreamliner will be flying on international routes from Bangkok to Delhi, Chennai, Seoul, Nagoya, Hong Kong, Singapore, Perth, Brisbane, Denpasar and Kuala Lumpur. From November 25 onwards, one can fly from Delhi or Chennai to Bangkok on the Dreamliner and experience Thai’s unique and leg-endry service with a whole new in-flight experience with cabin enhancements, more seating comfort and almost limitless entertainment options.

Thailand highlights seven venues to discover Thainess culture of Loi Krathong Festival

Indonesia allows visa-free entry to Indians

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is encour-aging local and international tourists to experience Thainess culture presented through the legendary Loi Krathong Festival.

Visanu Jaroensilp, TAT Deputy Governor for Tourism Products and Business said, “The Loi Kra-thong Festival has been practiced in Thailand for centuries, so it is a precious cultural heritage of the kingdom. Loi Krathong takes place during one of the best times in Thailand when there is a full moon in the sky, water in the river, and the weather is nice and cool, which is the perfect time for a lovely cele-bration. We have listed Loi Krathong among Thai-land’s most impressive cultural events under plans to raise their profile into world events.”

This year, TAT has listed seven venues from dif-ferent regions, each of which has its own distinctive style of Loi Krathong celebrations, including Bang-kok, Chiang Mai, Sukhothai, Tak, Ayutthaya, Samut Songkram and Ratchaburi.

In Bangkok, the Chao Phraya River is the centre of the Loi Krathong celebration. TAT in cooperation with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and several public and private agencies, would stage the grand Loi Krathong event, at several venues along the Chao Phraya River.

The River Festival 2015, hosted by Thai Bever-age, would be held at seven unique spots along the Chao Phraya River, including four temples – Wat Arun Ratchawararam, Wat Chetupon Wimon-mangkhlaram, Wat Prayurawongsawas, and Wat Kalayanamit Woramahawihan – and three riverside attractions – Tha Maharat, Yodpiman Riverwalk, and Asiatique the Riverfront. Each venue would fea-ture the Thai way of life and cultural performances.

In addition, eight hotels on the riverside are join-ing hands to host an extravagant fireworks display over the Chao Phraya River between Sathon Bridge and Phra Pokklao Bridge.

Loi Krathong is a nationwide celebration and vis-itors would be able to experience the festivals at any destinations across Thailand.

Tourism Authority of Thailand launches new Amazing Thailand logo The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has rolled out a number of strategic activities to promote the good image of the kingdom as a top tourist destination at the World Travel Market (WTM) 2015.

Traditionally, TAT uses the show as an important platform to launch the country’s tourism market-ing campaign for the incoming year. This year, TAT launched the new Amazing Thailand logo, which incorporates the attraction and appeal of the most famous characteristic of Thailand – The Smile.

Soraya Homchuen, Director, TAT Mumbai said, “I think that the new logo will work well in the Indian market because most Indian travellers and travel agents are very vocal about their various amazing

experiences of Thai people’s warm hospitality. It has a special relevance in India because hospitality is a significant USP of India’s culture also.”

In order to attract tourists to Indonesia, President Joko Widodo of Indonesia has signed Presidential Decree no. 104 of 2015, granting special short stay Visa Free facilities for tourists who are nationals of a total 75 countries, which will include India.

The 30 days Visa Free facility can be used for gov-ernment duties, education, social-cultural purposes, tourism, business, family visits and on transit pur-poses only.

The entry can be made only through the Inter-national Airports of Jakarta, Bali, Batam, Surabaya and Medan, as well as through four seaports on the island of Batam namely: Sekupang, Batam Centre, Nongsa Terminal Bahari, Marina Teluk Senimba and Citra Tri Tunas. The seaports are Nongsa, Sekupang, Batam Centre, Harbor Bay, Marina Teluk Senimba, Batam; Bandar Bentan Telani, Bandar Seri Udana, and Tanjung Pinang on Bintan, Tg Balai Karimun; Dumai Riau; Teluk Nibung Tg. Balai Asahan; Ban-dar Sri Setia Raya Bengkalis; Belawan Medan; Kuala Langsa; Sibolga, Siak Seri Indrapura Riau; Padang; Bengkulu port; Benoa and Padang Bai Bali; Tg Priok Jakarta, Yos Sudarso Cirebon; Tg Mas Semarang, Surabaya, Makassar; Bitung port; Kupang Nunu-kan, Malundung Tarakan; Jayapura.

Shelly Chandhok, Country Manager, Visit Indo-nesia Tourism Office (India) said, “Visa Free facil-ity will give boost to tourism and we are expecting a substantial growth in terms of Indian arrivals in Indonesia.’’

Thailand’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFA) has con-firmed that a new six-month multiple-entry tourist visa (METV) has been launched from November 13, 2015.

The visa, costing `10,000 (5,000 baht), will grant travellers multiple entries during a six-month period, for up to 60 days per entry. All foreign nationals are eli-gible to apply for METV.

There has been speculation about the METV since August this year with travellers and travel trade in India excited about the prospective added convenience. Soraya Homchuen, Director, TAT Mumbai office said, “I expect that frequent travellers from India as well as Indian travel agents, will be very happy with the news of the METV. Of late, Thailand has gained popularity for weekend getaways, especially on long weekends, in addition to already being India’s favourite for family vacations and annual holidays. I am certain that the con-venience of already having a visa in-hand will encour-age more impromptu trips to Thailand.”

Under the current rules, tourist visas are valid for just 60 days, after which visitors must leave the coun-try or apply to a local immigration office for an exten-sion. The new visa will allow visitors to enter and leave the country as often as they want over the six-month period provided they leave the country every 60 days.

Indian travellers must be able to show a proof of funds in excess of `400,000, 12-months’ validity on their passports and must display an intention to travel to Thailand at least twice during the six-month period in order to be eligible for the METV.

One can only apply for METV at a Royal Thai Con-sulate. It is not available on-arrival. Travellers should keep a buffer of two days, after submitting a completed visa form with all documents for the processing of an METV.

“I am optimistic that this will go a long way in meet-ing our year-end target of 1,050,000 travellers by the end of 2015,” said Homchuen.

Thailand launches 6 month multiple-entry visa

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 14 • asIa

Philippines Tourism Promotion board launches photo contest

Vietnam to promote Binh Thuan as a seaport and leisure destination

The Philippines’ Tourism Promotions Board together with Agoda organised ‘Tag the Fun’- a photo contest that rewarded local and foreign travellers for choosing the Philippines as their destination.

Travellers got a chance to win a holiday break in the beaches and the underground wonder of Puerto Princesa, Palawan or in the Panglao Island, Bohol. In addition, one was able to take home ‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’ premium items.

‘Tag the Fun’ photo contest ran in November. It was open to participants 18 years old and above and had two categories: the local category, which was open to all Filipinos, and the foreign category, which was for the foreigners and visitors residing in and outside the Philippines.

To join, one needed to like the official Facebook pages of Tourism Promotions Board, The Philip-pines and Agoda; upload the best travel photo on the TPB Facebook page along with an English cap-tion of no more than 500 characters together with the name of destination where the photo was taken. One needed to share the entry on their own Facebook newsfeed along with a mention of ‘The Philippines’ and ‘Agoda’ and the hashtags #tpbgovph, #tagthefun, and #itsmorefuninthephilippines.

The participants were able to submit as many entries as they wished with weekly themes of His-tory & Culture, Music, Arts & Entertainment.

There were two winners for each week (1 local and 1 foreign) who received ‘It’s More Fun in the Philip-pines’ premium items.

The best entries were then chosen (1 local and 1 foreign) among the 4 weekly winners to award the grand prizes. The grand winners were able to enjoy a free 3 day / 2 night stay for two at the country’s two best beaches.

The local winner got to experience the paradise of Astoria Palawan Resort in Puerto Princesa, Palawan while the foreign winner was treated to the white beaches of Eskaya Beach Resort and Spa in Panglao Island, Bohol.

China’s Shandong Airlines makes debut flight to IndiaShandong Airlines has launched its first ever flight to India. Commencing on November 11, the airline began flying direct flights between Delhi and Kunming, the capital of southwest China’s

Yunnan province.The new service is available four times a week

(Mondays, Wednesday, Fridays and Sundays), with the Monday and Friday flights continuing onwards between Kunming and Jinan – the capital of Shan-dong province and Shandong Airlines’ home base.

The airline has also planned to further expand its international route map with the launch of a new route connecting Jinan to Phuket. Flights would run six times a week (every day except Saturday), and the route would include a stop in Changsha, the capital of China’s Hunan province.

Shandong Airlines, which is partly-owned by Air China, operates an extensive domestic route map and international services to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thai-land and Cambodia.

The central province of Binh Thuan has recognised sea sports and leisure as the backbone of the devel-opment strategy of its hospitality industry through 2020 with a vision to 2030.

Under the Government approved development strategy, Binh Thuan has been identified as one of Vietnam’s major tourism destinations and a national centre for sea sports and leisure tourism.

Binh Thuan’s seaside town of Mui Ne has been well-known for its ideal climate conditions for sea sports, especially kite surfing and windsurfing.

Speaking at the 20th anniversary of the Binh Thuan Tourism Day, Vice Chairman of the Binh Thuan’s People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Tam said that over the past 20 years, tourism has devel-oped rapidly, with hundreds of resorts in seaside town Mui Ne, which has earned it the nickname of ‘the capital of resorts’.

The number of tourists to the province has increased from only 53,000, which includes five thousand international visitors, in 1999, to over 4 million so far this year, 254,000 of which are inter-national travellers.

Revenue from tourism has increased from 30.7 billion VND ($1.37 million) in 1995 to 7.6 billion VND ($340 million) in 2015, accounting for 7.5% of the prov-ince’s gross domestic product.

Royal Nepal Airlines (RNA) is considering restarting operations from Kolkata again next year onwards. Initially, it has plans to start operations with three flights a week. Currently, Air India is the only air-line that connects Kathmandu with Kolkata, oper-ating four flights a week.

“We have been doing feasibility studies for a while. There is a good demand from tourists who are keen to travel to Nepal from the east, but are unable to do so due to lack of flight options. The airline is

likely to begin flight services between Kathmandu and Kolkata again from the first quarter of 2016,” an RNA official said.

RNA last departed from Kolkata around the year 2000. Since then, several private airline carriers from Nepal, including Necon Air, Buddha Air, Yeti Air-lines and Everest Air, tried to start operations from Kolkata but never took off.

RNA plans to operate an Airbus A320-200 aircraft with 150 economy and eight business class seats. The official said the airline had been advised to fly into Kolkata on days on which there would not be any Air India flight to Kathmandu to ensure good passenger load right from the beginning.

While the airline will primarily target tourist traf-fic, it is also eyeing the meetings, incentives, confer-ences and exhibitions traffic. Travel Agents Federa-tion of India (TAFI), eastern region Chairman, Anil Punjabi said the sector is expected to do great busi-ness as Nepal is inexpensive, offered great scenic destinations, has pleasant weather all year round and Indians do not require travel documents to visit the country. Casinos are an added attraction. Punjabi further suggested that the airline can keep return tickets to Kathmandu below ̀ 10,000 to attract passengers.

Royal Nepal Airlines to resume operations from Kolkata

Le Méridien opens a new hotel in BhutanStarwood Hotels & Resorts has launched its second Le Méridien hotel in Bhutan.

Set on the banks of the Paro River, Le Méridien Paro Riverfront offers views of the Himalayas. It provides just 59 rooms and suites, plus a restaurant, swimming pool, fitness centre and spa. All guests would also be offered free access to Ta Dzong, Bhu-tan’s National Museum, as part of the hotel’s ‘Unlock Art’ programme.

The opening of the Paro property comes less than a year after the launch of Le Méridien Thim-phu, which offers 78 rooms in Bhutan’s capital city.

“Bhutan truly is a one-of-a-kind destination wait-ing to be discovered, and with two stunning Le Méri-dien hotels in Paro and Thimphu, we are delighted to help adventure seekers unlock the country’s mythi-cal allure,” said Brian Povinelli, Global Brand Leader for Le Méridien Hotel & Resorts.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 15 asia •

Tourist arrivals rise as Korea launches K-Smile Friendliness campaign

As the Korean tourism industry bounces backs from the impact of the MERS outbreak, the Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO) has started promoting friendly interactions with inbound tourists as part of its new ‘K-Smile Friendliness Campaign’.

It is the most recent of several initiatives, which the KTO has launched to improve the nation’s service sec-tor for international visitors before the Visit Korea Year 2016-2018 campaign leading up to the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics.

A few months ago, the inbound travel market in Korea mirrored the fears caused by MERS for the international community, with inbound arrivals for June were at -41% over that of the same period last year, while in July the figure stood at -53%. After a month of no more MERS cases confirmed and an all-clear by the national government, tourist arrivals increased rapidly. August arrivals stood at an improved -25%, followed by a dramatic improvement of -3.1% in September. October has always been Korea’s busiest month for tourism and MICE arrivals, with arrivals expected to surpass that of October last year.

The new K-Smile campaign, launched in October, has been undertaken to maintain positive momentum for the rest of 2015 and the years ahead. This includes the upcoming 2016-2018 Visit Korea Campaign and the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics, both of which are expected to attract a large influx of overseas visitors.

Up to 150 incentive events inbound in Korea would also be officially supported by the K-Smile campaign. Support offered includes airport welcome events, sou-venirs, custom banners, and more. In addition, promo-tional materials and other items are being made avail-able, especially for MICE visitors during the campaign.

Japan offering multilingual assistance with rise in foreign tourists

Angelina Jolie to shoot her next directorial project in CambodiaAngelina Jolie is heading to Cambodia to film her latest project, a film version of writer Loung Ung’s memoir, ‘First They Killed My Father.’ The film, which report-edly would feature Jolie’s adopted Khmer son Mad-dox in a prominent role, would skip theatres and head straight to Netflix.

Much of the filming would take place in Siem Reap Province, where the famous Angkor Wat temple com-plex is located. Some scenes would reportedly be shot in the temple ruins, while others would take place in the rice fields and river banks in the surrounding areas.

According to the Cambodian Film Commission, the production would move relatively quickly, with the first scenes filmed in November, and the plan is to wrap by the end of January. Cambodia’s second largest city after

Phnom Penh, Battambang, would be used for about 10% of the movie.

The movie is about one family’s experience under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, and will cover very tragic events. However, it would also be a chance for people to see the idyllic countryside around Siem Reap. While Angkor is extremely well known (it was a popular desti-nation even before ‘Tomb Raider’ hit screens), the rural areas around the temples are rarely visited, and Battam-bang is also off the tourist map despite being the coun-try’s second largest city.

Netflix subscribers will be able to see Jolie’s version of provincial Cambodia sometime next year. Loung Ung’s book was published by Harper Collins in 2000 and is still widely available.

Tirun Travel Marketing teams up with Singapore Tourism Board and Changi Airport GroupTirun Travel Marketing, the exclusive India Represen-tative for Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited continues its association with the Singapore Tourism Board and Changi Airport Group to offer attractive incentives to cruisers. This year, guests who book a Royal Caribbean cruise onboard the largest ship in South East Asia, Mar-iner of the Seas, get free passes to Singapore’s most excit-ing tourist destination, Sentosa Island.

Cruisers will have access to five of the island’s most superlative attractions including the Trick Eye Museum, the Segway Fun Ride, one 4D Adventure Land Show of their choice, the Cable Car ‘Sky Network’ and a Wings of Time show.

Ratna Chadha, Chief Executive, Tirun Travel Mar-keting said, “We have been partnering with the Singa-pore Tourism Board and Singapore Changi Airport Group for the last three years. The results have been great as guests find great value in the added incentives we are able to bundle along with their cruise. Like every year, we aim to generate significant excitement around the association through radio and digital promotions. The goal is to enable travellers to extract maximum ben-efit when they cruise with Royal Caribbean Interna-tional from Singapore.”

Yuemin Li-Misra, Area Director, India and

Bangladesh, Singapore Tourism Board said, “It’s a great time to be in Singapore right now, with the year-end cel-ebrations just around the corner. We’ve seen a double digit growth in 1H of 2015 in cruise passengers from India to Singapore and have partnered Changi Airport Group and Tirun Travel Marketing to promote cruis-ing from Singapore to keep the momentum strong. To make the Singapore cruise journey a memorable one for new and repeat cruisers, we have put together an attrac-tive experience pass offering some of Singapore’s new-est attractions such as the Trick Eye Museum, the Seg-way Fun Ride, a 4D Adventure Land show, the Cable Car ‘Sky Network’ and Wings of Time show in Sentosa Singapore. There is so much more to discover and enjoy in the Lion City and we urge you to join in on the fun!”

Japan Tourism has come up with a multilingual assistance that is accessible 24 hours a day. The boost in foreign tour-ism has led the local government to plan a translation of the Japanese language. The hotline is accessed by staff of the hotels or car rentals and restaurants to assist tourists with their queries. For the rest there is a direct link with call centres, which help visitors with their language barri-ers. According to the Japan National Tourism Organisation international visitor numbers to Japan has gone up by 1.82 million, a sharp 64% higher than the previous year.

The authorities have also looped in private holdings

to run the call centres. The staff would be responsible for helping the tourists with basic needs like even looking for a doctor. A number of private companies are coming up offering assistance; a company is offering 13 languages which include Russian and Indonesian. This facility would offer basic assistance to travellers and would make their visit to Japan friendlier.

The government has also launched a smartphone app in the southern Saga Prefecture, which would assist tour-ists to directly connect to operators. The app also includes services from the police and the fire department.

Asia’s next unique project in the tourism sector is currently well underway in Malaysia. MAPS, which is slated to open within the first half of 2016, was recently unveiled to the world by the Minister of Tour-ism and Culture Malaysia, YB Dato’ Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz at World Travel Market (WTM) in London.

The international theme park, poised as the ‘First Animation Theme Park in Asia’, spans over 52 acres of land and is being built at the cost of Ringgit Malaysia 450 million (approximately $105 million). Strategically located in the state of Perak in the northern region of Malaysia, MAPS is easily accessible with flight con-nectivity, apart from the country’s North-South High-way and electric train services. MAPS will feature

over 40 attractions including rides and shows within six themed zones.

“We are proud to showcase international animation characters from DreamWorks and The Smurfs along-side local favourite animation character BoBoiBoy and Stunt Legends, billed as South-East Asia’s First Car & Bike ‘Live’ Stunt Show in MAPS to captivate families and guests of all ages to make their visit to Malaysia truly memorable. Thanks to the concerted efforts of Tourism Malaysia and key players in the industry, we hope to position MAPS as a ‘tourist magnet’ in driv-ing more visitors to Malaysia while working towards strengthening Malaysia’s appeal as a ‘must visit’ desti-nation in the world,” said Ramelle Ramli, the Founder of MAPS and Chairman of RSG Group.

Tourism Malaysia to open the first ever animation theme park in Asia

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 18middle east

The Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA) recently shed some light on new tourism initiatives. At a special event held under the theme ‘All Things New in Sharjah’, latest develop-ments and tourism activities were announced with key partners.

The event was organised in the presence of H.E. Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Chairman of SCTDA who was joined by representatives from Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq), Sharjah Muse-ums Department and a number of other key tourism stakeholders in the emirate.

Al Midfa said, “Today the tourism sector in Sharjah operates under the new Sharjah Tourism Vision 2021 which is working towards attracting 10 million visitors

by 2021. We look towards achieving this goal with active partnership of all organisations, government departments and private sector companies working together.”

Highlighting the initiatives, Al Midfa pointed to the launch of the ‘Marhabtain’ initiative aimed at raising efficiencies of workers in the tourism industry and related sectors such as transportation, hotels and museums.

H.E. Ahmed Obaid Al Qaseer, Chief Operating Offi-cer of Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shorooq) also shed some light on the latest projects in Sharjah’s tourism sector, including Al Noor Island, Al Montazah, Flag Island, Souq Al Shanasiyah and Kalba and Mleiha Ecotourism projects.

sharjah Tourism sheds light on new tourism initiatives

1,500 hotel rooms to open in Oman by 2020

Qatar Airways expands partnership with Jetblue

Oman to allow 72-hour transit visa from 2016

Over the next five years, more than 1,500 rooms will be added in Oman with many Rotana Hotels slated to be built in Muscat, Sohar and Salalah.

Chairman of Rotana, Nasser Al Nowais at a signing event between Golden Group of Compa-nies and Taameer Investment SAOC announced that there are plans to build three, four and five star categories hotels.

Chairman of Rotana said that this project would provide new job opportunities for Omanis and help them cultivate and develop their skills in tourism and hospitality sector.

“Signing the agreement with Rotana Hotels coincides with the operation of Salalah Interna-tional Airport and completing the main stages in the expansion of Muscat International Airport, which shall create a qualitative leap in the number of flights coming to the Sultanate. This requires doubling residence and hotel service,” Suleiman bin Masood Al Harthi, Taameer CEO stated.

“There are 297 hotels across all governorates of the Sultanate. Hotels in Oman have 15,424 rooms with a relatively high growth rate of 7.3% during 2014 compared to the previous year,” said Mai-tha bint Saif Al Mahrouqi, Under Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism while affirming that Rotana hotels form an appreciated qualitative addition to hotel activity in the Sultanate.

flydubai makes its inaugural flight to Asmaraflydubai’s debut flight landed in the capital city of Eritrea, Asmara. Senior Eritrean officials, including Tesfaslassie Berhane, Minister of Transportation and Communication, Askalu Menkorios, Minister of Tour-ism and Paulos Kahsai, Director General Civil Avia-

tion Authority welcomed the flydubai delegation at Asmara International Airport, which was led by Sudhir

Sreedharan, Senior Vice President, Commercial (GCC, Subcontinent, Africa) and members of the airline’s senior management team.

Ghaith Al Ghaith, flydubai’s Chief Executive Officer, said, “The addition of Asmara to our network reflects our commitment to enhancing air connectivity to Dubai, which includes 67 points that did not previously have direct air links to Dubai or were underserved. The Eritrean capital becomes our 13th destination in East Africa.”

Asmara becomes the 18th destination flydubai launched this year, with the airline launching opera-tions to Burundi, Rwanda, Somaliland, Tanzania and Uganda recently.

flydubai would operate four times a week between Dubai and Asmara, with flight FZ665/666 operating on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

Qatar Airways announced the expansion of its code-share partnership with JetBlue, with 29 new code-share destinations on the airline’s route network from Boston Logan International Airport.

The expanded partnership would commence from March 16, 2016 to coincide with the launch of Qatar

Airways’ daily direct flights to Boston. Passengers will be able to connect onto JetBlue’s network with a seamless transfer process via both New York and Boston.

“The strengthening of this code-share agreement comes at a time when Qatar Airways is focused upon expanding its own direct links to the United States and beyond, with the launch of non-stop services to Los Angeles, Atlanta and Boston throughout 2016,” said Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Akbar Al Baker. “Passengers travelling to Boston on our latest flagship A350 XWB aircraft will be able to connect onwards to almost 30 JetBlue des-tinations across the continent, enhancing the overall passenger experience for all, thanks to this expanded code-share agreement.”

The Minister of Tourism for Oman, Ahmed bin Nasser Al Mahrizi, informed that an initiative to issue 72-hour visas to passengers transiting through Oman is expected to be introduced early next year.

“We are working on this, but are still waiting for the new system to be finished,” the Minister informed after a ceremony was held to announce the completion of City Centre Muscat’s expansion project.

Al Mahrizi said that to the best of his knowledge, the new system will be completed by the end of the year and the visa initiative will hopefully be intro-duced early next year.

According to him, efforts are currently under-way to facilitate visa procedures to draw more tour-ists to Oman, particularly from neighbouring coun-tries, where the demand to visit the Sultanate is high.

Commenting on City Centre Muscat’s expansion, Al Mahrizi said the project would definitely contrib-ute to the growth of tourism.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 19 middle east •

Iran facilitates foreign travellers with guideline booklet

Qatar Tourism Authority unveils its first destination brand

The Head of the Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicraft Organisation, Iran, Masoud Soltanifar announced that the country has begun providing for-eign travellers with a booklet, which includes guide-lines for social behaviour and codes of attire observed in the country.

The booklet entitled ‘Hamrah Safar’, which liter-ally means ‘travel companion’, would be available at Iran’s embassies around the world, he said.

Obeying Islamic dress-code is essential in Iran, especially for women. Consumption of pork prod-ucts and alcoholic drinks are also forbidden and their import is illegal.

In the last two years, Iran’s Tourism industry wit-ness a growth of 12%, Soltanifar said during a meeting with Iran’s ambassadors to other countries.

He added that it is the beginning of a boom in the tourism industry, which flourished after a historic agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme.

“About 900 tourism projects are currently under-way in different parts of Iran and we believe that this industry boost economical situation of Iran as well,” he said.

“Iran’s on-arrival visa validity has been extended from 14 days to 30 days during past months,” Soltan-ifar added.

The 30-day validity can also be extended for

another 15 days once a tourist enters the country. He said that the government plans to facili-

tate the process for issuing visa, build more hotels

and increase the number of tourist information offices in other countries to attract more foreign tour-ists to Iran.

Kuwait to establish a tourism authoritySheikh Salman Sabah Salem Al-Humoud Al-Sabah, Information Minister, State Minister for Youth Affairs and the Supreme Tourism Committee Chairman has called for establishing a tourism authority in order to manage the sector’s diverse activities including cultural and entertainment programmes.

During a meeting of the commission, the Minister affirmed keenness on overhauling the sector with the intent of making it one of the national income sources,

as part of the state revenues’ diversifying policy.This sector has been envisioned as one of the Kuwaiti

economy foundations, considering its high proceeds and political, economic and social benefits, Minister Sheikh Salman said, noting the private sector should be included in such a process; backed by the government with the necessary legislations.

The supreme commission, which groups talented citizens, is capable of activating such a strategy for the Kuwaiti tourism, he said, noting the need for in-depth studies, upgrading the infrastructure, diversifying the programmes and allocating more lands for new projects. He also called for training national cadres, particularly the young nationals, in the process to develop the field.

Expansion of Kuwait International Airport to reach an accommodation capacity of 25 million passengers per year, warrants expansion of the services and tour-ism projects, “which in turn should lure many young Kuwaitis thus creating new work opportunities for them,” the Minister said. The meeting was held follow-ing the shift of the tourism portfolio from the Ministry of Commerce to the Information Ministry.

Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) unveiled the Qatar Destination Brand to global audiences at the World Travel Market in London. The brand is aimed at enhancing and accelerating efforts to promote the nation abroad.

“The unveiling of Qatar’s first destination brand marks the beginning of a new phase in our journey towards achieving the vision for Qatar, as outlined in the National Tourism Sector Strat-egy 2030: a world class hub with deep cultural roots,” said H.E. Issa bin Mohammed Al Mohan-nadi, Chairman of QTA. “In launching this brand, which is the first to represent Qatar as a destina-tion, and by channelling multiple characteristics of the nation’s persona, hopes, actions and vision, our efforts to promote the country and pique interest from world travellers, gain new strength and cohesion.”

According to QTA’s Chief Marketing & Promo-tions Officer, Rashed AlQurese, the development of Qatar’s destination brand “has been a carefully considered, nationwide process, involving locals, youth, residents, artists, and a spectrum of rele-vant stakeholders.”

“The brand will unify and strengthen commu-nications by sector stakeholders, tour operators, hoteliers and other members of the industry about Qatar to international audiences, it will also rein-force Qatar’s presence on the international stage at the global trade shows, events and exhibitions that QTA participates in,” AlQurese said.

Etihad Airways, Abu Dhabi Tourism and Cul-ture Authority, and Miral Asset Management have signed a management and development agree-ment. The agreement between the three parties is to promote the global image of Abu Dhabi in terms of tourists, business and cultural destination and include development in hospitality, sports, enter-tainment, retail and leisure sectors.

The meeting of the three companies took place at the exclusive Ferrari World theme park on Yas Island. The signing of the agreement is aimed at the growth of Abu Dhabi’s inbound tourist traffic and better marketing, communication strategies, events and programmes to enhance the destination’s vis-ibility around the world.

Chief Commercial Officer at Etihad Airways, Peter Baumgartner said, “We have signed this joint commitment to make Abu Dhabi the best destina-tion brand in the world. This unique and impor-tant partnership between the national airline, TCA Abu Dhabi and Miral will boost Abu Dhabi’s image exponentially.”

‘Essential Abu Dhabi’, ‘Abu Dhabi Now’ and ‘Access Abu Dhabi’ are consumer campaigns that would also be integrated into the new man-agement plan the three companies would further

collaborate to accomplish.Sultan Al Dhaheri, acting Executive Director

Tourism, Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Author-ity stated, “TCA Abu Dhabi and Etihad Airways are once again joining forces with common objec-tives to promote the Emirate, and to continue to enhance its world-class tourism infrastructure, and to establish a development plan for tourism in order to further strengthen the economic and social impact on the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Etihad Airways, as the national airline of the UAE, is an invaluable and strategic partner for the develop-ment of the tourism sector in line with Abu Dhabi Vision 2030.”

Etihad Airways, TCA Abu Dhabi and Miral sign major partnership deal

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 20europe

Brussels ranked 9th as meeting destination in EuropeAccording to visit.brussels, they have been ranked number 9 on Cvent’s inaugural list of the top 25 cities for meetings and events in Europe for 2015. Cvent, a cloud-based enterprise event management platform, developed the ranking based on meeting and event booking activity in the Cvent Supplier Network.

“While the competition is fierce in the sector of meetings and events, the numerous advantages Brussels has to offer are increasingly recognised worldwide,” said Patrick Bontinck, CEO, visit.brus-sels. “After being ranked second in the world for international conferences according to UIA and 11th for the number of international associations’ itiner-ant conferences according to ICCA, the Cvent List reflects once more the constant reinforcement of the international position of our capital,” he added.

Cvent evaluated more than 2,500 cities in Europe featured on the Cvent Supplier Network to compile the first annual list.

spain Tourism records 68,000 Indian visitors from Jan-sept 2015

France executes biometric visa in India

Spain Tourism has recorded 68,000 Indian visitors and is optimistic to end the year with about 100,000 India travellers, realising a 10% increase in Indian tourists as compared to the previous year. The aver-age length of stay is seven days and the average spend is up to EUR 2,000 per person including airfare, said Ignacio Ducasse Gutierrez, Director, Tourism Office of Spain, Mumbai, on the sidelines of the MICE and Leisure road show which concluded in Mumbai and New Delhi recently. The road show witnessed 11 sup-pliers including five Tourism Boards, hotel chains, Destination Management Companies (DMCs), Spain Embassy, New Delhi, a departmental store and Turk-ish Airlines.

Gutierrez added, “35% of Indians to Spain are incentive and business travellers mainly to Barcelona and Madrid. Witnessing the growing demand and tourist traffic, we are promoting many other MICE-centric cities of Spain such as Malaga, Costa Del Sol and Andalucia. They have international airports and attractive facilities for hosting MICE groups. More-over, the favourable weather conditions and diverse F&B offerings also add to the experience.”

Gutierrez hopes to push the theme segments of MICE, luxury and shopping, honeymooners, fly & drive, active tourism, sports (especially football) in

the Indian market by the next year. Spain Tourism also plans to unveil its online training programme by Q3 2016 for updating the trade on Spain Tourism product offerings.

Talking about direct flight challenge, he lamented that they had been pushing Air India for direct flight connectivity from Delhi and Mumbai to Madrid and Barcelona. “Last, Air India was considering announc-ing direct flights to Spain but we haven’t heard of it so far. Time and again, we will keep pushing them,” he stressed.

New hospitality and retail features at Munich AirportMunich Airport (FMG) and Lufthansa will offer pas-sengers an entirely new shopping and dining experi-ence in the new satellite facility, scheduled to open in April 2016. The retail and dining options will include a wide selection of iconic German and international brands, popular Bavarian retailers, and local bars and restaurants.

“Bavarian traditions and hospitality, Munich’s unique lifestyle and the blending of nature with

state-of-the-art technology – these were the guiding principles behind the architectural design of the din-ing and shopping area,” said Rainer Beeck, Senior Vice President of Commercial Activities at Munich Airport. The space will include 16 retail stores, seven food and beverage locations and three Duty Free shops.

The new shopping and dining facilities will be run by the FMG subsidiaries Eurotrade and Allresto as well as external retailers and restaurant operators. At the stands in Schubeck’s ‘Viktualienmarkt’, high-quality snacks will be available to enjoy immediately or pack-aged for take-out. Added to this will be the architec-ture and decor of the ‘Lenbachs’ tower bar, the focal point of the marketplace. Guests at the elegant Bubbles Bar, operated by the Italian retail and hospitality giant Autogrill, can watch the activity on the airport’s east-ern apron while enjoying fresh seafood and premium wines. Autogrill will also run ‘Amo’, which will com-bine an Italian restaurant with a coffee bar, focusing on quick service and excellent quality.

The design of the three spacious TRAVEL VALUE and Duty Free stores will also reflect the appeal of Munich and the surrounding region.

France, in line with all the countries of the Schengen Area, began issuing biometric visas to Indian citi-zens with effect from November 2, 2015, facilitating travel throughout the area besides easing the pro-cess of issuing long-term visas. The French embassy in India will offer a large number of three or five year circulation visas to frequent visitors to the country.

With the launch of eight new VFS centres, the number has come up to 14, ensuring best possible proximity to applicants. Children below 12 years of age will be exempted from the procedure. The recorded biometric data will be stored for a period of 59 months, obviating the need for the applicants to come in person for renewal. The data recorded by France will be valid during the period for all the Schengen Area countries.

The new system has been introduced to protect and assist visa applicants, to enhance the confidenti-ality and security of individual data and while reduc-ing risks of fraud and identity theft. The applicant is obliged to come in person only once and the visa can be collected by any authorised person. Visas issued prior to the introduction of biometrics will be valid.

The transition to biometrics will neither alter the visa issuance period nor the fee.

Tourism Ireland’s Situation & Outlook Analysis Report (SOAR) for November says that tourism to Ireland and Northern Ireland in 2015 is likely to be the best year ever.

Tourism Ireland, responsible for marketing the

island overseas as a holiday destination, found that Ire-land owes its growth to a strong global upturn in tour-ism in most markets.

According to the latest CSO figures, overseas visitors to Ireland for the January to September 2015 period have increased by 12% when compared to the same period last year, making it the best year ever for tourism, with a six percent increase on the previous peak in 2007.

Ireland has shown positive growth from its core tourism markets, as Great Britain showed an increase of 11%, as well as Mainland Europe (+14%), North Amer-ica (14%) and Australia and Developing Markets (+11%).

The SOAR research also found that the industry sen-timent among overseas trade partners has been posi-tive, and booking for the remainder of the year remain encouraging. As much as 30% of annual overseas tour-ism business comes in the September to December period.

Tourism Ireland reports 2015 as best year ever for Irish tourism

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 21 EUROPE •

Bulgaria aims to increase brand awareness to boost tourism

Island of Crete, Greece offers their first official presentation in India Recognising the dynamism and influence of the Mumbai travel market, a senior delegation from Crete, including the island’s Commissioner of Tourism, Michailis Vamie-dakis, visited Mumbai to unveil the island’s diversity, unique selling points and cultural qualities at an exclu-sive corporate seminar.

Crete is the largest island in Greece, offering unpar-alleled diversity. The destination appeals to an array of travellers, from families seeking ‘sun, sea and sand’,

history/archaeology enthusiasts seeking cultural charm, along with wellness and gastronomy fanatics where good food, relaxation and rejuvenation are key. The Island of Crete offers a unique and memorable experience, suited to even the most discerning traveller.

The authentic island, having enjoyed over 40 years of tourism development, still remains true to its heritage and traditional roots. Crete’s appeal becomes apparent by its strength in hosting 30% of all 5-star beds in Greece, and a staggering 40% of visitors being repeat guests.

All attendees of the seminar had the chance to dis-cover the island’s unique attributes, uncover how Crete has become an idyllic stop in a traveller’s European tour and the perfect retreat in a Grecian getaway.

“It has been an absolute pleasure to visit India. We have been overwhelmed with the response that we have received from the travel trade. We look forward to be back soon and welcome Indian guests to the magnifi-cent Island of Crete,” said Michalis Vamiedakis, Com-missioner of Tourism for the Island of Crete, Greece.

Q3 registers the highest number of tourists in Czech hotels in 16 years Czech Statistical Office (CSU) has announced a 13.9% increase in the number of tourists in accommodation facilities, year-on-year to 6.2 million in the third quar-ter of this year. This is the highest number of guests for the third quarter in the last 16 years or longer.

The number of overnight stays was also 13.9% higher than last year, at 18.2 million overnight stays, also the highest in the last 16 years. A record 21.1 million foreign tourists came to the Czech Republic in January-September this year, 8.3% more year on year, and most of them were one-day visitors (10.9 million), according to data released by the CSU and agency Czech Tourism.

In particular Prague hotel owners and opera-tors will be satisfied with the results, said analyst Jan Musil of PricewaterhouseCoopers CR (PwC). Prague ranks among the five European cities with the high-est growth in revenue per room. “The average price of a hotel room in Prague reached Kč 1,982 last year. We expect the price to rise significantly above the level of Kč 2,000 this year. We suppose the growth trend will continue also next year,” noted Musil.

Bulgaria’s Tourism Ministry is focused on making the country “a year-round destination and among the top destinations in Europe,” said Tourism Minis-ter Nikolina Angelkova. The “big challenge of brand-awareness” however poses itself as an obstruction to its potential for meeting these goals.

Bulgaria is also working together with its Balkan neighbours to offer joint regional products on the vast Asian market, reported the Minister.

The Poland government has expressed interest in more Indian investments, manifested in the ‘Go to India’ cam-paign, launched to attract greater Indian businesses into Poland. This was informed by Jerzy Witold Pietre-wicz, State Minister for Economy, Poland in a B2B event organised by All India Association of Industries in Mumbai.

A 20 member business delegation led by the Minis-ter Pietrewicz, along with Tomasz Lukaszuk, Ambas-sador of the Republic of Poland in India and Krzysz-tof Grabczuk, Deputy Marshall of Lubelskie Province, discussed investment opportunities in either countries. “We have launched ‘Go to India’ programme to support the entrepreneurs and establish our presence here. The aim is to encourage mutual trade and investments,” said Pietrewicz. The Minister Pietrewicz explained that the current economic and political environment in Poland is conducive to foreign investments.

“As per the latest World Bank report, Poland is on number 32 for ease of doing business,” the Minister informed the business community. He added, “Our gov-ernment has reduced clearances and brought down the time of giving clearances to only 24 hours.” The Minister also said investors need to explore new areas of trade. Poland has engineering, nuclear, medicine, defence and other areas.

Grabnczuk said that their country believed in trans-fer of technology and knowledge to India. Likewise, new regions need to be explored by investors in both Poland and India.

Poland also has plans to form direct air connectivity to India in the next two years. Lukaszuk said, “We plan to have direct flights between the two countries, which will boost tourism between both the nations…Most of the Polish tourists visit Delhi, Kerala, Goa and Jaipur. Ayurveda and Yoga are very popular among them.

There is great potential of tourism exchange between Poland and India.”

The towns mostly visited by Indian tourists are Zamosc – a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Kazim-ierz Dolny. The Embassy of India in Warsaw issues 20,000 visas for Indian tourists annually.

Poland undertakes tourism initiatives with India

Guest nights in Hungary up by 6.7%

Guest nights in Hungary rose by 6.7% to 2,208,499 in September from the same month a year earlier, a release by the Central Statistical Office (KSH) showed. Guest nights spent by Hungarians increased by 5.8% to 919,314, while nights spent by foreign guests in Hun-gary were up by 7.3% at 1,289,185.

Revenue of commercial accommodations came to 35.7 billion forints (EUR 114m) in September, up by 13.8% from the same month a year earlier, KSH’s report shows. Revenue from rooms amounted to 21.30 billion forints and revenue from catering came to 7.25 billion forints. Occupancy rates at hotels averaged 61.0%, up

by 4.4 points from September of last year. Domestic guests debited 932 million forints to SZÉP voucher cards during the month, up by 13.3%.

In the first nine months of the year guest nights in Hungary rose by 6.4% to 20,746,356. Guest nights spent by Hungarians were up by 6.3% at 10,307,883 and nights spent by foreigners were up by 6.5% at 10,438,473. In January-September the total revenue of commercial accommodations grew by 11.8% to 282.9 billion forints and occupancy rate at hotels averaged 55.3%, three percentage points higher than the same period a year earlier.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 22 • EUROPE

airberlin flies special flight to North Pole

malta: A new destination for Indian travellers and filmmakersMalta has a well-established traders’ community of Indian descent, which traces its roots to the migration of Sindhi traders starting around 1887. The Maltese islands are home to great pre-historic temples, fossil-studded cliffs, glittering hidden coves and a history of remarkable intensity. The history of the place is preserved in palaces and palaz-zos, with beautiful coastlines surround-ing the islands.

The nation’s capital, Valleta, is a forti-fied city build and transformed over 268 years by the Knights of St John who pro-tected the islands. The city remains the elegant centrepiece of the entire island, and has been named the European Capital of Culture for 2018. Much of the baroque architecture, churches, fortifi-cations and aqueducts are still standing, where one can walk through and relive centuries of history.

For the adventure lovers, this place provides an unending coastline and water sports are among Malta’s top adventure activities.

Along with its history and archi-tecture, Malta is also an ideal location for film shooting, with a highly skilled workforce, political stability, a safe envi-ronment and a rebate on eligible expen-diture of up to 27%. The country boasts a range of Mediterranean settings, long hours of daylight, well equipped water tanks filming facility as well as very competitive rates for crews, artists and extras.

Hence, Malta is a burgeoning film location which Bollywood and Indian filmmakers are yet to discover. From street movies to battlefields and under-water sceneries, Malta acts as a unique backdrop for any type of production.

H.E. John Aquilina U O M High Commissioner of Malta to India said, “Malta and India are fortunate to have many things in common. Besides Mal-tese, an ancient and beautiful language, like India, Malta also has English as an official language. Both countries are members of the Commonwealth of Nations with similar Parliamentary tra-dition and have a legal system predom-inantly based on British legal practice and precedence.”

He added, “Malta is not just about work and business, it is also about hav-ing fun. As Malta is a member of the Schengen Group, Indians are discov-ering that a visa to Malta is also a visa to Europe. Many seasoned travellers from India to Europe are looking for a fresh destination. So far Malta has been predominantly beyond their radar. But many are now discovering Malta’s mul-tiple attractions.”

Azerbaijan undertakes measures for development of tourism

The Ministry of Culture & Tourism held the second meeting of the working group on tourism statistics. It involved representatives of the Ministry of Economy & Industry, the State Migration Service, the State Statistics Committee and the Central Bank of Azerbaijan.

“The meeting participants covered such issues as employment in tourism, use of the system of tourism satellite account (TSA) in Azerbaijan, the share of tour-ism in GDP, costs of foreign tourists. Various options on improvement of the methods for obtaining the main indicators were suggested,” the Ministry said.

Some measures were taken to improve tourism

statistics. In particular, to clarify the share of tourism in GDP, the State Statistics Committee ensured obtaining the primary data from individuals, and that the number of employees in the tourism industry is calculated on the basis of the recommendations of the World Tourism Organisation (IRTS 2008) on 14 characteristics.

Azerbaijan has further plans to make its tourism sector more attractive by opening Tourism Bureau and Department of Strategic Studies. To further promote the sector, the Association of Hotels and Restaurants estab-lished the Department of Strategic Studies for the hos-pitality and tourism industries.

airberlin, flying to 138 destinations worldwide, fea-tures a special sightseeing flight over the North Pole. On April 23, 2016, the airberlin Deutsche Polarflug will once again depart Dusseldorf for the North Pole. The approximately 12-hours special flight over the Arctic and North Pole in an Airbus A330-200 is a world exclusive.

“Our range of special flights extends from the traditional Polar flight, through comet observation flights, to full charter flights for companies. We fly entire orchestras to their concerts and football clubs to tournaments,” said Karsten von dem Hagen, Head of the Special Flights Department. Customers can decide how they are organised: “Do we need cater-ing...Is checked baggage included or not? We clar-ify all this with our customers,” von dem Hagen explains. Special flights can also fly to destinations outside the regular airberlin schedule.

“The flight now attracts a number of regular pas-sengers and is also a popular gift for wedding anni-versaries and special birthdays,” Hagen reports. Upon reaching the North Pole, the airberlin crew serves traditional champagne and at the end of the flight, each passenger receives a certificate for suc-cessful participation in the Polar flight.

Tickets for the Polar flight are available from 499 Euros, including taxes, fees and topbonus miles. Feeder flights can be booked from airports in Ger-many, Austria and Switzerland.

A growth of 81% has been recorded in India inbound to Georgia dur-ing the first nine months of the cur-rent year, compared to 3,792 Indian arrivals during the same period in 2014. According to Georgia National Tourism Administration (GNTA), they welcomed 6,869 Indian pass-port holders from January to Sep-tember, 2015. George Chogovadze, Head of Administration, GNTA, said that the Indian arrival figures have been encouraging since Air Arabia commenced operations to Tbilisi last year.

“We have hosted 18 travel writ-ers from India to Georgia last year. We will continue to organise FAM trips for media and travel agents to make the tourism potential of Georgia known in India,” he said. “We have mountains, ski resorts, beaches, wildlife, etc. Cultural tour is quite popular. Georgia is a cradle of wines with 8,000 years of wine heritage,” said Chogovadze.

The entertainment opportuni-ties for leisure travellers include casinos and quality nightlife. For MICE groups, Batumi has well developed MICE infrastructure with the presence of all the inter-national hotel chains. Gadauri is a sought after ski-resort destination of Georgia. Moreover, the cheap and convenient electronic visa system

in Georgia further eases travel. Georgian online visa costs $20 and takes maximum of seven days for processing.

Sachin Nene, Regional Man-ager-India, Air Arabia, said that the response from India for Georgia through their hub in Sharjah has been good since they commenced Tbilisi operations in October 2014. “We started with two weekly oper-ations in the winter and added two more during summer. Currently, we operate four flights a week to Tbilisi. However, we have permis-sion to operate daily,” he said. Talk-ing about the trends, Nene said that it was an incentive destina-tion when they started operations which gradually evolved into a fam-ily destination.

Georgia records 81% growth in Indian visitations

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 23americas

Rio 2016 will shine a light on Brazil, says Tourism Minister According to Henrique Eduardo Alves, Brazil’s Min-ister of Tourism, Brazil is all set to capture the world’s imagination.

Rio 2016 will be the first Olympic and Paralympic Games to be held in South America. Having hosted other major events such as Rio+20, World Youth Day, a visit from the Pope and the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the Olympics will benefit from the country’s organising experience and will offer the public an “unforgettable experience”.

Over 15,000 from 205 nations will arrive for the

Olympic Games in August next year with majority of the events being held in Rio de Janeiro. With a hope to attract foreign visitors, the government has already eased visa restrictions allowing U.S. passport holders 90 days in the country without a visa until September 18, 2016. Alves hopes that the Games would give Bra-zil a chance to strengthen its relationship with North America and extend an invitation to the world to visit.

In 2014, 656,800 tourists visited Brazil from Amer-ica, just over 10% of the 6.43 million international vis-itors the country received that year.

Tourisme Montréal witnesses encouraging tourism numbers for summer 2015

New York City and Milan embark on city-to-city tourism partnership

Summer season was excellent for tourism in Mon-tréal, generating wealth and jobs for the province, according to a recent data compilation by Tourisme Montréal. Compared to last year, tourist numbers increased across the board, including crossings at the Québec border, traffic at the Montréal Airport and hotel statistics for the Greater Montréal Area.

“After a spring that exceeded our expectations, the summer period proved just as busy. Tourisme Montréal is particularly pleased that this influx of tourists - who came primarily from Ontario and the United States - made their way to local businesses and attractions. Montréal is enjoying this boom thanks to its creativity and the exceptional spirit of collaboration between industry partners,” said Yves Lalumière, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tourisme Montréal.

The most recent statistics from the Hotel Asso-ciation of Greater Montréal states that hotels in the Greater Montréal Area enjoyed an 85.7% average occupation rate from June to September 2015. The average room rate increased by 4.9% and accommo-dation revenues rose by 8.7% compared to the same period in 2014.

Montréal owes its encouraging summer to good performances by the business and sports sector, local attractions like museums, major events and festi-vals held in the city and most importantly to inno-vative marketing campaigns and enhanced efforts in international press relations to promote its value as a destination.

The Trade, Productive Activities, Tourism and Ter-ritorial Marketing Department of the City of Milano, has joined NYC & Company, New York City’s official destination marketing organization, to announce a first-ever city-to-city partnership to boost tour-ism between Milan and New York City. This was announced by the Deputy Mayor Trade, Tourism and Territorial Marketing of the City of Milan Franco D’Alfonso and NYC & Company President and CEO Fred Dixon. The two-year agreement—the first of its kind between New York City and a city in Italy—includes a reciprocal multimedia marketing exchange

between the two destinations, joint promotional sup-port and the sharing of best practices in tourism.

The city-to-city marketing exchange includes a swap of outdoor media in New York City and Milan. In Milan, about 700 posters promoting New York City in winter will appear in the centre city, showcasing NYC & Company’s new seasonal campaign, ‘Unlock NYC’.

As part of the new agreement, New York City and Milan will also share best practices in tourism man-agement in an effort to increase the number of visitors between both markets in the year ahead.

SITA appoints Randy Pizzi as President SITA has appointed Randy Pizzi as Presi-dent, Americas, respon-sible for developing and driving the strate-gic direction for SITA in the region. He will be based at SITA’s Amer-ica headquarters in Atlanta.

Francesco Vio-lante, SITA CEO said, “Randy brings extensive industry experience and a deep understanding of the competitive challenges facing airlines and

airports today. I am confident he will be instru-mental in driving growth for SITA in the region by helping our customers remain competitive, efficient and profitable.”

Randy Pizzi, SITA President, Americas said, “SITA’s focus on aviation and broad portfolio of IT solutions presents tremendous opportunity to help our customers manage the challenges posed by growing passenger loads, greater demand for mobile connectivity and increasing focus on safety and security. I look forward to work-ing with the Americas organisation to grow our business and our positive impact on the air trans-port community.”

Virgin America launches the Google Street View campaignVirgin America has launched an interactive brand campaign that allows travellers to test drive their flight before they take off via Google Street View. Travellers can experience a 360-degree, interactive tour onboard the Virgin America aircraft. The unique ‘Seat View’ campaign includes the integration of actual Google Street View tours of the airline’s Airbus A320 cabin into interactive outdoor and immersive digital experiences, along with traditional Out of Home (OOH) content and online display support.

The Google Street View tours can also be experi-enced at www.virginamerica.com/seatview or by head-ing to Google Maps and searching for ‘Virgin America’ and the departing airport.

“Thanks to our friends at Google, travellers can now check us out in an entirely new way,” said Virgin America Vice President of Brand and Communications Abby Lunardini. Developed with the airline’s creative agency, Eleven Inc, the Google Street View campaign will include OOH billboards, digital banners, and inter-active bus shelters where users can interact with the Google Street View experience on a large-panel touch screen.

“People have increasingly come to rely on Google Maps and Google Street View to explore their world – and we’re pleased to help travellers better understand their travel options,” said Deanna Yick, Street View Pro-gram Manager at Google Maps.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 24 • americas

Panama City tourism leader outlines goals for the unknown gem

Cuba welcomes 20,000 visitors via cruise ship tourism Cuba’s cruise ship tourism seems to have been boosted with the number of cruise visitors adding up to 20,000 so far. Cuban port calls by cruise ships increased six-fold between 2012 and 2014, as indicated by Compara-tive data from state owned Aries Transportes S A, with more than 35,000 passengers coming ashore last year.

Executives from cruise companies have been increasingly interested in talking to Cuban tourism officials, University of Havana Professor Jose Luis Per-ello said in comments cited by the government website Cubadebate. The companies include Royal Caribbean, Carnival Corporation, NCL, Harmark, Costa Cruises, MSC Cruceros, Pearl Seas Cruises and United Carib-bean Lines.

Cuba ranks second in the Caribbean for cruise trav-ellers, after the Dominican Republic, and the island’s attractiveness has increased in recent months since Havana and Washington restored diplomatic relations.

Tourist arrivals in Cuba during the first nine months of this year totalled 2.62 million, up by some 400,000, or 18%, from the same period in 2014, the National Sta-tistics and Information Office reported.

Mexico bags position among top 10 major tourist destinationsMexican tourism report revealed a 20.3% increase in the amount of foreign visitors in 2014. Tourism in Mexico climbed five places in the amount of interna-tional tourists and the country is among the top 10 major tourist destinations in the world.

The ‘Economic Observatory Mexico’ report shows that it is the highest increase of the 10 countries listed worldwide. In terms of total income from inter-national tourism, Mexico ranked 22nd in the world standings in 2014.

Mexico harbours opportunities for cultural tourism, eco-tourism and sustainable tourism. The

report indicates a positive development in tour-ist numbers from 2014 to the first half of the cur-rent year. In the first half of this year, foreign tour-ist arrivals in Mexico grew 7.6%, a figure higher than the rate of 4.4% seen worldwide, while revenue for the same period grew nine percent. In the first six months, the average spending by overnight foreign tourists was $865. Cruise tourism has registered a significant recovery of 28% in 2014 and nine percent in the first half of this year. The air arrivals on the other hand have recorded an increase of 10.7%, from January to June, 2015.

As the first Director of the Panama City Com-munity Development Corporation (CDC), Jen-nifer Vigil has been entrusted the task of pro-moting what the city has to offer using revenues drawn from the new Tourist Development Tax, a five percent fee tacked on to short-term rentals.

“Panama City is an unknown gem right now,” Vigil said. “You’ve never had a bed tax before and concerted efforts to market the city. I feel like it is the first opportunity Panama City has to introduce itself to the world.” The CDC will use those revenues to promote tourism by marketing to potential visitors, supporting local events and launching other efforts aimed

at putting more “heads in beds” at city hotels.The agency is now in the process of deter-

mining Panama City’s target visitor markets through a professional study, which will anal-yse where, when and who to reach. The $134,500 tourist development study will be crafted by a team of consultants and serve as the CDC’s ammunition during its inaugural years.

The study will also include a rundown of the city’s assets as they relate to tourism, ways to better utilise those assets and potential new assets that could be developed.

The land of record-breaking skateboarding dogs, Inca citadels, chill surf towns and possibly the world’s best cuisine, Peru, has captured the curios-ity of more tourists this year and is projected to con-tinue bringing in more in the coming years.

Peru succeeded in welcoming an increase of 7.9% tourists in the period between January and August 2015 compared to last year, announced Peru’s Min-ister of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Magali Silva.

Silva hopes that tourism will reach a seven per-cent expansion at the year’s end. By the end of next year, the Minister has the goal set to receive four mil-lion tourists for all of 2016. In 2014, Peru counted 3.21 million tourists with an expectation for 3.5 million for the current year.

“To date, results are reasonable and enable us to maintain our projections...for the medium and long-terms,” said Silva.

Peru registers 7.9% increase in tourists till August 2015

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 26OCEANIA

The new route launched by Fiji Airways will offer the Indian travellers a new connection to Fiji next year. The Fijian national carrier will launch twice weekly flights between Singapore’s Changi Airport and Fiji’s Nadi International Airport. The 10-hour flight will operate using Fiji Airways’ new two-class Airbus A330 aircraft and will provide one-stop connections to and from a range of Indian cities via Singapore’s Changi Airport.

“This is a significant milestone for Changi Airport, with Fiji Airways’ new service bridging new direct links between Singapore and the South Pacific Islands. For travellers in Singapore as well as other parts of Asia and Europe, this development makes accessible to them new

and exciting holiday destinations in the South Pacific. This certainly adds to Changi’s attractiveness as an air hub,” said Changi Airport Group’s CEO, Lee Seow Hiang.

Fiji Airways offers new route to Indian travellers

Qantas unveils second film series under Feels Like Home brand campaign

Tahiti to develop into a smart island nationThe French Polynesia Ministry of Tourism announced a new partnership with Tahiti Innova-tion Labs and Florida-based Travel Startups Incu-bator to develop the Tahiti Smart Tourism initiative.

The long-term project goals include expanding free Wi-Fi access beyond the resorts, boosting visi-tor arrivals by digitalising the guest experience, and developing new opportunities for local job growth and economic development.

The strategy hinges on developing a more robust, multi-layered Internet backbone. The Tahitian islands have had broadband access since the instal-lation of fibre optic connectivity to Hawaii in 2010. To help boost the quality and reach of service, local telecom companies such as Smart Tahiti Networks and Open Garden are developing peer-to-peer ‘mesh’ networks that don’t require cellular service, which instead take advantage of apps like FireChat.

Thierry Lehartel, Co-founder of Tahiti Innova-tion Labs and Smart Tahiti Networks, stated that the islands need to develop a digital ecosystem to attract next generation consumers who rely on fast and free Internet to navigate their travel journey and communicate with their social networks.

Through the Ministry’s Smart Tourism initia-tive, if visitors can easily connect anywhere with-out any cost barriers, that will pave the way for a full array of new tech-oriented travel experiences. These include geo-location apps for self-guided tours, friend-finder apps, on-island instant mes-saging, and 24/7 assistance networks in multiple languages.

Qantas launched the second series of films in its ‘Feels Like Home’ brand campaign. The series builds further on the first series launched in November 2014 and the simple concept of what the national carrier has been doing for almost 100 years, bringing peo-ple home.

The new films will be released to Qantas Fre-quent Flyer members and Qantas employees via digital channels. Filmed in New York, regional Vic-toria, Sydney, Longreach and Brisbane, the series highlights the reach of Qantas’ international, domes-tic and regional network and also features Qantas employees.

The second series tells the story of the Shelper family as they journey home with Qantas. “The story of the Shelper family, of siblings living in dif-ferent part of Australia and the world, is a very real one for many Australians. The anticipation, the joy and emotion felt when journeying home is powerful and for many Australians that sense of homecoming starts the moment they see Qantas’ red tail or step on board,” said Qantas Brand Marketing and Corporate Affairs Group Executive, Olivia Wirth.

The Hobbit film trilogy has catalysed a spending surge in the Matamata region by tourists from the likes of Aus-tralia, Germany, United Kingdom and North America.

The amount spent in the area by those tourists has risen at a greater magnitude over the past five years, rel-ative to 2009 spending, than in any other region in New Zealand.

The digital interactive shows the surge in spending in the Matamata-Piako area from European, English, Australian and North American tourists over the past five years, relative to their 2009 spending.

Hobbiton Movie Set Tours, near Matamata, offers visitors the chance to peruse 44 hobbit holes and a working pub where parts of Peter Jackson’s The Hob-bit trilogy were shot.

Hobbiton’s General Manager Russell Alexander said the attraction was a major reason why international tourists were coming to Matamata.

Hobbit trilogy catalyses tourism surge in Matamata

International visitation to Solomon Islands increase againSolomon Islands have recorded an increase in the international visitor numbers for the third month in a row. Figures released by the Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau show a total of 2131 international travellers who visited the destination across June 2015.

The figure represents a 9.3% increase over the 1949 total achieved for the same period in 2014. The June 2015 result follows a 15.5% visitor increase in April and a 14.9 %visitor increase in May.

Australian arrivals continue to dominate the sta-tistics, contributing 49.7% of all visitation followed by Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Fiji and the U.S.

Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau (SIVB) CEO, Josefa ‘Jo’ Tuamoto said that the increased visitation fig-ures could be directly attributed to the ongoing market-ing activities the national tourist office has undertaken in partnership with Solomon Airlines, and continues to undertake, in its key source markets.

“2014 proved a tough year for the Solomon Islands – the Honiara floods in April followed by the prolonged Fiji-Solomon Islands air impasse had a major effect on our visitation. But it also gave us the opportunity to…start building the platform we needed to build in order to begin boosting the country’s tourism fortunes. We hope to emulate the April/May performance in coming months, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, on the back of the road shows and supportive promotional activity,” said Tuamoto.

Tourism Australian acknowledges greater visitor arrivals from AsiaThis year’s Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) has affirmed Asia’s emerging importance in Australia’s future tourism growth, as reported by Tourism Aus-tralia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy.

During 2010 international visitor arrivals were up from most Asian countries demonstrated by strong regional increases, including double-digit growth from North East Asia, South East Asia, India and Japan.

North East Asia continued to enjoy strong growth, up 14% overall, led by China (up 24%), South Korea (up 18%) and Hong Kong (up 4%). Visitors from South East Asia increased 9% during 2010. Indonesia (up 12%), Malaysia (up 12%) and Singapore (up 8%) all per-formed well. Within Southern Asia, India also deliv-ered a strong recovery in late 2010, with arrivals up 11%. Japan demonstrated solid growth with visitor numbers up 12%.

McEvoy believes development of successful air-line partnerships as a key factor behind Asia’s visitor numbers.

As part of its long term tourism vision, Tourism Aus-tralia has identified a number of markets in Asia, which will help drive the future growth of the Australian tour-ism industry, including China, South Korea, Japan, Sin-gapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Hong Kong. It is anticipated that China alone will generate up to nine bil-lion dollars in total tourism expenditure by 2020.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 27AfricA

Reunion Island Tourism appoints new tourism ambassadorPatrick Serveaux, President of Reunion Island Tourism (IRT), appointed the island’s 67th tourism ambassador as he handed the certificate to Yannick Jauzion at the Blue Basin Golf Club. IRT was the main sponsor of the Golfers Rugbymen Trophy.

Yannick rose to fame as he represented France 75 times in international rugby matches and was voted as the best centre player in the world by the International Rugby Board.

He will team up with his fellow tourism ambas-sadors, in a voluntary capacity, to help promote the island and put it on the global destination map while sharing his own impressions of Reunion Island.

mauritius registers 10.4% increase in tourist arrivalsThe number of tourists visiting Mauritius rose 10.4% in the 10 months to October from the same period last year, with more arrivals from Asia.

Arrivals increased to 912,770 during the period, the Ministry of Tourism said. Numbers from Asia rose 24.1% to 166 487, with visitors from China up 42.4%.

“Barring any unexpected circumstances, we should attract an additional 100,000 tourists this year,” Xavier-Luc Duval, the Minister of Tourism said.

The number of tourists visiting from Europe, which accounts for two-thirds, rose by 9.9% to 487,487.

Despite the rising numbers, central bank figures suggested tourist revenues in the first half had fallen by 3.5%. The tourism minister said hotels had not seen a revenue fall while the central bank is conducting a review of its figures.

South Africa amends visa regulations

ethiopia aims to triple its tourist arrivals in four years

Ethiopian Airlines launches all-women functioned flight

Investments in Algeria to provide a fillip to tourism

South Africa will amend its visa regulations to encour-age more number of tourist arrivals, Minister in the Presidency, Jeff Radebe said.

The nation will now accept visa requests by post and will set up biometric testing at its airports. Last year, the Ministry of Home Affairs introduced visa rules requir-ing applications to be made in person.

South African children under the age of 18 will still be required to travel with an unabridged birth certificate, but the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) task team has recommended that the requirement be revised for foreign children. The Cabinet approved the recommen-dations, which included changing the term “unabridged birth certificate” to “birth certificate containing paren-tal details”. These requirements were necessary to safe-guard the best interests of children and prevent child trafficking.

Cape Town Tourism Chief Executive Enver Duminy said that the tourism industry would benefit from the approved recommendations that travel agents be allowed to make visa applications on behalf of clients. The Department of Home Affairs will also increase Visa Facilitation Centres (VFC) in China, India, United King-dom, Nigeria Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, while VFCs have been fast-tracked in Zimbabwe, UAE and Botswana.

Ethiopia aims to triple its number of foreign vis-itors to more than 2.5 million by 2020, making tourism a pillar of one of Africa’s fastest-grow-ing economies.

“There is a lot of demand in terms of bookings and investment plans. Our target is to receive more than 2.5 million in five years’ time. This sec-tor will generate foreign direct investment and foreign currency and create job opportunities, as well as contribute to image-building,” said Cul-ture and Tourism Minister Amin Abdulkadir.

Buoyed by huge spending on infrastructure and an expansion of its services and agricultural sectors, Addis Ababa expects annual economic growth of around 11% for the next five years.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings signed a man-agement deal to open its first hotel in Ethiopia in more than four decades, while sub-Saharan Afri-ca’s first Marriott-branded serviced apartments have also been unveiled in the capital.

Sheraton, Radisson and Golden Tulip are among a handful of global groups already oper-ating while U.S. chain Best Western International Inc, France’s AccorHotels and Ramada also claim to be working on new projects.

Ethiopian Airlines announces the operation of an All-Women Functioned Flight on the Addis Ababa - Bangkok route. This historic flight is aimed at crys-tallising Ethiopian corporate conviction of ‘Women Empowerment for a Sustainable Growth’ and it is the first of its kind in Ethiopian 70 years of service.

This historical flight is being operated by an All - Female crew led by Female Flight deck crew mem-bers and senior female executives onboard that flight. On ground, flight preparations are also being con-ducted by females only such as Cabin Operations, Airport Operations, Flight Dispatcher, Load Con-troller, Ramp Operations, On-board logistics, Avi-ation Safety and Security, Ticket Offices, Catering, Air Traffic Controllers as well as Global Call Centre.

Group Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Air-lines, Tewolde GebreMariam remarked, “It is a great honour for us to have competent Women Avi-ation Professionals at Ethiopian in every aspect of the aviation field, which portrays Ethiopian as gen-der responsive organisation that strives to pursue its underlying stance of being an equal opportunity employer. We are very proud of their achievements and contributions and it is our sincere belief that this will continue with an enhanced magnitude and pas-sion to sustain Ethiopian on its fast growth trajectory.

Above all, this is an ample opportunity to inspire young African female students to believe in their dreams and embark to fill the skill gap for Aviation professionals. Women are the continent’s greatest untapped resources, and hereby fully dedicated to ensure the increase in number of women in decision making positions on top of key operational areas, by consistently grooming and mentoring successor female employees for top managerial, technical and operational positions. We invite the whole world to watch our all-female operated long haul flight to and from Bangkok.”

Algeria recorded 2.7 million arrivals last year. With its ancient Roman ruins and golden beaches set against lush hills, the country has adequate potential to lure Intercontinental Group and Holiday Inn in the current year. In fact, Tipaza could be a star of the Mediterranean tourist industry.

This would however require more investment. Even as the government cut spending this year by nine per-cent, it pledged not to axe infrastructure that will sup-port a more diversified economy, including the con-struction of ports and airports. Nearly 1,000 tourist projects worth at least $3.9 billion have been approved, said Tourism Minister Amar Ghoul.

A new mechanism will be put in place to encourage operators in the sector including travel agencies to invest in the implementation of tourist structures, he added. This will aim towards encouraging public and private tourism agencies to improve the quality of services and

to invest in the implementation of hotel facilities and tourist villages. A national meeting involving the tour-ism and travel agencies will be held soon to address the concerns of operators in the sector and present the pro-gramme of the Ministry of Town Planning, Tourism and Craft Industry based on three main areas: local tourism, tourism towards the Algerian community abroad and tourism towards foreign tourists.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 28CAribbeAn

St. Kitts endeavours to strengthen yachting and golf tourism

Dominica launches destination package for tourism month

While St. Kitts will continue its reliance on tourism, Minister Lindsay Grant plans to diversify the sector to ensure sustainability and relevance in a highly compet-itive global market.

Grant’s Ministry will mainly focus on the expan-sion of the yachting sector, the promotion of golf and other types of sports tourism. The St. Kitts Tourism

Authority will be hosting inaugural St. Kitts & Nevis Yachting Development Forum. According to the SKTA, this symposium will “provide participants the oppor-tunity to discuss key challenges and emerging oppor-tunities for yachting in St. Kitts and Nevis, in the con-text of local, regional and international yachting trends and expectations”.

“We are a well-established tourism destination – our location of St. Kitts and Nevis makes it an easy stop and a natural extension of the itineraries of the yachters,” Grant remarked.

Agreements have also been signed with golfing asso-ciations in the UK and Canada to further promote sports tourism and establish St. Kitts as a golfing destination. “These new partnerships further complement the St. Kitts and Nevis Admiral’s Cup Pro-am Golf Tourna-ment now in its sixth year,” he said.

Caribbean Tourism Organisation launches first tourism and hospitality investment guide

Tourist arrivals in Belize show increase

The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) and the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) have launched the first Caribbean Tourism and Hos-pitality Investment Guide targeted at international investors, for distribution at 2015 Caribbean Hotel Investment Conference and Operations Summit.

The publication exhibits a wide range of invest-ment opportunities in the tourism and hospitality sector in CTO member states, and details incentives that regional governments are offering to attract new business. It also highlights the performance of these sectors in Caribbean states, as well as increased airlift to the region and new industry investments, as reflec-tions of investor confidence in the region.

Headquartered in Barbados, the CTO says its mis-sion is to provide services and information for the development of sustainable tourism to benefit the people of the Caribbean. CHTA President Emil Lee urged investors to use the document to learn about the “incredible opportunities” which can be realised from investing in the Caribbean. “Public-private initiatives at the regional and destination levels are actively addressing those issues which are impor-tant to the industry globally...lowering utility costs, improving the visitor experience, holding the line on taxes, incentivising investments, and maximising productivity through investments in our people.” he commented.

Overnight arrivals in Belize, for the third quarter (July-September) of 2015, have shown a significant increase of 6.9%, when compared to the same period in 2014. Sep-tember saw an astounding increase of 19.3%; the high-est increase ever recorded for the month of September, going as far back as 2006. There were 14,242 overnight visitors in September 2015, which is an increase of 2,299 compared to September 2014.

Air arrivals accounted for 74.7% of the total overnight arrivals. September 2015 saw an increase of approxi-mately 20% through the international airport. Visitors from the United States accounted for the bulk of this increase in airport arrivals for September, as arrivals for Americans increased by 28.55%. Overall, America

has emerged as the main market, making up close to 65% of arrivals.

There has been a major increase in South American arrivals, with a 45.1% increase for the first nine months of 2015. This was followed by the Asian market which had a 25.1% increase.

A continuous growth has been anticipated in the South American and Asian markets with new mar-keting strategies that have been implemented in these areas, such as trade shows, road shows, service via Copa Airlines and other marketing partnerships.

Cruise arrivals for the first nine months of 2015 showed a small dip of 0.3% when compared to 2014, but a significant increase of 44.42% when compared to 2013.

Dominica launched the ‘Stay 3, Pay 2’ destination package on the Caribbean tourism month. The pro-motion is a joint effort of Discover Dominica Author-ity (DDA) and the Dominica Hotel and Tourism Association (DHTA). This island-wide special deal has multiple stay-over offers, with 33% off on two days plus an extra day free of charge and an added bonus of one free perk. The offer will be valid till December 31, 2015.

“Post Tropical Storm Erika, DDA is increasing the promotion of the destination to indicate that we are open for business,” remarked Colin Piper, CEO / Director of Tourism, DDA. “Given the tem-porary reduction in airlift and current pricing chal-lenges for air access, the initial focus of the ‘Stay 3, Pay 2’ promotion will be to attract visitors from Gua-deloupe and Martinique via the ferry, the rest of the Caribbean and other destinations.”

Jamaican Tourism Minister Dr Wykeham McNeill and Jamaica Tourist Board Chairman Dennis Morri-son reported that investors are now busy construct-ing 2,694 new hotel rooms in the country. The invest-ment, amounting to $500 million “is larger than any other in the history of the industry,” said McNeil.

The investment will provide 7,000 jobs in the con-struction phase and between 4,000-5,000 permanent positions when the hotels are fully operational aid-ing in putting a dent in the country’s unemployment figures. The government will be providing a feasible environment for investment, claimed the Minister. This includes the Fiscal Incentives Act, which gives tourism entities tax benefits for reinvestment and refurbishing, as well as the new regime of approv-ing incentives without the applications having to go the Minister.

Simultaneously, a multilateral arrangement signed recently between the Jamaica National Agency for Accreditation (JANAAC) and the Inter-American Accreditation Cooperation has boosted

Jamaica’s ability to tap into the medical tourism sector. This will promote the use and acceptance of accredited medical-testing data and results inter-nationally. Chief Executive Officer of JANAAC,

Sharonmae Shirley said that for Jamaica to bene-fit from the industry, it must provide a world-class health service that conforms to international stan-dards and best practices.

Jamaica upgrades tourism facilities

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 29global

Marriott International acquires Starwood Hotels in $12bn dealMarriott International Inc buys Sheraton owned Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc in a $12.2 billion deal to create the world’s largest hotel chain.

Combined, the two firms have more than 5,500 hotels with 1.1 million rooms and $2.7 billion in reve-nue and this gives Marriott greater presence in mar-kets outside the United States.

Starwood, which gets nearly two-thirds of its revenue from outside the United States, had essen-tially put itself up for sale in April, when it said it was considering strategic alternatives.

J W Marriott, Jr, Chairman of the Maryland-based company said, “We have competed with Starwood for decades and we have also admired them.”

Marriott Chief Executive Arne Sorenson, who

will head the new group, said the two firms hoped to become “the world’s favourite travel company”.

The deal will combine Marriott’s 19 brands, including Ritz-Carlton and Fairfield Inn, with Star-wood’s Westin, W and St. Regis chains.

Marriott will pay $11.9 billion in stock and the rest in cash, and hopes to have the acquisition com-pleted by mid-2016.

“This greater scale should offer a wider choice of brands to consumers, improve economics to owners and franchisees, increase unit growth,” said Marri-ott Chief Executive Arne Sorenson.

Starwood, which opened a review into its strat-egy in April, had also been linked to deals with Intercontinental and Hyatt Hotels.

Starwood, the owner of St. Regis and Aloft hotel

brands, had reached out to InterContinental Hotels Group Plc, Wyndham Worldwide Corp and sover-eign wealth funds for a possible deal since July.

Sunil Kumar elected President of UFTAA

UNWTO/WTM Ministers Summit: Social media changing destination branding

UNWTO and Griffith Institute for Tourism launch Global Report on Public-Private Partnerships in tourism

Sunil Kumar, who has been recently elected as the President of TAAI, was unanimously elected as Pres-ident of UFTAA (The United Federation of Travel Agents’ Associations) at the Annual General Assem-bly of UFTAA held at Brussels.

Yossi Fatael of ITAO, and a very powerful IATA matters debater, was elected as the Vice President and S G Kaka of KATA, was elected as the VP Finance. The Board of UFTAA which comprises of nine elected officers will soon meet and assign portfolios and committees.

Sunil’s landmark election will offer his Leadership to UFTAA as it celebrates its Golden jubilee, this year. Various Associations of the world, present at UFTAA, sought leadership from Sunil Kumar to support a new direction for UFTAA and to go global.

Sunil Kumar is well known for his strong involve-ment with IATA matters and always looked to for his exhaustive knowledge on the Travel & Tourism Indus-try. In his address to the Annual General Assem-bly, he sought the members to re-visit its goals to get

UFTAA its pioneer status globally, for there are several prominent leaders of the world and associations that had contributed to the well-being of UFTAA during these five decades of successful existence. He shared his happiness that this highly reputed international organisation which was a result of an initiative by a past President of TAAI, J N Guzder at Mumbai and thus is an opportune time for India to steer UFTAA beyond its past glory.

Ministers of Tourism and private sector leaders meeting at the 9th UNWTO and World Travel Mar-ket (WTM) Ministers’ Summit agreed that desti-nation branding and the way tourism marketing organisations operate, need to be adapted to the changes brought in by social media.

Over 60 tourism ministers and leaders from Facebook, Expedia, Melia Hotels, Eurostar and the World Travel and Tourism Council meeting in Lon-don discussed how market changes and consumer empowerment has fully shifted destination brand-ing. Participants recalled that the current social media landscape requires destinations to invest fur-ther in understanding and engaging travellers in social media.

The Summit, moderated by CNN International’s Richard Quest, addressed issues such as the need for transparent, honest and swift action in social media in times of crises, how to generate engage-ment with travellers and transform them into des-tination ambassadors and how to maximise big data to develop targeted marketing.

Opening the Summit, UNWTO Secretary-Gen-eral, Taleb Rifai, underscored that, “Today consum-ers have access to more information, more choices, and more opportunities to voice their opinions and can be the whistle-blowers for unethical practices or the biggest ambassadors for destinations and service providers. In this context, branding is an ever more complex challenge requiring destinations and com-panies to adjust their structures, their policies and their strategies.”

Speaking at the Summit were Nikolina Angelkova, Minister of Tourism of Bulgaria; Li Shihong, Vice Chairman of the China National Tourism Admin-istration (CNTA); Mauricio Ventura Aragón, Min-ister of Tourism of Costa Rica; Darko Lorencin, Minister of Tourism of Croatia; Nayef H Al-Fayez,

Minister of Tourism and Antiquities of Jordan; Dato Sri Mohamed Nazri Bin Abdul Aziz, Minister of Tourism and Culture of Malaysia; Edward Zam-mit Lewis, Minister of Tourism of Malta; Derek Hanekon, Minister of Tourism of South Africa; Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, Minister of Tourism and Sports of Thailand and Walter Mzembi, Min-ister of Tourism and Hospitality Industry of Zim-babwe as well as Nicolas Petrovic, Chief Executive Officer of Eurostar International: Noah Tratt, Global Senior Vice President of Expedia, Inc.; Lee McCabe, Global Head of Travel for Facebook; Anthony Corti-zas, Vice President of Global Brand Strategy of Meliá Hotels International and David Scowsill, President and CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).

The UNWTO Global Report, produced in collabora-tion with the Griffith Institute of Tourism, highlights how Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) among tour-ism stakeholders drive socio-economic development.

Through a wide range of case-studies, the UNWTO Global Report on Public-Private Partner-ships: Tourism Development, provides a solid evi-dence base for the importance of effective PPPs in tourism, illustrating how partnerships across differ-ent destinations and market segments can be used as development tools.

The Report, a collaboration between UNWTO and its Affiliate Member the Griffith Institute for Tour-ism (GIFT), a world leading tourism research insti-

tute from Australia, was launched in Madrid, Spain, in the presence of UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai, Virginia Greville, Ambassador of Australia to Spain, and Noel Scott, Deputy Director of GIFT.

“This Report clearly demonstrates that public-private collaboration plays a key role in advancing tourism’s contribution to inclusive development, particularly in emerging destinations where the sec-tor can make a significant positive impact in local communities. I am confident that the findings will inspire effective cross-sector partnerships that can help maximise tourism’s development potential,” said Rifai on the occasion.

Ambassador Greville highlighted Australia’s experience in building tourism capacity in the Asia-Pacific region, and emphasised the need of a part-nership approach to tourism development, “truly sustainable tourism involves all stakeholders”.

Presenting the main findings of the report, Pro-fessor Scott noted that through PPPs, stakeholders can come together to achieve remarkable results in areas such as product development and capac-ity building. In order to succeed long-term, PPPs often require an external party or well-positioned stakeholder to lead partnership development and provide benefits to all stakeholders involved. “To demonstrate tangible outcomes is not only impor-tant in encouraging participation, but also for main-taining momentum and ensuring the sustainability of the project,” said Scott.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 30technology

SITA has completed deploying its next-generation Airport Management solution across 10 airports in India. The unique implementation includes inter-airport collaboration, with airport operations con-trol centres (AOCCs) linking to the central control at Chennai International Airport and a back-up site at Kolkata.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) now has an overview of all 10 airports, enabling optimisation of resources and equipment as well as proactive control over operations. The 10 airports are Chennai Interna-tional Airport, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Inter-national Airport in Kolkata, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, Pune Airport,

Tiruchirapalli International Airport, Trivandrum International Airport in Thiruvananthapuram, Cali-cut International Airport, Mangalore Airport, Lok-priya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati and Jaipur International Airport.

The solution, deployed in partnership with NIIT, was completed in June 2015. Results like operational efficiencies, data security and reduced revenue leak-age have already been witnessed. The airport authori-ty’s command and control centre forms the core of the system, which monitors and manages operations at all 10 airports in real-time.

Maneesh Jaikrishna, SITA Vice President for India and Subcontinent said, “The result is enhanced inter-airport collaboration using easy-to-use modules for operational planning, giving the airports the flexi-bility needed to plan and improve business results through a highly integrated approach. Everyone ben-efits as well as increased efficiency, the automation of flight processing and key processes helps provide more accurate information to passengers. And it facil-itates accurate and faster billing cycles for airlines.”

Expedia India has launched its loyalty programme, Expedia+, where members can join the programme for free and will earn points on all of their hotel or hol-iday activities bookings. The loyalty programme pro-vides additional benefits such as exclusive member-only deals and bonus offers. Expedia+ has three tiers: +blue, +silver and +gold.

Manmeet Ahluwalia, Marketing Head, Expedia India said, “With the growing acceptance of eCommerce and evolution of the Indian travellers, the consumer has now started looking for value based programmes that not only offer them great rewards but also exclu-sive benefits. Our survey on loyalty programme dis-covered that 47% Indians are a part of 2-3 travel loyalty programmes while 38% participate in at least one pro-gramme. This clearly reflects that there is an appetite for loyalty programmes as the Indian consumer is grow-ing smarter and wants to accumulate and avail bene-fits on every purchase. The Expedia+ programme offers exclusive deals for its consumers not only in India, but across the globe.”

Expedia+ focuses on the needs of the Indian con-sumer when considering a travel loyalty programme.

Members will be able to redeem their points whenever they want, with no blackout dates for high season hol-idays and space capacity. Free membership automat-ically gives the consumers a +blue status, followed by +silver status after staying seven qualifying hotel room nights and +gold status after staying 15 qualifying hotel room nights. The +gold and +silver members enjoy additional benefits such as extra bonus points on every booking, plus free amenities or room upgrades if they book one of Expedia’s 1,800 VIP hotels in over 200 des-tinations globally. Travellers also get triple the amount of points for booking via Expedia‘s mobile application.

expedia India launches loyalty programme with additional benefits for members

Google maps introduce Street View Safari

Paytm eyes `500 crore revenue over next 6 months

Egencia launches new mobile air booking feature Egencia TripNavigator

Google Maps has announced a partnership with Save the Elephants (STE) to promote wildlife con-servation. One can take a walk through Samburu National Reserve, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via Street View. The

project allows Internet browsers to go on safari from the comfort of their home and hopefully be inspired to learn more about the wildlife they find along the way.

The Google Maps team explored 64 sq miles of Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve’s roads in Febru-ary 2015, photographing elephants, zebras, and leop-ards along the way.

While travelling through Samburu, users can read about various elephant families, identified by their thematic names.

Primarily based in Samburu, STE conducts research and provides scientific insight on elephant behaviour, intelligence and long-distance movement. The organisation works with global partners to apply their research to the long-term challenges of elephant conservation.

Yatra launches TG Rooms and TG Stays starting at `499

SITA maximises airport capacity through Airport Management solution

Yatra.com is launching TG Rooms and TG Stays, thus further strengthening its position as the premier aggre-gator of domestic hotels and home stay accommoda-tions in India. TG Rooms will exclusively cater to bud-get travellers providing hotel and guest house options that meet all the basic standards of hygiene and offer amenities like free Wi-Fi and air conditioning. Keeping in mind the growing interest in home stays amongst Indian travellers, TG Stays will offer verified home stays across the major destinations in the country.

Yatra.com acquired a 100% stake in Travelguru in 2012 to become the largest provider of hotel bookings in

the country. Launched with over 500 accommodations in over 60 cities, TG Rooms and TG Stays are available for booking on both Yatra.com and Travelguru.com, with a starting price of ̀ 499 for an A/C room, free Wi-Fi, breakfast, free cancellation and clean linen. Accom-modation options under TG Rooms and TG Stays can also be included in any holiday package booked with Yatra.com.

Commenting on this development, Sharat Dhall, President, Yatra.com said, “Growing our hotel busi-ness is a key focus for us, and the launch of TG Rooms and TG Stays is another step in the same direction. With

TG Rooms and TG Stays, we are looking to expand our inventory even further and offer travellers a diversified portfolio of budget accommodation options. TG Stays is targeting a new segment in the market by aggregat-ing verified home stays, which are especially ideal for short vacations, weekend getaways and road trips that are gaining immense popularity amongst Indian trav-ellers. Travellers need an assurance especially when it comes to budget accommodation and we are doing exactly that – curating the best budget options, stan-dardising the experience and providing assurance by lending the Travelguru brand to them.”

Paytm has expanded its platform to allow customers to make hotel bookings and expects revenue of ̀ 500 crore from the service over the next six months. The Alib-aba-backed company has partnered with players such as Goibibo, Ezeego1 and TSI-Yatra for the new service.

“Travel has emerged as a very important category for us as the penetration of online booking is still very low in this vertical. The opportunity for the hotels cat-egory is immense, especially because the transaction penetration is still low in Tier II and III cities as far as travel concerned,” Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and CEO, Paytm.

In the first phase, Paytm will offer an inventory of about 20,000 hotels to users and the number is expected to go up to 35,000 in a short time after launch. In phase 2, the plan is to offer international hotels by tying up with leading platforms like Expedia and Booking.com.

With the launch of this segment, Paytm will drive usage from these areas, causing a huge disruption in the travel space, he added. “We expect this segment to contribute `500 crore to the revenue over the next six months,” said Sharma. Currently, the eCommerce plat-form also allows users to book bus tickets.

Egencia launches the global availability of mobile fea-tures that allow its travellers to shop and book air travel with Egencia TripNavigator. This makes Egencia the first business travel company to build its own mobile app with global air booking capability and unique per-sonalisation features for a faster, more relevant experi-ence. Egencia travellers can now complete flight book-ings in a single business travel app that is consistent across all countries and displays both individual and company preferences. This latest development rounds off a series of innovations designed to respond to mod-ern demands for fast, easy travel booking on the go.

Egencia President, Rob Greyber stated, “At Egencia we continually invest in global technology that allows us focus on making business travel better. Egencia mobile air booking is unique in how it tailors the expe-rience for each traveller. Whether booking from North America or Europe, our travellers see a curated view of options, quickly leading them to the precise flight that fits their needs.”

Constructed into the design of the mobile air book-ing experience is the unique Egencia vision for person-alisation. With integrated global technology, Egencia uses profile and previous usage information from all online and offline channels to pre-populate the flight search form.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | december 2015 • 31resPOnsIbLe TOurIsm

Reunion Island’s national park body has launched a new campaign of ‘No Littering’ along the trails lead-ing into the interior of the island known as Mafate. In conjunction with Reunion Island Tourism (IRT), hikers and cyclists are now given waste bags when they enter the area starting with the Oxen Trail, the Marla Trail, and the Taibit Trail. Collected waste, taken out of remote areas by helicopter due to lack of vehicle access, amounted to some 150 tons over-all, triggering a new campaign to protect the fragile environment of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

Visitors to the area are given a special briefing, besides the waste collection bag, not to litter along the trails and rather bring back empty bottles, food wrappers, and other disposable material for proper processing at the trails’ start and end points.

The locally-made bags are made from recycled fabrics and can be reused after washing. Printed information on the bags promotes the ‘Mafate Zero

Waste’ campaign. Until December, the organisers of the campaign expect to distribute at least 3,000 bags, and plans are already underway to renew the cam-paign in 2016 when the impact of the project has been assessed.

Reunion Island trail aims for zero waste

Travel & Tourism companies 20% cleaner than 2005, commit to 50% cO2 cuts by 2035

PATA takes lead in responsible tourism

Many of the world’s biggest Travel & Tourism com-panies have improved their carbon efficiency by 20% in the last 10 years and are on course to cut CO2 emis-sions by 50% by 2035, according to a major new report released recently.

‘Travel & Tourism 2015; Connecting Global Cli-mate Action’, published by the World Travel & Tour-ism Council (WTTC), outlines the preparedness of the sector for climate change alleviation measures and demonstrates the progress that has been made by the world’s leading airlines, airports, hotels, cruise lines, car rental companies and technology companies in the last decade.

The report concludes that the world’s biggest Travel & Tourism companies, as represented by the members of WTTC, are:

• 20% more carbon efficient today than they

were in 2005• OncoursetocutCO2emissionsby50%from2005

to 2035• Oncoursetoreachthetargetof25%reduction

by 2020 David Scowsill, President and CEO, WTTC said,

“In 2015, Travel & Tourism is forecast to contribute almost 10% of world GDP and 1 in 11 of all jobs on the planet. The strength of the sector is due to continue for the next decade at almost four percent per annum. With such robust growth, Travel & Tourism’s relation-ship to climate change becomes critical.

“Per passenger, per room, per rental, per trans-action, and per unit of revenue, we now serve global travellers 20% more efficiently than in 2005 and are contributing to our goal of a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2035.

“The next 20 years will be characterised by our sec-tor fully integrating climate change and related issues into business strategy, supporting the global transition to a low carbon economy, strengthening resilience at a local level against climate risks, promoting the value of responsible travel, and greening entire supply chains.”

World Travel Market 2015 discusses on responsible tourism for sustainabilityThe World Travel Market 2015 Industry Report released at World Travel Market, London revealed that travel-lers and the tourism industry are at odds over what sustainability means, whose responsibility it is and how green they really are.

The World Travel Market 2015 Industry Report asked UK consumers and the global travel industry a number of questions about the environment and tourism.

The UK holidaymakers’ findings showed that 61% of respondents claimed that the environment and sustainability were quite or very important (46% and 15% respectively) in their choice of holiday destination. On the other hand, this means that a balance of 39% says it is not very or not at all important (32% and 7%).

However, 74% of the sample never offset their carbon emissions when flying, although in a separate question, 30% said they would be willing to pay more for a more environmentally-friendly holiday.

Respondents were asked for specific details about what they did on holiday in terms of minimising their impact on the environment – 61% visit local attractions with 52% buying local goods as souvenirs, 52% re-use bath towels and 44% use public transport to get around.

During the keynote speech for World Responsible Tourism Day 2015, Tyndall Centre climate scientist Pro-fessor Kevin Anderson laid out the level of the threat facing both the travel industry and society at large. Com-menting on the established target of keeping tempera-ture rise to within two degrees centigrade, he said, “At a two degrees rise many millions of poor people, mostly in the southern hemisphere, will die. It means we are prepared to sacrifice the lives of many poor, low emit-ting people.”

Rather than expressing optimism for the solutions the industry is implementing, he argued that, “We

cannot build the low carbon supply fast enough. In the interim we therefore have to reduce the level of con-sumption.” This would mean the sacrifice of many of the luxuries richer people have become accustomed to, he said, for example requiring a dramatic reduction in the number of flights people take.

Taleb Rifai, Secretary General of the UNWTO said, “Growth is not the enemy. If we start seeing growth as the enemy, then we are running away from the prob-lem.” However, he did agree with Professor Anderson’s argument that the removal of the $5.2 trillion annual subsidies for the fossil fuel industry would greatly increase the chance of success.

Some of the highlights of WTM London Responsible Tourism Programme Sessions included,

• ChildProtection• TakingResponsibilityforWildlifeandNational

Parks• Theroleofgovernmentinmanagingtourismin

Destinations• CarbonResourceEfficiencyGoodPractice• Increasingthelocaleconomicbenefitsoftourism

In an important milestone, the Headquarters of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) located in Bangkok, Thailand, has achieved Bronze Bench-marked Sustainability Certification by EarthCheck for the travel and tourism industry. The official cer-tificate handover ceremony took place during the PATAcademy-HCD Workshop on Sustainability in Tourism from December 1-3, 2015.

A dedicated team at PATA worked together with EarthCheck for 12 months to collect and collate operational data and information on its practices in order to be benchmarked against EarthCheck’s global sustainability standard. The benchmarking data addressed a wide range of issues, including water, waste and energy use, occupational health and safety, risk management, community contributions and the use of paper, chemicals and cleaning prod-ucts. EarthCheck’s three-tiered rating of Bronze, Sil-ver and Gold status is built on the belief that effective scientific benchmarking puts rigour and transpar-ency into business processes, benefitting all stake-holders in the long term. This is the first time PATA has sought and achieved any sustainable operations standard.

PATA CEO Mario Hardy commented, “Since 1951, PATA has aspired to be a catalyst for the responsi-ble development of travel and tourism to, from and within the Asia Pacific region. We are honoured and proud to achieve such recognition, as it reflects our staff’s commitment to taking action for constant improvement. EarthCheck’s benchmarking allows us to measure ourselves against global industry standards, a valuable resource that gives pointers on where we do well, and where we can do more.”

In presenting the certification, Founder and CEO, Stewart Moore announced, “I would like to congrat-ulate the whole team at PATA on their achievement. The association is a leading advocate in the region and a valued member of a global group of tourism stakeholders who dare to make a difference. PATA is the first office in Thailand to benchmark and apply for certification through the EarthCheck pro-gramme. In doing so, it is measuring its performance against best practices and making positive changes to reduce its environmental and social impact.”

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