The growing market for MICE, Business and Luxury Travel reinforces the need for a specialised travel mart in India focussing on these segments

Delhi govt allocates `30 crore for Brand Delhi campaign & Delhi Festival

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STB and MasterCard partner to attract Indian vacationers

TCA Abu Dhabi unveils action-packed agenda for Summer Season 2016

Rio Olympics 2016 expected to boost tourism in Brazil

Iceland registers 30% growth in tourism

Tourism Australia launches new 360-degree video campaign

South African Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom visits India

Business Travel industry in India is emerging as a spe-cialised market with differentiated needs, in tandem

with the global trends. The strongest growth in travel from India in the recent years has been by business travellers, with an almost five-fold increase in travel expenditure for business purposes over the past five years. As Indian com-panies are globalising, and the Indian market integrating with the world economy, Indian business travel is surging. The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) predicts that 15 years from now, India will likely be a top-three mar-ket in business travel spending.

Luxury travel is also growing rapidly, buoyed by the new phase of conspicuous consumption by the affluent Indian traveller, where the demand is fuelled not only by FITs, but also uniquely Indian markets for weddings and other social occasions. The future of luxury tourism sector in India looks promising taking into consideration the increasing demand for exotic and unique holiday experiences from

Indian travellers. The holi-daymakers are becoming more evolved and they do not want to compromise on anything less than the best.

Gaurav Sundaram, Regional Director, GBTA India, said, “The Indian mar-ket is seeing aggressive growth across the segments. With the increased economic and polit-ical stability in the country, these positive trends are more

pronounced in the last two years.”

Karan Anand, Head, Rela-tionships, Cox & Kings, said that India is one of the fastest growing travel market in the world and business, MICE and luxury travel markets are growing at a very fast pace.

“Top corporates, film pro-duction houses and destina-tion wedding planners in India contribute to most of this busi-ness and are keen to explore newer destinations – domestic as well as international,” he said.

Sharing similar sentiments, Vishal Suri, Managing Director, SOTC Travels, said, “MICE, Business and Lux-ury travel markets in India have emerged as important seg-ments of the travel industry. India is going the global way and MICE is fast becoming a major part of its travel and promotional budgets. Meeting demand, size and space is crucial for rapid growth within the segments. Each of the segments would require high levels of innovation and customisation.”

A huge growth can be seen in these sectors as India is emerging as one of the largest markets for Outbound, MICE, opined Gajesh Girdhar, Founder Member and National Coordinator, Network of Indian MICE Agents (NIMA). The current growth shows that by 2020, India should be on the top of the global list.

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Travel News Digest spoke to some of the key industry people to know their opinion on the present state of MICE, Business, and Luxury Travel markets in India. The Industry believes that the segment is poised for vigorous growth. Thus, creating an efficient, productive business travel platform will facilitate in addressing the specific needs of these segments, and fully leveraging the growth opportunities.

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India’s share of outbound business travel pegged at US$4.8 billion worldwide

Outbound MICE and Business Travel from

India predicted to increase by 62% by 2017

India 10th largest business travel market in the world

spending over US$22 billion

Indian Luxury travel market growing by20% annually

Contd. on page 2Gaurav Sundaram

Karan Anand

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Contd. from page 1

India has emerged as the 10th largest business travel market in the world, spending over $22 billion and is expected to grow by 13.5%, year-on-year, as indi-cated by a survey conducted by Deccan Herald. At present, India’s share of out-bound business travel is pegged at $4.8 billion worldwide. Industry experts say that the luxury travel market is growing by around 20% annually and over the next 10 years; it will grow around 15-20% every year. Also, Outbound MICE and Business Travel from India are predicted to increase by 62% by 2017.

In order to further promote these segments, the industry has to strategise and reinvent itself to face new challenges and leverage fully the opportunities.

Sundaram opined that in order to boost this industry further, the government needs to maintain and increment policy stability and incentives for industry. “Further efforts should be made by the External Affairs Ministry to improve the efficiency and ease with which business travellers can secure visas for travel pur-poses with limited documentation and speed. Continued investments in infra-structure related to the travel industry will also facilitate Business Travel,” he said.

Anand said that we need to recognise the changing way in which the world is conducting business; the changing trends which are influencing global econ-omies; the technological revolution which is changing the way in which events and meetings are being conducted. Assimilating these changes seamlessly and responding to it with strategic initiatives will only make the industry stronger than before.

Corroborating with Anand, Suri said that the future of the industry will be influenced by the fol-lowing major factors: economic uncertainty, better and cheaper technological options for live events, faster and shorter business cycles, placing their best foot forward to attract and support business groups from various industries in India.

Suri further adds, “What is always needed is to recognise the changing way in which the world is conducting business; the changing trends which are influencing global economies; the technologi-cal revolution which is making its presence felt in the way in which events and meetings are being con-

ducted. Assimilating these changes seamlessly and responding to it with stra-tegic initiatives will only make the MICE, Business and Luxury industry stron-ger than before.”

As India’s Business Travel industry is maturing, there is a growing need among Indian business travellers for information on the latest trends in this

sector. The industry needs to make a conscious effort in educating the niche audience. This will help it to keep pace with the ever growing needs of the Indian traveller.

At present in India, GBTA is the only industry body that looks at Business Travel as a special niche segment in India. They conduct events, networking forums, education and professional certification in this domain.

Sundaram mentioned that a focused Business Travel Mart will allow industry partners special-ising in this domain to showcase their capabili-ties and products to the buyer community. This will also allow for greater interaction and appre-ciation of best-in-class solutions for the client’s needs. He said, “Such a mart should provide a platform for industry partners to showcase their solutions and products, ability for buyers and sellers to interact effectively to address the press-ing concerns of today, an education forum that provides insights into global best practices that are being used across the world and which can be implemented in India.”

Suri believes that attending travel marts and conferences is an important busi-ness practice that can benefit tour companies in many ways, including building professional relationships, meeting the media, leveraging tips from other like-minded businesses, learning new ideas from industry experts. “Creating an effi-cient and productive business travel platform will benefit trade relations, help take advantage of business opportunities and learn about new trends and inno-vations within the Business Travel industry,” he said.

According to Anand, specialised Business Travel Marts can help to address the specific needs of this segment. He further said that such a mart should have maximum business opportunities, community of qualified hosted buyers, del-egates from multiple destinations across the globe and involvement of different industry segments in forums, talks and roundtable discussions to keep abreast of industry updates.

With India set to be the 3rd fastest growing market in Business Travel from 2010-2019, this is the perfect time for a marketing and networking platform for this high-potential market.

Sulagna Ghosh

Vishal Suri

Gajesh Girdhar

Delhi government allocates `30 crore for Brand Delhi campaign and Delhi FestivalThe AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) government announced its plans to launch a ‘Brand Delhi’ campaign to reposition the capital into a world-class tourist destination and a hub of art and culture. The campaign will re-develop online pres-ence of Delhi through websites, mobile apps, maps, social media and micro-sites.

In its recent Budget, the AAP government has allocated `30 crore for the campaign and a world-class festival titled ‘Delhi Festival’ slated to be held in the capital later this year. The government had also allocated about `54 crore for promotion of art, culture and languages whereas `10 crore has been allocated for development of tourism infra-structure in the city.

Deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sisodia informed that ‘Delhi Festival’ will celebrate the spirit of Delhi and

promote shopping, culture, food, music, languages, the-atre and films, among other things.

Delhi Tourism will revamp the borders and beautify entry points to the city like Ghazipur and Dhaula Kuan. Another highlight of the Budget was a skywalk from Qutub Minar metro station to the Qutub Minar. The sky-walk will then go over till the Mehrauli Archaeological Complex.

Sisodia further said, “Delhi’s culture has been largely ignored with a complete lack of focus on tourism. Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation (DTTDC) had become an organisation that only builds, bridges and sells liquor. Delhi Tourism is on a mission to change the status quo and ensure that Delhi becomes a world-class tourist destination.”

Sisodia also said a ‘single-window’ online clearance system for organising events in Delhi has simplified the process so that there is no scope for red-tape or corruption.

Delhi Tourism in association with INTACH, India City Walks & Delhi I Love You recently celebrated the World Heritage Day at Jama Masjid. The occasion presented an opportunity to showcase the world a truer perspective of Delhi’s remarkable heritage and to sensitise residents and visitors about the monuments that are an integral part of the capital city.

Kapil Mishra, Minister of Tourism, Government of Delhi, said, “The initiative is to spread awareness about the rich heritage of the capital. We will continue simi-lar events and we’re soon going to start heritage walks in entire Delhi.”

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TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 4 • india

The state government of Punjab has announced its plans to develop Ran-jit Sagar Lake as an international tourist destination by promoting activities including water sports and eco-tourism. Parkash Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister informed that Shivalik Dhauladhar Tourism Development Board (SDTDB) has been set up already for this purpose.

A pre-feasibility report had been prepared on this project where possible activities at var-ious locations around the lake site would be provided which includes star category eco resorts, convention centre, water based and adventure activities etc.

At present, the state government has begun developing nearly 300 plus acres of land, including two islands of Kulara and Musharba, spread across nearly 17 and 3 acres respectively. While nearly 2.5 acres Mango Island is being promoted by a private developer of the region, Deepak Maini.

To conserve the rich heritage of the state, Punjab state govern-ment has allocated `300 crore on

conserving the heritage buildings of religious and historical impor-tance, said Sohan Singh Thandal, Tourism and Cultural Affairs Min-ister of Punjab on the occasion of World Heritage Day. Besides, thou-

sands of crores of rupees have been spent to build world class historical monuments.

The tourism department has also launched ‘Punjab Tourism’ Mobile App which is available in Google Play Store. This unique app inte-grated with Google Maps contains information about tourist places in all the districts of the state.

BLTM makes a mark at IMEX Frankfurt and ATM Dubai BLTM, India’s definitive show on Business, Mice and Luxury Travel, made an impactful debut at IMEX Frankfurt, the leading trade show globally in this seg-ment. The organisers of BLTM, Fairfest Media Ltd had an independent booth at the IMEX, where BLTM was promoted to those interested in selling in India.

BLTM is being organised on October 24-25, 2016 at the sprawling convention hall of the Hyatt Regency in Gurgaon, Delhi NCR.

The BLTM team at IMEX received an enthusiastic response from the participating NTOs, CVBs, hotel chains and DMCs. Among those who indicated a keen interest in BLTM and the Indian market included NTOs and CVBs of Abu Dhabi, Argentina, Barcelona, Dubai, Istanbul, Flanders, Florida, Madrid, Malta, Monaco, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Thailand, and hotel brands like the Berkeley, Centara Grand, Fair-mont, ITC, Intercontinental, Leela, Marriott etc.

The NTOs and CVBs of Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia having offices and reps in India, have shown keen interest to participate in the BLTM. Likewise, hotel chains like Wyndham, Carlson, IHG Taj, Best Western, Movenpick, Accor, Ambassador, GRT, Citrus, Clarks, Jaypee, Lalit, Leela, Park, ITDC, Pride, Lemon Tree/Red Fox, Country Inn, Shangri-la, Dusit Devarana, Sar-ovar, Mapple, CGH Earth, Zuri, etc are most likely to participate.

Apart from the international destinations, BLTM will also provide unique opportunities for the Indian states to promote their Business Travel, MICE and

Luxury products. States of Rajasthan and Goa have taken the lead, indicating their keen interest in partici-pation along with the private sector, to sell these niche products.

The BLTM also received good traction in the recently held Arabian Travel Market (ATM) in Dubai. Several participants like Visit Britain, Accor, Starwood, Oberoi, Hilton, Citymax, Dusit etc, have shown keen interest to be present at the BLTM, in addition to those already mentioned above.

India has emerged as the 10th largest business travel market in the world, spending over $22 billion and is expected to grow by 13.5%, year-on-year, as indicated by a survey conducted by Deccan Herald.

India’s luxury travel is also promising rapid growth with demands fuelled not only by the rise of discern-ing individual travellers but also large contingents for social events such as Indian weddings and anniversary celebrations.

BLTM will enable suppliers from across the world to leverage the potential of these travel niches in the Indian market.

“We are committed to creating BLTM as India’s pre-mier show focused on Business, MICE and Luxury Travel segments,” remarked Sanjiv Agarwal, CEO of Fairfest Media Ltd. “Hundreds of genuine hosted buy-ers will be flown in from all parts of India and neigh-bouring countries. Additionally, the venue Gurgaon NCR will provide a rich hinterland of high-value cor-porate buyers in thousands, who will be also accorded

the same status as hosted buyers,” he added.‘A’ list of hosted buyers containing 500 top corporate

buyers from all over India are soon going to be offered fully hosted buyer status. In addition, sellers will have a quota of nominating buyers.

With 28-years of experience over 100 trade shows in ten Indian cities, Fairfest has carefully orchestrated BLTM as India’s first full-fledged travel mart focused on sellers from Business, MICE and Luxury Travel all over the world to trade with hundreds of qualified corporate buyers hosted from all over India to BLTM. Besides the interest generated at IMEX, major home-grown hotel chains, DMCs, NTOs, and state tourism boards have already given their support for BLTM.

Established in 1989, Fairfest Media Ltd is India’s leading travel media company. Its OTM B2B trade show held in Mumbai every February is the biggest travel show in the country. The TTF branded events organised by it is India’s largest travel trade show network provid-ing marketing opportunities in nine cities, every year. It also publishes the Travel News Digest.

BLTM presents the buyers and sellers from these segments a unique marketing opportunity with a global outlook in India - one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

For more information on BLTM, please visit www.bltm.co.in or mail at contact@fairfest.com

Punjab Government to promote water sports and eco-tourism

The Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) has decided to renovate its guest houses, with a whooping ̀ 65 crore funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The guest houses, which were damaged during the 2013 Uttarakhand floods, will be revamped ahead of the Char Dham Yatra commencing on May 9.

C Ravishankar, Managing Director of GMVN, said, “We have been sanctioned `65 crore by ADB for renovation of our rest houses on the Char Dham route. We will refurbish our rest houses in Rudraprayag, Uttarakashi and Cham-oli districts. Devotees can also enjoy customised tours, including sightsee-ing and adventure sports activities.”

GMVN is also planning to join hands with Air India for the tour packages. A proposal has been sent to Air India. “We want to expand the itinerary for visitors this year. We have prepared a number of packages where people can take a day off to enjoy various other activities such as river rafting in Rishikesh, jungle safari at Corbett Tiger Reserve and sightsee-ing in Auli,” he said.

The Uttarakhand Tourism

Development Board has made arrange-ments with Trilok Security System to facilitate free photometric registration of Char Dham pilgrims and tourists vis-iting Uttarakhand, said Tourism Secre-tary Shailesh Bagauli. The 11 centres set up across the State last year for pho-tometric registration of pilgrims have been augmented this year with three more centres being set up at locations in Dehradun, Haridwar and Uttarkashi.

Bagauli informed that so far 57 men-dicants and persons undertaking the Char Dham Yatra on foot have got them-selves registered in these counters. The photometric registration at the remain-ing 11 places is slated to be started by May 6-7, 2016.

GMVN gets a sanction of `65 crore by ADB to revamp its guest houses

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First semi high-speed Gatimaan Express launched in IndiaIndian Railways has launched the Gatimaan Express, the first semi-high speed train with a maximum speed of 160kph. Inaugurated by India’s Minister of Railways, Suresh Prabhu, the train will run between Delhi’s Haz-rat Nizamuddin Station and Agra.

The express train will run every day except Friday departing Delhi at 08:10 and arriving in Agra at 09:50. The return journey will leave Agra at 17:50 and arrive back in Delhi at 19:30.

Tickets are priced at `750 (approx $11.30) for the coach class and ̀ 1500 for executive class.

The onboard catering is organised by Indian Rail-ways Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which has deployed hostesses on the train. IRCTC has also introduced two comprehensive packages for the fast-est train in India – a full-day Agra Guided Tour Pack-age (City of Love and Heritage) and 1N/2 Days Package (with stay in a 5 star hotel).

The tariff for the full-day package, which includes guided visit to the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, lunch at

a reputed local restaurant, AC vehicle for sightseeing, entry ticket to monuments and time for shopping, has been fixed at `2100 for an Indian adult and `2000 for a child (5-11 years).

The tariff for the two-day package is `14,500 (single occupancy), `10,800 (double occupancy) and `10,300 (triple occupancy). For child with bed (5-11 years), the tariff has been fixed at ̀ 7000 and for child without bed (5-11 years), it is `3800. Prices for foreign tourists have been kept a little higher.

Passengers can choose either of the options while booking tickets on the IRCTC portal. Once pay-ment is confirmed on the gateway for tickets for Gati-maan Express, passengers can see a pop up of the Taj Mahal with a ‘Book Now’ message. Tickets for the Agra packages can be booked by clicking on it. Alternatively, spot purchases for the tour packages can also be made during the 100-minute journey onboard the train. The train will also have complimentary onboard entertainment provided by MyFreeTv.in.

Jet Airways (India) Ltd has commenced daily non-stop services to its new Euro-pean gateway, Amsterdam. The airline’s first flights to Amsterdam departed from Mumbai and Delhi with a full comple-ment of Premiere and Economy guests on board its modern Airbus 330-300 aircraft.

Jet Airways flight 9W 232 from Mumbai departs at 0225 hrs, followed by flight 9W 234 from Delhi at 0235 hrs. Meanwhile, the flight from Toronto, 9W 233, departs at 1935 hrs.

Naresh Goyal, Chairman, Jet Airways, said, “We are happy to operate daily

flights to Amsterdam from Mumbai, Delhi and Toronto, thereby providing greater choice and connectivity to our guests and facilitating trade and co-operation between India and the Neth-erlands. Through Amsterdam our new European gateway and along with our code-share partners, we will now offer seamless connectivity to over 30 destina-tions in Europe and 11 destinations in the United States and Canada to our guests.”

Guests flying from Amsterdam will have access to 48 destinations of the Jet Airways network in the Indian subcon-tinent and Asia via Mumbai and Delhi.

Jet Airways begins to operate Amsterdam flights from Mumbai, Delhi and Toronto

Uttar Pradesh promotes Holipura as the first rural tourism hub

Uttar Pradesh Tourism department is taking effective measures to develop Agra as a village tourism destination. It has decided to adopt a village in Bah Tehsil of Agra district.

Holipura village will now be pro-moted on the state website and promo literatures. Dinesh Kumar, Regional Tourism Officer of UP Tourism, said that Holipura village was chosen as the district’s first tourist village and will now be adopted by the tourism

department with one crore rupees released for its initial development.

Holipura is an ideal location to promote the Chambal Safari and Crocodile Sanctuary and could become the hub of adventure tour-ism in the region. The ‘havelis’ or fortresses of the village would be restored and brought back to their former glory through state funding. The village entrance would also pro-mote the logo of ‘Mera Agra’.

SOTC launches Holiday Essentials KitIn an endeavour to make holidays a priority for every Indian, SOTC has left no stone unturned. Having imag-ined every possible way to make vacations easier, worry free and within reach, it has now introduced the Holi-day Essentials Kit-a family kit comprising of all the lit-tle essentials that make for a safe and comfortable holi-day which would provide the customers greater comfort while on Holiday.

Speaking on its introduction, Daniel Dsouza, Head Sales, India and NRI Markets, Tour Operating, Kuoni India, said, “We at SOTC have put together a Holiday KIT of all the essential items that a customer must take along on his holiday. This family kit has been designed based on extensive research and also after speaking to many of our well-travelled customers and our very own experienced tour managers. This is a first of its kind in the holiday space and we believe will add great value to our customers and help him have a comfort-able and enjoyable holiday. The introduction of the Holiday Essentials Kit is part of our journey towards being a customer centric organisation, where all that we will do will be keeping the customer’s needs at heart.”

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 7 INDIA •

Jharkhand Tourism will soon launch a mobile application on the lines of popular hotel aggregator apps which will have a comprehensive database of state hotels and tour operators, both private and those run by the Jharkhand Tourism Development Corporation (JTDC). The app was launched recently alongside the web portal enabling tourists to book rooms and tours on the go.

Rajeev Ranjan, Managing Director, JTDC, said that the app and website will provide up-to-date information on the status of rooms available to the tourists. “The app would be available for both Android and iOS platforms. We would also consider introducing discounts to the customers on the lines

of private players after reviewing its performance later in the year,” he said.

The app will generate revenue for the government in terms of commis-sion charged on the bookings done by tourists in private hotels. All the rooms booked will offer free Wi-Fi and complimentary breakfast to the guests. Both the website and app will also have an integrated payment gate-way for instantaneous booking.

In 2014-15, around 3.5 crore tour-ists visited Jharkhand out of which only 0.2% chose to stay in JTDC run hotels, revealed the department’s data. So far, over 40 hotels based in Ranchi, Bokaro and Jamshedpur have volun-tarily registered with the department to be included in the app database.

Odisha Tourism recently launched a doc-umentary film on Nabakalebara ‘God’s Own People’ directed by Padmashree Nila Madhab Panda in association with Akshay Parija productions. Naveen Pat-naik, Chief Minister of Odisha, viewed the 18-minute cut version of the docu-mentary in the presence of Governor SC Jamir, First lady, Tourism Minister Ashok Panda and other dignitaries.

“The documentary has been made to

showcase the rare ritual of Nabakaleb-ara that takes place every 19 years. It has captured moments during the sacred Nabakalebara and explores ideas of antic-ipation, love, longing, separation, faith and surrender to God. ‘God’s Own Peo-ple’ shall be screened at various national and international film festivals and the full length feature shall be released world-wide in a few months’ time,” said Nila Madhab Panda.

Jharkhand Tourism launches mobile app enabling tourists to book rooms and tours on the go

Odisha Tourism presented new documentary on Nabakalebara God’s Own People

Kerala Tourism goes Kindle with its destination books

Telangana government to introduce exclusive package for NRIs

Five well illustrated books on Ker-ala’s major tourism destinations explaining its rich history and nat-ural beauty will now be available on Kindle. The five books, explain-ing Kerala’s rich history and its nat-ural beauty are ‘Kerala and the Spice Routes’, ‘Silent Valley National Park’, ‘Periyar Tiger Reserve’, ‘Eravikulam National Park’ and ‘Parambikulam Tiger Reserve’.

All these books are products of months of research and contain pictures taken by professionals in nature and wildlife photography. The books are not only a demonstration

of state’s rich natural diversity, but also an attempt to create willing par-ticipants in forest and wildlife con-servation and protection.

Telangana government will come up with an exclusive package for NRIs to attract their friends and acquain-tances in foreign countries to visit the youngest state. In a move aimed at boosting the tourism industry, the package will be launched in the sec-ond or third week of next month.

Tourism Secretary B Venkate-sham said that this package will be exclusively available for NRIs (from Telangana) to send it their friends and known acquaintances in that country.

The government has also planned to host an NRI Day in October-November. The officials revealed that an estimated 30,000 Telangana NRIs are expected to participate in it.

The Tourism department is also planning to come up with a ‘Hyderabad Pass’ on the lines of ‘London Pass’ by next month. ‘Hyderabad Pass’ is expected to give hassle-free access to tourists in key destinations, details of which are being finalised.

Venkatesham said that Telangana is one of the most ancient inhabited places in India. “If you go to history, we are one of the oldest, but newly formed State. We have enthusiasm of the youngest per-son, but at the same time, experi-ence of the oldest person. Telangana is positioning itself as a place to visit ‘for all reasons and all sea-sons’,” he said.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 8 • india

Madhya Pradesh Tourism will soon offer three new experiences to the inbound and outbound travellers.

Hari Ranjan Rao, Managing Director, MP Tourism, said, “Going forward, the State Tour-ism Department is planning to open up trekking at Tamia hill station near Pachmarhi, cruise safari at Satpura Tiger Reserve and an aqua-ski resort at Sailani Island, 60 km from Hanuwantiya.”

Tamia is a picturesque location in the Satpura ranges and offers one of the most spectacular spots of the area thus attracting adventure seekers and nature lovers.

The tourism department will come up with an Adventure and Camping policy highlighting For-est Recreation Rules, mentioned Tanvi Sundriyal, Additional Managing Director, Madhya Pradesh Tourism.

With respect to Hanuwantiya, Rao added, “Mad-hya Pradesh Tourism has notified a master plan for the sustainable development of Hanuwantiya cov-ering the nearby 15-20 villages. Such destinations can develop fast if private players are promoted to

invest. Besides, we won’t allow the mushrooming of concrete and will aim to make it plastic-free zone.”

Around 7.40 crore tourists visited

Madhya Pradesh in 2015. The Chief Minister has also recently announced to form a Tourism Cabi-net in the state.

Rajasthan signs 156 MoUs while looking at cultural tourism boostThe Tourism, Art and Culture Department of the Rajasthan Government recently commemorated the 67th year of the state’s foundation with its annual Rajasthan Festival, showcasing the state’s art, culture,

tradition and heritage to attract tourists into the state. Shailendra Agarwal, Principal Secretary, Tour-

ism, Art and Culture, Government of Rajasthan, informed, “Rajasthan has been a prime tourist attrac-tion for over 40 years now. The state has always had a huge number of local celebrations which were con-fined to the people of Rajasthan, but now we are mar-keting these festivals to transform them into tourist attractions. We want to break the traditional image of Rajasthan in the minds of tourists, which is limited to forts, palaces and deserts. We are highlighting Raj-asthan’s lesser known offerings by organising large various festivals.”

Highlighting the importance of MICE, he said, “MICE is an important area for tourism in the state. Jaipur has huge potential for serving MICE due to its proximity and connectivity to Delhi. We already have one convention centre and another is underway.”

Rajasthan has signed 156 MoUs in tourism sector while an investment of `6000 crore is expected to come this year. The state’s tourism has been growing at an average rate of five-six percent annually. The MoUs, signed by Agarwal and Director of Tourism department, Anil Kumar Chaplot, are worth ̀ 586.29 crore with a number of companies to promote tour-ism industry and create over 5,000 new jobs in the state in near future. These were signed as a follow up to the Resurgent Rajasthan Partnership Summit, underlined Rajasthan Minister of State for Tourism, Krishnendra Kaur.

Agarwal further emphasised on the need for pub-lic-private partnerships (PPP) for the survival of tourism. Rajasthan Tourism Development Corpora-tion (RTDC) has plans to move some of their proper-ties into PPPs, which is expected to bring more effi-ciency in operations.

Madhya Pradesh Tourism promotes three new travelling experiences

MTDC to offer tourist discounts in 19 resorts across the stateIn its efforts to attract more domestic tourists, Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) has announced a series of special discounts with offers like Students Concession, Senior Citizen offer, Concession for Brihan Maharashtra Mandal members, discounts for ex-servicemen and also for Maharashtra Government employees.

For the NRI tourist, the department is offering a dis-count of 10% at any MTDC Resort in Maharashtra by submitting their legit passport copy as a proof.

Physically challenged tourists will also be given tour-ist accommodation discounts. Discounts are ringing in the Bulk Discounted bookings category too. With book-ing of a minimum of 20 rooms at Big Holiday Resorts like Tarkarli, Malshej Ghat, Matheran, Ganpatipule, Mahabaleshwar, Ajanta Tourist Resort, Karla, Pan-shet, Bhandardara, Shirdi, Tadoba and TRC Nagpur in Maharashtra, one can avail a discount of 20% on accommodation.

The new initiatives are being aggressively pro-moted to increase tourist footfalls to Maharashtra in the upcoming tourist season. MTDC owns and operates 19

resorts at unique locations in picturesque surroundings.MTDC is offering 20% discount to school students

between the age group of 6-16 years. These special dis-counts will be applicable on tours organised by the var-ious educational institutes in Maharashtra and can be availed from Monday to Friday. Students in a group of four will be accommodated at each available room at the MTDC Resorts.

A discount of 20% on hotel bookings has been offered at the MTDC Resorts for all senior citizens above 65 years of age. The offer can be availed between Mondays to Thursdays of the week.

Paraag Jaiin Nainuttia, Managing Director, Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation, com-mented, “At MTDC, it is a constant endeavour to give our tourist the best of experiences while visiting destina-tions in Maharashtra... considering the vacation period ahead and aiming to provide a cheerful and inexpensive travel experience to tourists from different walks of life.”

Goa to tap the tourism potential of its riversGoa will be promoting its rivers to attract tourists, besides aiding the transportation system within the state.

Major rivers like Mandovi, Zuari, Chapora, Sal and the Kushwati, along with several smaller rivers, have so far received few visitors. However, under the new plans, the rivers and waterfronts will be developed to promote tourism.

“The state government will give priority to water-ways and we have scope to develop waterfronts like the Chapora River. From Chapora to Colvale (vil-lages located along the course of the river), we could

develop some points of tourist interest,” said Goa’s Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.

The state currently has 650 km of viable water-ways. Parsekar added that an additional 250 km if adequately dredged and their navigation channels deepened, can be utilised for transport purposes.

“We should use our rivers as waterways and fur-ther reduce the pressure on our roads. We could also build river jetties in coastal villages and the hinter-land so that the pressure created by tourism can be spread across Goa and not just along the beaches,” stated Parsekar, who is now seeking investors to

execute the projects. Goa attracted 5.3 million tourists in 2015, up 30%

compared to 2014.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 9 INDIA •

Thomas Cook (India) Ltd is witnessing the strong delivery of its e-commerce strategy with a focus on leveraging the rapidly growing digital native Indian consumer. The company’s e-commerce (led by its por-tal thomascook.in) accounts for over 11% of its over-all travel business.

This season, to tap into the innate value seeker Indian psyche and inspire bookings, Thomas Cook India has unveiled a new campaign Bachat Ka Baad-shah, with a range of great value holiday packages easily bookable on thomascook.in.

The campaign introduces a character called Bachat Ka Baadshah, with quirky, humour to drive home the benefits of being a ‘Smart Saver’ or Bachat Ka Badshah. The month-long campaign incorporates a healthy mix of, outdoor radio and digital focus, across Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. The campaign is also being promoted aggressively on Social Media via Twitter and Facebook contests.

Amit Madhan, President & Group Head - Tech-nology & Shared Services Thomas Cook (India) Ltd, said, “Indian consumers today are looking at mul-tiple options when planning their holiday, and our

hybrid omnichannel ‘clicks n bricks’ strategy is hence working very well in our favour. As market leaders, Thomas Cook India’s objective is to give consumers what they truly want - a great value experience. Our Bachat ka Baadshah campaign hence aims to opti-mise on the strong growth in traffic to our one-stop-shop portal thomascook.in and inspire demand by offering savings.”

Thomas Cook has also launched ‘Silver Breaks’, a holiday plan designed specifically to cater to the senior citizens. Law & Kenneth Saatchi & Saatchi has concep-tualised and created films for those who are ‘Never too

old to Travel’. The commercials have been produced by LightBox films and will be aired in cinemas, on TV and digital mediums.

Speaking about the campaign, Abraham Alapatt, President & Group Head – Marketing, Service Quality, Financial Services & Innovation, Thomas Cook India, said, “Silver Breaks is a great service for those who really need the care and comfort while travelling alone or to unfamiliar places especially at an age when every-thing becomes a challenge. With easy paced itineraries and an attractive value, we are encouraging people to travel the world, no matter what your age is.”

Enhancing its customer experience in the domes-tic market, IndiGo has launched 14 new flights across the key cities in India. The airline will commence new flights connecting Bengaluru to Ahmedabad, Kolkata to Hyderabad, Bengaluru to Jaipur and Chennai to Kochi. Additionally, the airline will connect Kochi to Chennai and Jaipur to Bengaluru. Furthermore, IndiGo will also add increased frequencies between Delhi to Srinagar and Delhi to Jaipur.

Speaking on the launch of the new flights sched-ule, Aditya Ghosh, President, IndiGo, said, “We are delighted to announce additional frequencies between these cities. The increased flow of traffic to and from these cities gave us a great opportunity to offer passen-gers more chances to experience the hassle-free and on-time performance that IndiGo has become synon-ymous with.”

With 759 flights connecting 40 destinations, these new flights will further consolidate IndiGo’s position as the fastest growing airline in India.

Thomas Cook launches a new campaign and a senior citizen’s holiday plan

The state of Andhra Pradesh, which is on a massive drive to draw invest-ments and build a new capital has now roped in Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn as its brand ambassador. His wife Kajol would reportedly be the co-promoter of the state.

The Bollywood star had a chat with Chief Minister N Chandrab-abu Naidu on movies, entertain-ment and business that he described as warm and delightful, and the CM was equally enthusiastic on Twitter about their lively meeting.

Actor Ajay Devgn showed inter-est in investing in theme parks, resorts, water-based parks and the food processing sector. Devgn wants to put Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh’s up-and-coming capital on the front-lines of the global digital network with a media city - one that will fea-ture film, HD TV and audio studios, digital post-production and media management services in the cloud.

The Andhra Pradesh govern-ment has also approved a new pol-icy for leasing out its land for tour-ism development activities. The state Cabinet, which met under the chair-manship of CM Naidu, approved the new policy under which land under 10 acres would be leased out through competitive bidding.

“Two percent of the basic land value will be fixed as the base price and land would be allotted on lease to the highest bidder based on their technical and economic capacity,” informed Naidu.

Depending on the size of invest-ment for a tourism project, land would be given on an initial lease of 33 years. “If they do well, we will extend the lease for a further 33 years,” the CM added. The more the tourism sector will be developed, the more it would contribute to economic development of the state, Naidu pointed out.

Rajasthan Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje has announced an aggressive mar-keting campaign of the ‘Rajasthan Tour-ism Product’ across the globe.

The CM has made an appeal to the members of the travel and trade frater-nity to give ample exposure to ‘Rajasthan Tourism’ not only at all corners of the country but abroad. The state has launched a multi-modal and multi-lin-gual campaign for extensive promotion to lure domestic and foreign tourists alike, she informed.

Pilgrims are being specifically tar-geted for which temple circuits are being

improved with better tourist amenities. In the build up to Resurgent Rajasthan Partnership Summit, the tourism department has signed 220 MoUs worth more than `10,000 crores for setting up new tourism units. These in turn will provide employment to around 40,000 people.

The Tourism Secretary, Government of India, Vinod Zutshi, further reiter-ated the measures being undertaken by the Union Ministry to promote tourism in the state including schemes like the Desert circuit for `65 crore and Ajmer- Pushkar project for ̀ 40 crore.

Andhra Pradesh Tourism ropes in Ajay Devgn and Kajol as brand ambassadors

IndiGo expands its domestic network with the introduction of 14 new flights

Rajasthan’s Chief Minister harps on aggressive tourism campaign

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 10 • india

Karnataka is undertaking measures to promote its Golf Tourism.

The state’s tourism depart-ment will be offering incentives to those investing in the develop-ment of golf courses with a long-term goal of luring more overseas golfers and host international tournaments. This move might also create new job opportuni-ties in the state.

Karnataka will also offer sub-sidies to companies who will be setting up golf courses. Special emphasis will be given to desti-nations such as Bengaluru and Mysuru, where courses could be linked to international confer-ence facilities. At present, most of the golf courses of the state are concentrated in Bengaluru, Mys-uru, Hubballi, Coorg, Chikmaga-lur and Mangaluru.

Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) Elections for the post of Office Bearers and Executive Committee Members were held recently at The Park, New Delhi. Pronab Sarkar, outgoing Honorary Secretary was elected as the President for the next two-year term defeating Sarab Jit Singh, Maharaj I.S. Wahi and Vijay Thakur.

Rajeev Kohli became the Senior VP, while Lally Mathews got elected as the Honorary Secretary defeating Ravi Gosain. Rajiv Mehra was elected as the VP against Lajpat Rai. Amaresh Tiwari got re-elected as the Hony. Treasurer, while Sandeep Jain became the new Joint Secretary.

The Executive Committee Members-Active are P S Duggal, Raj Bajaj, Rajnish Kaistha, Ramesh Wattal and Viney Tyagi. The Executive Committee Members-Allied are N S Rathor, Sunil Gupta and Zia Siddiqui.

Karnataka to focus on Golf Tourism

Pronab Sarkar elected as new IATO President

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India’s Only Global Travel Trade Newspaper

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 12ASIA

TTM+ 2016 to be Unique, Different and Distinctive

Taj Safaris opens first luxury lodge outside India

A new destination, record number of first-time buyers and a unique range of exhibitors are among the high-lights of Thailand’s leading travel trade event to be held from June 8-10, 2016. For the first time, the Thai-land Travel Mart 2016 Plus Amazing Gateway to the Greater Mekong Sub-region TTM+ 2016 will be held in the northern capital of Chiang Mai. Amongst the sell-ers, the line-up of 343 exhibiting companies includes some of the unique boutique hotels in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, in addition to a range of creative small and medium sized products and services seek-ing to expand their profile in the international market.

Yuthasak Supasorn, Governor, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), said, “This year’s event promises to be unique, different and distinctive from anything we have done in the past. We have carefully analysed all the feedback we have got over the past few years and done our best to act upon many of the valuable recommendations.”

“The enormous interest we have received from the buyers is certainly very encouraging. We believe this year’s TTM+ will go a long way towards facilitat-ing business opportunities and meeting our national development priorities,” the Governor added.

Now in its 15th year, the Thailand Travel Mart 2016 Plus Amazing Gateway to the Greater Mekong Sub-region is being eagerly awaited in Chiang Mai where provincial authorities and the tourism industry are working hard to deliver a memorable and productive event.

India has the largest contingent of buyers (120) fol-lowed by the United Kingdom (40), China (33), Austra-lia (25), Italy (25) and the U.S. (21). A group of smaller but high-quality buyers has also been invited from emerging markets; such as Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

In January-February 2016, Thailand’s visitor arriv-als surged to a record 6.09 million, up by 15.48% over the same period of 2015, according to figures pub-lished by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports. China continues to grow as the top source of visitor arrivals with 1.77 million arrivals in January-February 2016, up by 32.21% over the same period in 2015.

Taj Safaris announced the opening of Meghauli Serai at UNESCO World Heritage listed Chitwan National Park, Nepal. This will be Taj Safaris’, the creators of India’s first luxury wildlife travel circuit in Madhya Pradesh, first lodge outside India. The lodge is situ-ated on the banks of the Rapti River, offering views of the park across the river from its 30 rooms and suites.

Rohit Khosla, Senior Vice President – Opera-tions, Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, said, “We are delighted to extend Taj hospitality to guests in Nepal. The Taj group has a pioneering reputation for cre-ating destinations and we are very proud to present the latest Taj Safaris’ Meghauli Serai Jungle Lodge at Chitwan National Park. We are committed to adding value to the community and the region.”

Meghauli Serai Jungle Lodge will offer safaris on elephant back, by jeep, jungle walks, and walks through the local Tharu village to showcase tradi-tional village life, where guests can learn the tricks of moon shining for traditional brews or get a taste of fresh homemade Nepalese pickle. Other activities include Canoeing on the Rapti River and trekking through the Himalayan foothills.

Mridula Tangirala, Director of Operations, Taj Safaris, said, “Taj Safaris believes that the best

wildlife experience is interpretive and rooted in the local wildlife and community through a proven sus-tainable eco-tourism model. Our four luxury jungle safari lodges in Madhya Pradesh’s tiger country cre-ated India’s first luxury wildlife travel circuit. With this opening in Nepal, we are looking forward to wel-coming guests for immersive wildlife experiences in the ‘heart of the jungle’ at our newest destination, Meghauli Serai.”

Maldives signs pact on tourism with IndiaMaldives President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom paid a two day official visit to India in an effort to fur-ther bilateral ties with the country.

India and Maldives have signed six agreements in several fields with tourism being one of them. One agreement seeks to avoid double taxation of income

derived from international air transport. The object of the agreement is that profits from the operation of aircraft in international traffic will be taxed in one country alone and accordingly the taxing right is conferred upon the country to which the enterprise belongs. The agreement will provide tax certainty for airline enterprises of India and Maldives.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) envis-ages cooperation in the area of tourism. This includes expansion of bilateral cooperation, exchange of information and data related to tourism, encour-aging cooperation between tourism stakeholders including hotels and tour operators, establishing exchange programmes for cooperation in human resource development and investment in the tour-ism and hospitality sectors.

The MoU also provides for exchanging visits of tour operators, media and opinion makers for pro-motion of two-way tourism, exchange of experi-ence in the areas of promotion, marketing, destina-tion development and management, participation in travel fairs and exhibitions in each other’s country and promotion of safe, honourable and sustainable tourism.

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and MasterCard announced a new campaign recently to entice Indian visitors travelling to Singapore. The initiative was launched through a new digital campaign #FulfilA-Promise featuring Indian actors’ father-daughter duo Anil Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor.

The MasterCard and STB cross-border campaign offers a chance to fulfil the promise of a holiday to your family by winning a grand prize of a trip for a family of four to Singapore.

With this collaboration, MasterCard and STB will target Indian travellers exploring international desti-nations for their annual vacations and promote Sin-gapore as a preferred travel destination this Holiday season.

Parag Bhatnagar, Vice President, Marketing, South Asia, MasterCard, said, “We are excited to strengthen our partnership with the STB to enhance the priceless experience for visitors to Singapore. Through the cam-paign and Priceless Surprises, cardholders will stand a chance to win a grand prize vacation in Singapore to fulfil the promises they have made to their loved ones and create memories that will last a lifetime.”

“India is an important growth market for us. Hav-ing seen a steady increase in tourist numbers from India over the last decade, we crossed the million mark in terms of Indian visitor arrivals in 2015. We want to continue to make every trip to Singapore a

memorable one, and are excited to partner with Mas-terCard to provide exclusive privileges to Indian trav-ellers to enhance the Singapore experience,” said Chang Chee Pey, Executive Director, Singapore Tour-ism Board.

Singapore Tourism Board and MasterCard partner to attract Indian vacationers

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 13 asia •

The Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO) has launched the ‘Enjoy Mobile Korea’ campaign in asso-ciation with Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom. This campaign will continue till December 31, 2016.

International tourists will now be able to enjoy a free smartphone rental experience with the new campaign. To avail the facility, applications need to be submitted at the official website, www.emk.vis-itkorea.or.kr, out of which 250 contestants will be selected as event winners every week.

Lauding the initiative, Byungsun Lee, Director, Korea Tourism Organisation, said, “Enjoy Mobile Free Korea is one of our efforts to make Korea smart and convenient destination for the travellers. I hope all the Indian visitors will like to avail the maximum out of this exciting offer.”

Participants will be chosen through a series of

screening evaluations and will be offered free rental of a Samsung Galaxy Note 5 for five days that will include free data, voice calls, incoming calls (inter-national outgoing calls excluded) and SMS messages.

The smartphones will feature KTO’s pre-loaded travel and tourism mobile application (Visit Korea

App) to ease the travelling experience with access to useful and latest information such as themed travel, directions, discount coupons and others.

The participants can then return the rented phones at the SK Telecom Roaming Centre located at Level 1 of Incheon International Airport.

Korea Tourism Organisation goes smart with Enjoy Mobile Korea campaign

India is a high potential source market, says Taiwan Tourism Japan aims at 40 million overseas tourists by 2020

India is considered to be a high potential source mar-ket for Taiwan Tourism (TT).

“Though the tourist numbers are not very high, there has been a substantial increase from this mar-ket - a consistent 20% growth every year,” said Arthur Hsieh, Director, Taiwan Tourism, Singapore.

Taiwan Tourism held educational multi-city work-shops for the travel fraternity and the media in Kolkata, Bengaluru and Mumbai recently. The aim of the work-shop was to educate the travel agents and update their knowledge about Taiwan, the products it has to offer, USP’s of the destination and how it caters to different segments of the Indian travellers.

“We receive a large number of Indian tourists from Mumbai. We want to educate the travel trade to know more about Taiwan and TT partners,” Hsieh added. Currently, the capital city of Taipei welcomes the largest

number of Indian tourists.Taiwan has also waived off visa fees on group travel

fostering an increase in MICE movement from India. The average stay of Indian travellers ranges between five to six days.

Noel Saxena, Country Head, Taiwan Tourism, India, shared that Indians spend $3000-4000 on an average in Taiwan. “Indians opt for various activities like ocean drives, water sports, adventure sports, and also visit Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and National Palace Museum. The most recent addition to this list is night market shopping,” he said.

Taiwan also hosts a series of festivals. According to Saxena, Sky Lantern Festival, Fulong Beach Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Hot Air Ballon are some of the must-experience festivals for visitors to this island nation.

Singapore Airlines adds additional flights on the Mumbai-Singapore routeFour weekly flights have been added between Mumbai and Singapore, announced Singapore Airlines, taking the total frequency on the route to 18 flights per week.

The airline is currently offering morning and eve-ning flights on Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 respectively. The extra service operates every Thursday, Friday, Sat-urday and Sunday from April 21 to May 22, 2016.

Flights will depart Singapore at 02:35 and arrive in Mumbai at 05:25. The return flights will leave Mumbai at 08:35 and arrive back in Singapore at 16:40. Running at the same timings, from May 23 to June 12, 2016, the addi-tional flights will operate every Monday, Friday, Satur-day and Sunday.

“The additions in frequency have been made to meet the growth in demand for travel. With peak summer travel season approaching, increased flight connections will help in view of anticipated surge in holiday traffic,” the airline’s General Manager (India) David Lau said.

The government of Japan announced its plan to double the overseas tourist target for 2020 to 40 million. Such a movement was catalysed by a record 19.73 million foreign tourists who visited the country in 2015, up 47.3% from 2014.

At a special panel meeting, chaired by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the government said it will target JPY 8 trillion in spending by overseas visitors by 2020 — more than double last year’s record JPY 3.48 trillion. Post-Olympics, the gov-ernment aims to attract 60 million foreign visitors a year by 2030, hoping they will spend JPY 15 tril-lion annually by that year.

The government has established 10 objectives designed to revamp the country’s tourism indus-try. Those include opening state guest houses in Kyoto and Akasaka to the public, remodelling national parks by 2020 to provide a more ‘inter-active’ experience and strategically enhancing the landscape of major sightseeing spots.

Promotional efforts will be made to attract tourists from Europe, United States, Australia, as well as wealthy tourists from other nations. Eas-ing regulations such as a ban on minpaku private accommodations or revamping the immigration process at airports through advanced technology can also play an important role in this regard.

The panel’s plan will also try to boost spend-ing by domestic Japanese tourists to JPY 21 trillion by 2020, a five percent increase above the average over the past five years, and to JPY 22 trillion by 2030. The panel hopes to reach that goal by estab-lishing a system that makes it easier for families to take vacations, thus creating a more constant demand for tourist-linked businesses. After the record number of visitors in 2015, the upward trend shows no signs of slowing.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 14 • asIa

Sri Lanka registers 38.2% growth in Indian arrivals

Grand Songkran celebrations in Thailand to illustrate the true spirit of Thai New YearThailand is elevating the profile of the annual Songkran Festival with the ‘Songkran Splendours: The Procession of Three Kingdoms’ grand opening ceremony to ensure local and international travellers enjoy a more ‘authentic experience’ and get the chance to ‘discover more amaz-ing stories of Thainess while joining the celebrations for Thai New Year in the kingdom.

Deputy Prime Minister General Thanasak Pati-maprakorn said, “Songkran is the holiday that unites the nation in a spirit of fun and devotion to the fam-ily. The New Year rituals are observed differently in all parts of the nation, and this variety is something that should be celebrated and showcased. The Royal Thai Government is dedicated to preserving all aspects of the nation’s culture in every region, as it is the source of our strength, character, and national pride.”

H.E. Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, Minister of Tour-ism and Sports, said, “The ‘Songkran Splendours: The Procession of Three Kingdoms’ is aimed at giving vis-itors a taste of Songkran and show how important it has been to the culture and the unity of the nation over the centuries. We want to show how the festival differs in how it is observed nationwide and celebrate these unique elements of our culture. Above all, we want to show that for all Thais, Songkran is about family and a time to be with loved ones – this is the true spirit of Songkran.”

Yuthasak Supasorn, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Governor, said, “Songkran is the most important festival in the Thai calendar and is celebrated in differ-ent ways up and down the country. We want travellers to discover more about this unique Thai event and to get

a taste of the huge range of distinct local festivals. So we are getting Songkran off to a great start with our Grand Songkran Celebrations that will help people learn about Songkran’s long history and special traditions.

Cambodia to host Mekong Tourism Forum in JulyCambodia will host this year’s Mekong Tourism Forum in Sihanoukville in July. The six member countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMS) that include Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have banded together to jointly promote GMS as a single destination, focus-ing on ‘authentic experiences along the Mekong River’. The GMS covers 2.6 million sq km and a population of 326 million.

Tourism Minister, Thong Khon said, “We are looking forward to hosting this influential annual conference and we invite the world to Cambo-dia’s beautiful southern coast. We are at a pivotal moment in developing authentic tourism experi-ences along the Mekong River so we can set the

GMS apart from other tourism destinations.”Beginning this year, the new marketing strategy

will help Cambodia achieve its goal of drawing 7.5

million international tourists a year by 2020 and earn the country $5 billion creating about one mil-lion jobs, forecasts the Tourism Ministry. Last year, 4.8 million tourists came to the Kingdom, up from 4.5 million the previous year.

Jens Thraenhart, Executive Director of the Bang-kok-based Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office, said, “In line with the Experience Mekong Tourism Marketing Strategy 2015-2020, over the past year we have developed a solid digital platform, designed to engage with the industry. With this year’s theme, we are now rolling out a unique multi-tiered con-tent strategy to tell the stories of the Mekong, from tourism professionals, travellers, and residents, and showcase experiential travel products.”

Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals surged 22.8% in March 2016, compared to last year, with India surging ahead of China and key Western European generating markets growing 30 to 40%. In the first quarter of 2016, arrivals were up by 22.1% to 584,818.

Visitors from South Asia rose 28.6% to 96,913 with Indian arrivals surging 38.2% to 30,170 from a year earlier. Indian arrivals in the first quarter rose 32.2% to 85,624, overtaking China despite arrivals rising 46% to 77,914.

At an event in Arugam Bay recently, Sri Lanka Tour-ism Development Authority (SLTDA) re-launched its flagship mobile service. The concept behind the mobile service is to provide licensing and other related services to the tourism industry in regions where by reducing them having to come to the head office in Colombo.

SLTDA conducted the mobile service which delivers

various services such as hotel inspections, issuance of business licenses, tourism training etc. with assistance of International Finance Corporation (IFC). During the

mobile service, for the first time, SLTDA was able to pro-cess, print and issue licenses to tourism business opera-tors such as hotels, restaurants in the area.

Tourists from India might now be encouraged to pay a visit to Vietnam after the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, in association with Vietnam National Admin-istration of Tourism, travel industry partners and OM Tourism organised the Vietnam Tourism Promotion Road Show at Samrat Hotel in New Delhi recently.

Welcoming several travel agents and media personnel attending the show, H.E. Ton Sinh Thanh, Ambassador of Vietnam to India, affirmed, “After nearly 30 years of reno-vation, Vietnam has become one of the most dynamic econ-omies in the region. Vietnam is the home of eight UNESCO world heritage sites, well-preserved historic relics and beautiful beaches.”

The destination has been attracting a lot of interna-tional tourists lately, with an average growth rate of 9.25% in the period 2006-15. While the average spending is $914 per trip, an average stay of 8.56 nights has been recorded which is longer than other top Asian sources. With regard to Indian tourist arrivals in particular, Vietnam has wit-nessed a sharp increase of 32% per year on an average in the period 2010-15.

Vietnam has the potential to cater to the needs of the for-eign tourists, ‘whether for holidays, shopping, leisure, food

exploration, wedding, honeymoon or for business and con-ference,’ highlighted Thanh.

In a detailed presentation on the tourist products and services, Le Tuan Anh, Deputy Director General, Interna-tional Cooperation Department, Vietnam National Admin-istration of Tourism (VNAT), laid special emphasis on the country’s culture and heritage while elaborating on the tourist infrastructure and other indigenous attractions that the country promises to offer.

Commenting on the road show, Anh said, “Over the past two years, Vietnam National Administration of Tour-ism in cooperation with the Embassy of Vietnam in India has organised a lot of activities to promote Vietnam as a tourist destination. This year too, we are trying to organ-ise as many activities as possible so that Indian tourists can know more about Vietnam and its destinations. After this road show, we will be organising more marketing activi-ties in other Indian cities.”

Travelling to Vietnam is more about adding value which, according to Anh, could be garnered from cul-ture tourism, nature based tourism or sea and beach tour-ism among others, that the country is promoting to lure tourists.

The road show continued with product presentations from allied partners including ICS Travel Group, Beh Thanh Tourists, Victoria Tours, Melia Hotels Interna-tional and Vietnam Airlines. The airline also announced its code share partnership with Jet Airways thereby facil-itating improved connectivity between the two countries.

Tourism in Vietnam has been a major contributor to the country’s economy. “In Vietnam, we are trying to calculate the total impact of tourism on the economy which is quite large. The government now considers tourism as a key eco-nomic sector,” remarked Anh.

The road show concluded with a round of fruitful inter-action between the delegation and travel agents, followed by a lucky draw contest.

Vietnam conducts road show in New Delhi to promote tourism

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 15 asia •

The India-Bangladesh border will soon be acquiring the features of the Attari-Wagah border that the country shares with Pakistan.

The Tourism Ministry in India has sanctioned a proj-ect of `18 crore for the Tripura government to upgrade the infrastructure in the area. 20% of the allocated fund has already been released for the project, to be exe-cuted by the state government’s Public Works Depart-ment (PWD). “Wagah-like infrastructure, including a mini-stadium, would be created at the Agartala (India)-Akhaura (Bangladesh) border to organise a Beating Retreat ceremony like that at the Wagah border with Pak-istan,” said Tripura’s Tourism Minister Ratan Bhowmik.

The Beating Retreat ceremony is a spectacular mili-tary routine conducted by the border guards since 1959 at the Attari-Wagah border to announce the closing of the same every evening. Apart from the stadium, an open theatre, cafeteria and other infrastructure will also be constructed at the site.

“To build a Wagah-like infrastructure at the Agar-tala-Akhaura border, official level meetings between Bangladesh and India were held and the Bangladesh government has no objection to the project,” Bhowmik informed.

Besides being a significant trading point between India and Bangladesh, the Agartala-Akhaura border is

also a tourist spot which hopes to attract more of tourists with the creation of the infrastructure.

The infrastructure upgradation at the frontier is

among the several projects for which the Centre has sanctioned a total amount of `99 crore to boost tourism in Tripura.

Agartala-Akhaura border to replicate Attari-Wagah

Bhutan witnesses an overarching royal presence in the country

Air Astana passengers to have internet access onboard

Bhutan has lately hosted some of its highest profile vis-itors such as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge who dropped by after visiting India.

Isolated as it were till a decade ago, the country is gradually emerging as a noteworthy tourist destina-tion. With the advent of technology and its growing influence, smartphones and karaoke bars are now com-mon in the capital, Thimpu. The young generation on the other hand has taken to social media with ease.

With clear blue skies, golden rice paddies, moun-tain pastures, pine forests, intricately decorated tem-ples and monasteries, one can only cherish such an

exotic experience in this ‘Kingdom in the Clouds’.In Bhutan, Kate and William took a three-hour trek

to the breathtaking Tiger’s Nest monastery perched on a Bhutan cliff-top. Built into the side of a steep cliff above a beautiful forest of rhododendrons, some 10,000 ft above sea level, it is one of the most spectacular tem-ples in the world.

Despite its enchanting scenery, Bhutan abstains from mass tourism. The government deliberately restricts the tourist numbers, charging those visiting from outside South Asia about $250 thus making a sub-stantial contribution to the economy.

Malaysia announces e-visa facility for Indian travellers

Indian tourists travelling to Malaysia can now avail the e-visa, confirmed Vice President, AP Air Travellers Association, O Naresh Kumar.

The e-visa system was commissioned on April 15, 2016. The visa will be processed in a period spanning between 24-48 hours. The processing fee is $25 (approximately `1660) with visa fee of `1000 and transaction fee of ̀ 50 online. The total estimated cost is ̀ 2710, the payment for which can only be made online.

The e-visa holder is entitled to a stay for a max-imum of 30 days only for tourism purposes. This will however be valid for three months from the date of issue for a single journey. More informa-tion can be gathered from www.imi.gov.my.

With regard to this new development, Rajeev D Kale, President and Country Head, Leisure Travel, MICE, Thomas Cook India Limited, remarked, “Thomas Cook India applauds the Malaysian government’s initiative of introduc-ing e-visas for Indian tourists. The single entry 30 day e-visa, with between 24-48 working hour processing, is a neat fit for Destination Malay-sia, a short haul favourite, with easy access of an under five-hour flight, serving to inspire a diver-sity of customer segments- from value to luxury; family, FIT, ad hoc, young professionals, women travellers, Gen Y to Gen S; also strong potential for viable last-minute Indian travellers given the opportunity of extended weekend breaks and public holidays.”

Malaysia received as many as 722,141 tourists from India last year, making the country the 6th largest contributor in terms of tourist arrivals. “We are always trying to make travel to Malaysia as convenient as it can get and the introduction of e-visa is a major step in that direction. We are confident that with this ease in visa process, more and more Indians will now consider Malaysia as a destination of choice for their next holiday,” said Mohd Hafiz, Director, Tourism Malaysia.

Air Astana has signed an agreement with the air transport IT provider, Rockwell Collins, to provide passengers with the first broadband in-flight connec-tivity that can be used in their personal computers, tablets and smartphones.

The airline will install the associated Inmarsat Global Xpress (GX) high speed connectivity system on its fleet of Boeing 767 airliners commencing in September 2016. Passengers will now be able to surf net on their devices, use instant messenger applica-tions and also check e-mails.

“As a customer oriented airline, Air Astana is always looking to improve the passenger experi-ence on the ground and in the air. We’re very excited about the new in-flight connectivity opportunities that GX reliably provides to Air Astana passengers,” said Andrey Gulev, Commercial Engineer Manager

at Air Astana. “After carefully reviewing a number of competing offers, Air Astana’s decision came down to Rockwell Collins’ ability to provide a cost-effec-tive solution that was tailored to meet all our needs.”

Both the Business and Economy class passen-gers can avail the service on all three of Air Asta-na’s Boeing 767s.

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TTF is India's leading trade show for the travel and tourism industry. Since 1989, it provides an annual opportunity for organisations from India and abroad to showcase their products and services to a large cross-section of the travel trade and consumers, across major markets in India.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 18middle east

Kuwait to foster further growth in tourism

Jordan Tourism Board conducts wedding planners FAM from IndiaJordan Tourism Board recently held a Mega Wed-ding Planners FAM to Jordan from India. The par-ticipants were from prominent wedding planning companies from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

The group travelled from Amman to the Dead

Sea, Petra, Jerash, Ma’ain Hot Springs and Aqaba to scout potential locations and venues of Jordan for holding Indian destination weddings. Jordan is slated to become an exotic and promising wedding destination, as Indians increasingly look for newer venues and exciting options for themed weddings.

Tourism in Kuwait will grow by 4.3% per annum, fore-casts recent statistics, thereby propelling the country to invest in the sector. The forecast has been reported for over the next decade through to 2025, with a total investment figure of KWD 276 million (one billion dollars).

Tourism received a boost in 2015 with airport pas-senger volume growing from around 10 million travel-lers in 2014 to just over 10.2 million last year as the Gulf state ploughs ahead with plans to expand its transpor-tation infrastructure.

World Travel & Tourism Council’s (WTTC) report titled ‘Kuwait Travel and Tourism Economic Impact 2015’ states that tourism accounts for 1.5% of GDP in 2015, and is set to rise by 0.3% by 2025. The report also expects a growth in leisure spend by 6.2% per annum to KWD 2.4 billion in 2025 while business travel is expected to grow by 5.6% per annum to KWD 457.3 million in 2025.

“Kuwait is focused on adding new high profile brands to its hotel mix as well as opening up the coun-try with its expansion programme for Kuwait Interna-tional airport,” said Nadege Noblet-Segers, Exhibition Manager, Arabian Travel Market.

WTTC also predicts 440,000 tourist arrivals by 2024. Kuwait also exhibits high domestic travel spend that generated 88.1% of direct Travel & Tourism GDP in 2014 and is expected to increase by 6.4% per annum through to 2025.

High-end brands such as Four Seasons will open its first 263-key Kuwait property at Burj Alshaya at the end of 2016. This will be followed by the Mercure Kuwait (2017), Hilton Olympia Kuwait in 2019 and a Grand Hyatt in 2020. Kuwait will be entering new mid-market territory with a number of upcoming projects including the 160-room Novotel Sharq (2017) and sev-eral Rotana properties, with a Centro Rotana set to debut in 2018 with 200 rooms.

Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) unveiled the line-up for this year’s events and shows for Abu Dhabi Summer Season, running emir-ate-wide from July 7 to September 11. The programme of leading international theatre shows, comedy acts, con-certs, circus performances, an illusionist and activation zones will be held at venues across Abu Dhabi city, Al Ain and the Western Region and span Eid Al Fitr, the school holidays and Indian Independence Day.

Sultan Al Dhaheri, Acting Executive Director Tour-ism, TCA Abu Dhabi, said, “We are hugely encour-aged by the number of visitors who came to the emir-ate to experience Abu Dhabi Summer Season last year, not only from across the GCC but from around the world. This annual event is one that reaps very posi-tive rewards in our visitor numbers during the tradi-tionally quieter summer period as we move towards becoming a year-round destination.” Summer Season 2015 witnessed a 21% increase in guest arrivals into the emirate compared to 2014 with 951,979 guests checking into Abu Dhabi’s 167 hotels and hotel apartments dur-ing the period. The largest increase in visitor numbers was from India rising nearly 30%.

The ultimate record-breaking roller coaster ‘Fly-ing Aces’ was also launched recently at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi. Commenting on the launch of Flying Aces,

Jesse Vargas, General Manager at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi said, “Following the introduction of two new attractions in 2015, we are starting 2016 with the big-gest ride unveiling since our grand opening, with the launch of the incredible, record-breaking roller coaster, Flying Aces. This coaster will surprise guests with

never-before-experienced thrills and it further cements Ferrari World Abu Dhabi’s reputation as a pioneer in the region’s leisure and entertainment industry. A theme park evolution on this scale is unheard of and we are so proud to bring even more fun to one of Abu Dhabi’s pre-mier leisure destinations, Yas Island.”

TCA Abu Dhabi unveils action-packed agenda for Summer Season 2016

Etihad Airways and Jet Airways are continuing their sponsorship as Official Airline partners and principal sponsors of defending champions Mumbai Indians at this year’s Vivo Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 cricket tournament. Mumbai Indians feature some of the sport’s biggest names. The team is captained by Indian batsman Rohit Sharma and coached by former Aus-tralia captain Ricky Ponting. Star players in this year’s squad include Indian spin bowler Harbhajan Singh, Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga, New Zealand all-rounder Corey Anderson, England wicketkeeper Joss Buttler and West Indies’ Lendl Simmons, who won the ICC T20 World Cup with his national team in India last week.

Peter Baumgartner, Chief Commercial Officer, Etihad Airways, said, “Etihad Airways has a great sporting tradition, supporting leading teams around the world. Mumbai Indians are no exception. We are delighted to team up with our Indian partner Jet Air-ways to once again sponsor Mumbai Indians, arguably the best domestic sporting brand in Indian cricket.”

Gaurang Shetty, Jet Airways Whole-time Direc-tor, said, “Our partnership with the Mumbai Indi-ans is a truly winning combination. We are excited to extend this association with the defending champi-ons to the 2016 IPL. We look forward to another year of thrilling competition and engagement with fans as Rohit Sharma and his team set out to emulate their

title-winning performance.”Following the same format as last year, Etihad Air-

ways’ logo will appear on the back of shirts worn by the Mumbai Indians for home matches, and the Jet Airways logo will be featured in the same position for away matches. Under the sponsorship agreement, Etihad Airways and Jet Airways will enjoy extensive branding and message beamed across LED pitch-side advertising and on giant screens at Wankhede Stadium.

Etihad Airways and Jet Airways enter 3rd year of Mumbai Indians sponsorship of Vivo Indian Premier League T20 season

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 19americas

Chile records significant rise in cruise visitors

Argentina celebrates World Malbec Day 2016 in MumbaiThe Consulate General & Trade Promotion Centre of Argentina in Mumbai celebrated the sixth edi-tion of World Malbec Day at the Taj Mahal Palace & Hotel, along with 64 cities and 50 countries around the world, together paying tribute to Argentina’s flag-ship grape variety-MALBEC. This annual celebration continues to strengthen the signature grape, Malbec Argentino, as a unique reference for Argentina and the world.

Every year, on April 17, the world commemorates the day when President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento of Argentina transformed Argentina’s wine industry. This year, the Consulate hosted the event to include a farewell for their outgoing Consul General, H.E. Tomas Ferrari.

The wine of choice for the night was Trapiche, one of Argentina’s oldest and biggest wine producers. The vineyards are located in Mendoza, Argentina at the

foothills of the Andes Mountains. It is Argentina’s largest exported premium wine brand, with pres-ence in more than 80 countries. Under the guidance of world-famous wine consultant and enologist Michel Rolland of Bordeaux, France, Trapiche makes deli-cious wines that exceed consumer expectations and over-deliver on quality.

The Acting Consul General, H.E. Alejandro Zoth-ner Meyer said, “The World Malbec Day is an event which can bring India & Argentina closer through Malbec wines. The Malbec variety goes brilliantly with Indian food as well, so why not pair it with cheeses, kebabs of all types, and even mushrooms!”

The soiree included a tasting and information tour about Argentine Malbec & its origins by the Somme-lier of the Taj, Abhas Saxena. Guests were briefed about the wonderful journey through which the Malbec varietal of grapes went through to reach its

current avatar.Guests included distinguished members of the

Diplomatic community in Mumbai, including the Consul Generals from Spain, Poland, Ecuador and Australia, and the Consulate’s personal friends and business associates from various industries.

Inbound tourism in Peru likely to expand by up to 7% in 2016Peru’s inbound tourism is likely to expand between six to seven percent in 2016, boosted by the international promotion of the country’s tourist attractions, affirmed Foreign Trade and Tourism Minister, Magali Silva.

During the presentation of ‘Millennials 2014: Domes-tic Tourism’ and ‘Millennials 2014: Receptive Tour-ism’ reports, the official noted meetings with regional authorities are being strengthened to enhance the pro-motion of tourist zones.

Silva underlined that coordination between the Min-istry and Regional Directorates of Foreign Trade and Tourism will be reinforced in an effort to keep the agen-cies ‘permanently connected’.

“Kuelap cable-cars (in Amazonas region), that will be inaugurated on July 19, are the fruit of these efforts,” she added.

Chile has witnessed a 35% rise in cruise ship pas-senger arrivals in 2015-16 with a record number of 414,000.

Nine ports in Chile received 217 visitors by foreign-flagged cruise ships during the six months ending on March 31. Such an increase has been fuelled by a fee reduction for lighthouses, prompting large vessels like the U.S.-based Norwegian Cruise Line to return to the southern waters.

Punta Arenas, to the extreme south of Chile, had 30% more cruise visitors with 109.746 cruise passen-gers and crew members.

In the period 2014-15, 78.908 cruise visitors landed at the destination, while the number of cruise vessel calls which visited mostly Punta Arenas increased from 48 to 54.

According to The Chamber of Commerce and Tourism (CNC), cruise ship visitors spent $80 ($A105.21) a day on average in the northern port of Arica, with the figure rising to $120 ($A157.81) a day in Puerto Montt in the south.

The cruise ship sector is anticipating a growth between three to four percent worldwide in the fol-lowing season.

With the Rio Olympic Games 2016 approaching, the hotels have almost been completely booked for the event. Mario Andrada, the spokesman for Rio 2016, said they want the games to be the turn-around moment and bring good energy.

The organisers are expecting half a million inter-national visitors to descend on Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympic Games, scheduled for August 5-21, 2016.

The country received 6.4 million foreign tourists in 2014 with Rio de Janeiro receiving 1.6 million for-eign arrivals.

For the Olympics, one of the major projects of the government is to suspend the visa obligation between Brazil and the U.S. to increase the number of visitors this year.

Rio Olympics 2016 expected to boost tourism in Brazil

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 20europe

Indian tourists are eager to explore new destinations, reaffirmed by their interest in the Scandinavian countries.

Mohit Batra, Indian representative, Scandinavian Tourism Board, revealed, “While Denmark has shown a growth of 30%, Sweden has close to 20% on a much higher base and Norway, we do not account the numbers, how-ever, the growth has been equally notable.”

“The capitals of Scandinavia – Copenhagen, Stock-holm and Oslo have their own distinct experiences – attractions, museums, culture, architectures and design, and most importantly sustainable living,” added Batra.

Unique tourism aspects of the region also include the Fjords, the Northern lights, midnight sun, heritage, Nor-dic cuisine, sustainable living, UNESCO World Heritage

Sites, Sami Culture and the Vikings.“We have observed that the Indian traveller today is

seeking to travel to very small villages to admire nature and experience local cuisine. Another trend we have observed is that Indians are handpicking destination and combining them with locations which are not geo-graphically neighbouring countries,” he mentioned. The main growth has come from markets like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, and Bengaluru. “Our aim is to raise awareness of the Scandinavian region at large – but also raising awareness of what individual countries of Denmark, Nor-way and Sweden have to offer,” averred Batra, pointing out that Scandinavia is an ideal destination for the group, family and solo vacations.

Scandinavian attractions lure Indian travellers Turkey launches Visa Application Centres in 16 cities across India

Holland launches taxi branding campaign in Mumbai and Delhi

The Embassy of the Republic of Turkey has launched Turkey Visa Application Centres across 16 Indian cities, with effect from April 1, 2016. Two more centres are also being launched in Nepal and Maldives.

Operated by VFS Global, Turkish visa centres will be located in New Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Jalandhar, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kolkata, Ahmed-abad, Pune, Bengaluru, Goa, Puducherry, Kochi, Trivandrum, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kath-mandu (Nepal). Operations would also com-mence soon at the Male (Maldives) centre.

Speaking at the launch, Dr Burak Akçapar, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to India, Nepal and Maldives, said, “Currently, we are receiving about 100 visa applications a day. This is a major improvement which gives the applicants a better and easier visa service thereby increas-ing tourist arrivals from all three nations. We are determined to do our best to open the gates wider for Indian nationals who wish to visit Tur-key, which is already one of the top destinations for tourism worldwide. We are also hopeful of launching newer connections from India with Turkish Airlines.”

Vinay Malhotra, COO – South Asia and DVPC, VFS Global, said, “We are excited with the tie-up as it is the onset of the outbound travel sea-son from India. Earlier the Turkey visa was facil-itated at three centres pan India and with our new partnership, the same has gone up to 16 locations pan India. As a result, whenever visa accessibility becomes easier for a traveller, the numbers only increase.”

Iceland registers 30% growth in tourismWith ‘Inspired by Iceland’ marketing campaign, tourism has grown to be one of the most important industries in Iceland, generating largest foreign revenueThe Nordic island country’s growth strategy in the tourism industry has created a benchmark in the global tourism industry. The tourism sector of Iceland in partnership with the Government used the volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 as an opportunity to create a global campaign called ‘Inspired by Iceland’ that boosted the inflow of tour-ists. The tourist numbers are now estimated to reach 1.7 million this year, up from 500 thousand in 2010. The focus of the campaign has been on promoting Iceland as a destination for all seasons.

Ragnheidur Elín Árnadóttir, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Iceland, while chairing the IMEX Politicians Forum in Frankfurt, Germany, spoke about the growth in Icelandic tourism. “Iceland has over the past few years enjoyed growth far beyond any forecasts and the sector is expected to continue

to grow. Last year 1.3 million tourists visited Iceland, a 30% increase from 2014. This year 1.7 million tour-ists are expected to visit the country, more than five times Iceland’s population,” she said.

Enhanced connectivity with more frequent flights and increased general interest in what Iceland has to offer during the winter season, draw thousands of guests all year round to the country. Surveys show that 95% of those who visit Iceland are satisfied with their trip and 84% say they would like to return.

Iceland’s MICE (meetings, incentives, confer-ences and exhibitions) market represented 7% of tourist market in 2015, an 11% increase from 2014. The growth of the MICE market supports the over-all objectives for Icelandic tourism to decrease sea-sonality as well as to encourage higher spending lev-els overall.

In its bid to promote tourism in Holland, Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions (NBTC), in associ-ation with Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and Jet Air-ways, has branded 200 radio taxis in Delhi and Mumbai.

The branding campaign was launched by H E Alphonsus Stoelinga, Ambassador of the Netherlands to India; Jos Vranken, Managing Director, NBTC; Wilco Sweijen, Director Aviation Marketing, Amster-dam Airport Schiphol; and Gaurang Shetty, Wholetime Director, Jet Airways, at the Amabassador’s residence in New Delhi.

Jet Airways, Schiphol and NBTC have jointly invested in the promotion of Holland in 2016. The cam-paign is a measure to drive demand within the Indian market to travel to and experience the Holland tourism product.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 21OCEANIA

As its latest marketing campaign, Tourism Austra-lia is promoting its destination through cutting-edge Virtual Reality (VR) and 360-degree technology. Travel enthusiasts can now enjoy a new video con-tent, created to bring Australia’s incredible aquatic and coastal experiences to life.

The campaign includes a new broadcast ad high-lighting the unique nature of Australia’s aquatic and coastal experiences and is currently being promoted on YouTube and Facebook.

Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager, India & Gulf, Tourism Australia, said, “We are pleased to launch our new campaign focusing on one of Aus-tralia’s key competitive advantages – our world-class aquatic and coastal experiences. The campaign will complement our existing marketing activities, pro-viding an additional proof point to demonstrate why ‘There’s Nothing like Australia’. It will tap into the fact that 70% of our visitors participate in an aquatic and coastal experience as part of their trip

to Australia. We believe that this campaign will help us sustain the growth in visitation and spend and ultimately move us closer to our Tourism 2020 goal.”

India, being one of the fastest growing outbound markets, has become the key focus market for Tour-ism Australia. Moreover, it has also become the 8th

largest inbound market for Australia. 233,100 Indian tourists visited the destination in 2015, recording an 18.6% increase over 2014. Over A$ 1.1 billion to the Australian economy was contributed to the Aus-tralian economy in 2015, that is, an increase of 38% over 2014.

Tourism Australia launches new 360-degree video campaign

Key Indian travel agents promote tourism products in NSW’s Focus on India 2016 Workshop

Sidharth Malhotra’s influence boosts tourist numbers in NZ29 key Indian travel agents showcased a wide range of

Sydney and New South Wales (NSW) tourism prod-ucts, destinations and experiences as part of the Focus on India 2016 Workshop, hosted by Destination NSW. Stuart Ayres, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Major Events, NSW said Focus on India 2016 provided a unique opportunity for Indian travel agents to learn more about Australia’s premier tourism and events.

“In the year ended December 2015, NSW welcomed 112,300 visitors from India who spent $298 million, up 80% on last year,” said Ayres. “These outstanding fig-ures demonstrate that the NSW Government, through its tourism and major events agency Destination NSW, is committed to working with key trade partners to pro-mote Sydney and Regional NSW and we look forward to welcoming many more visitors from India as a result of a successful 2016 programme.”

The week-long trade event included one-on-one appointments between Indian agents and NSW tourism suppliers, and also saw the visiting Indian travel trade group complete a pre and post workshop familiarisation programme in Sydney and Regional NSW.

“Our State is home to some of the world’s most spec-tacular scenery, world-class food and wine and unique

accommodation options. We are delighted that the recent Focus on India workshop was so successful in helping increase the awareness of NSW destinations and products amongst our key Indian trade partners, better equipping them with the knowledge to build the most compelling travel packages to attract potential visitors to NSW,” said Sandra Chipchase, CEO, Destination NSW.

“We look forward to continuing to showcase NSW’s strengths in cooperation with Industry partners, as well as highlighting the welcoming and multi-cultural ele-ments that make NSW an ideal place for Indian visitors,” added Chipchase.

Solomon Islands records an impressive increase in tourist arrivals in 2015The Solomon Islands has officially released figures on the international visitation for the period Janu-ary-December 2015, with 21,623 visitors, recording a growth of 7.8% from that of 2014.

Australian visitor arrivals again led the way, the 9509 total recorded for the 12 month period represent-ing a 4.10% increase over 2014 and accounting for 43.9% of the total arrivals in 2015.

The 1451 figure recorded last year has made New Zealand jump to the number two spot, marking a 3.2 increase over the total of 1243 recorded in 2014. The U.S., Papua New Guinea, and Fiji arrivals also showed positive growth, figures increasing by 24.2%, 7.8%, and

10.8%, respectively.Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau CEO, Josefa ‘Jo’

Tuamoto attributed the positive result to the efforts of the national tourist office. “This is particularly the case in Australia and New Zealand where we have been extremely hard at work creating a profile for the Solo-mon Islands, working hand in hand with our industry colleagues and Solomon Airlines to perpetuate aware-ness for the destination,” he said.

“Having visited Papua New Guinea and New Zea-land earlier this year and with a major east coast Aus-tralia roadshow planned in May, we are hopeful of an even stronger result in 2016,” he added.

New Zealand’s Tourism Ambassador Sidharth Malhotra has generated more than $4.5 million in estimated advertising value till date. Special mentions have been given by Sidharth to NZONE Skydiveand Eichardt’s in Queenstown.

The results from Tourism New Zealand’s rela-tionship with this particular influencer have been immediate for NZONE Skydive which is where it’s at for Business Development Manager Derek Melnick, who said, “Our industry is so respon-sive to opinion leaders like Sidharth, this piece of activity really boosts not only our organisation but does a wonderful job of positioning our desti-nation as ‘The Adventure Capital of The World’.”

“A critical part of selecting an influencer is get-ting the right fit for how we are marketing New Zealand and this is not a five-minute job. Sid-harth’s enthusiasm is infectious and his genuine passion for New Zealand cuts through all cover-age, including to his 2.8 million social media fol-lowers. And let’s not forget old-fashioned word of mouth.”

In emerging markets such as India, Tourism New Zealand uses opinion leaders to grow profile for destination New Zealand whereas in mature markets Tourism New Zealand often secures influencers to bring profile to a particular activ-ity or special interest.

The royal visitors’ excursions to tucked away gem locations directly enhance Tourism New Zealand’s strategy to spread visitors more evenly throughout the year and across the country.

The formula to spread the word about New Zealand by tapping into the networks of key influencers is a tried and true formula across many successful brands including destination New Zealand. This clever maximisation of invest-ment pays dividends at the individual, regional and overall industry level.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 22AfricA

Ethiopian Airlines recently started double daily flights from New Delhi to Addis Ababa apart from double daily operations from Mumbai. Addis Ababa is the capital of Ethiopia and a major hub for Ethiopian Airlines. Ethi-opian Airlines services to 91 Interna-tional destinations which cover Africa, Europe, America, Middle East and Asia and 20 domestic destinations.

Ethiopian Airlines commands the lion share of the pan-African passen-ger and cargo network operating the youngest and most modern fleet to more than 90 international destina-tions across five continents.

Ethiopian Airlines also celebrated its 70 years of dedicated and highly successful air transport services to,

from and within the continent of Africa recently. Parallely, the airline also crossed a milestone in India with 45 years of operations from Mumbai and 30 years from Delhi.

Tewolde Gebremariam, Group Chief Executive Officer, said, “70 years is a long time, but Ethiopian is still young, strong, forward-looking and ready to contribute its own share of an integrated, prosperous and peace-ful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena in line with the Afri-can Union agenda 2063.”

Ethiopian Airlines, Regional Direc-tor India Sub Continent, Tadesse Tila-hun said, “70 years is a long time for the airline that was conceptualised in the year 1946. However, 20 years later in 1966, it commenced operation into Delhi and India has always been one of its focused markets. The air-line is operating into Mumbai from the year 1971 and we are highly excited as Ethiopian Airline’s 70th Anniver-sary has coincided with 30th and 45th

years of Delhi and Mumbai operations respectively.”

South African Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom visits India

South African Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom vis-ited India to engage with the travel and tourism trade in the country. The visit was part of South African Tour-ism’s roadshow to boost tourism from key source mar-kets. India is an important market for South African Tourism, with a booming outbound travel market.

“India has emerged as a key market for tourism in

South Africa, with the highest growth potential. We have seen a strong revival in bookings in the last quar-ter and we expect strong growth in arrivals from India in the future,” said Minister Hanekom.

India’s large diaspora and growing middle-class tourists have stimulated foreign travel, especially among younger generations. The UNWTO predicts the

Indian outbound travel market will account for 50 mil-lion tourists by 2020 and that total outbound spending is expected to cross the $28 billion mark by 2020. South Africa is among the emerging countries that are fast becoming a destination of choice for Indian tourists.

“We have had constructive discussions with the tourism trade on how to meet the growing demand for our destination. The response from the trade about the destination has been positive and they have appreciated our presence in the country,” said Minister Hanekom. “The Indian trade partners have been forthcoming with their feedback and welcomed the various measures we are planning to introduce to ease travel for Indian vis-itors to South Africa,” he added.

As a part of ongoing efforts to ease visa applica-tion processes, South Africa has announced four new visa facilitation centres that will be opened by the end of 2017. South Africa also announced a provision for BRICS nationals who apply for visas to visit South Africa for short-term business purposes. They will now receive a long-term visa with multiple entries for up to 10 years while frequent travellers can be granted up to 3-years multiple-entry business visa. The Min-ister also said that a proposal to ease measures of grant visa-on-arrival to those who hold a valid visa for the U.S., UK or other countries that have followed a stringent visa verification process is under consideration.

Ethiopian Airlines introduces double daily flights from Delhi to Addis Ababa

The tourism sector in Botswana has the potential to contribute positively to growth and job creation, said Minister of Finance and Development Planning.

Presenting the 2016 budget speech, Kenneth Matambo said that the gov-ernment would continue to create an enabling environment for tourism busi-nesses encouraging joint partnerships between individuals, citizen companies and non-citizens.

A number of initiatives were also being undertaken which include the Dams Tourism project, Gaborone Pre-cinct project and the Kasane-Kazungula Redevelopment project currently under

preparation.Matambo mentioned that Botswana

was voted the best destination country to visit in 2016 by Lonely Planet Publication, a global travel and tourism publication.

According to Botswana’s tour-ism report Q2 2016, tourism in the country has shown a rapid growth with high profile marketing cam-paigns, improving transport, and accommodation infrastructure helping to attract more high spend visitors from affluent European and Asian source markets. Over the long term, the country could develop a major safari holiday des-tination to rival more established markets.

Botswana prioritises tourism in its 2016 budget

Morocco to bring cultural tourism development & sustainable growth as part of tourism vision for 2030The Morocco Minister of Tourism, the Wali of the Fez-Meknes region, the President of the Fez-Meknes region, and the Mayor of Fez chaired a meeting to focus on local tourism development programme integrated with culture and the inclusion of handicraft sales, with special atten-tion to the Medina of the city of Fez.

The Medina of Fez boasts of a unique architectural her-itage, combined with an ancient social etiquette. There-fore, as part of the tourism, handicrafts, housing, and culture sectoral strategies, several measures have been taken with a view to developing Fez’s tourism and cultural assets, particularly by establishing thematic tours, restor-ing monuments, and improving the urban environment.

The cultural tourism development programme aims mainly at strengthening the attractiveness of Medina’s tourism potential with regard to – improving tourist facilities, heritage interpretation, developing architec-tural heritage and cultural events equipment.

The Agency will also provide technical assistance

to better implement projects and will oversee the pro-gramme’s various design and implementation stages.

The programme aims at developing 31 Medinas between 2016 and 2025, and that the commitments of the different stakeholders were materialised by the signature

of the framework partnership agreement between the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Policy, the Ministry of Handicrafts and Social and Soli-darity Economy, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Tourism, and the Moroccan Agency for Tourism Devel-opment in December 2015.

The Tourism Minister of Morocco, Lahcen Haddad is also advocating the establishment of strategic vision focusing on a sustained annual growth rate of six per-cent for the next 20 years. Latent in this vision is the aim to eradicate poverty and vulnerability by 2030.

The tourism sector in Morocco contributes nearly seven percent of the GDP, five percent of national employ-ment and 25% of foreign exchange reserves. Haddad has encouraged investments in sectors such as NTIC, ser-vices, leisure, social entrepreneurship, tourism, media, to name a few. Digitalisation is also an opportunity to seize a new social revolution with significant potential for job creation.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 23CAribbeAn

Barbados to focus on diverse tourism products

Guyana reviews its draft National Tourism Policy

Aruba to get more tourists with Enrique Iglesias’s visit Music superstar Enrique Iglesias will be headlin-ing the Aruba Summer Music Festival in its second-ever edition in June. The event, to be held from June 24-26, will feature Latin stars Gente de Zona, Wisin, Chino y Nacho and Tito Nieves.

Otmar Oduber, Aruba’s Minister of Tourism, Transportation, Primary Sector and Culture, remarked, “We’re excited to welcome visitors to this year’s festival, while showcasing popular artists on one of the largest stages in the Caribbean. This event continues to be an integral part of our coveted Aruban culture, attracting more than 10,000 local and international guests last year.”

The festival will be hosted at the Harbour Arena in the downtown area of Oranjestad.

“Aruba is honoured to have Enrique Iglesias visit our island, as his performances are loved by all. We are looking forward to an exhilarating festival for all our international visitors who will be attending the Aruba Summer Music Festival from more than 20 countries,” said Ronella Tjin Asjoe-Croes, CEO of the Aruba Tourism Authority.

With a steady tourism growth, the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curaçao is dreaming even bigger.

There will be a major focus on the U.S. market, said Hugo Clarinda, Deputy Director of the Curaçao Tourist Board. Last year, the island reported 3.1% stayover tour-ist growth overall, with a total of 61,593 arrivals from the U.S. market. In fact, the U.S. push is part of the island’s tourism Master Plan.

The new flights from JetBlue, which will expand to three weekly flights out of New York by the end of this year, are also significantly helping the island.

“What we are trying to explain Curaçao, although it’s in the Caribbean, it’s a little bit different from the other Caribbean islands,” Clarinda said. “Most Carib-bean islands have nice beaches – all have nice beaches — most have beautiful weather, you have sun, but that’s something most have. Curaçao is a little different, in that we have a little bit more in history, in culture, the archi-tecture of the downtown area.”

The government of Curacao is also laying emphasis upon the cruise industry and its crucial contribution to tourism. With more than 600,000 passengers passing through Curaçao each year, spending on average $75 per person, the cruise industry is undoubtedly a major eco-nomic engine for the Caribbean island.

Eugene Rhuggenaath, the Minister of Economic development from the Government of Curaçao explained, “Cruise sector is absolutely fundamental to the success of our tourism industry – recent stats from the FCCA show that 40% of cruisers are likely to return as land visitors...We’re undertaking a number of ini-tiatives to improve the appeal of the island to visiting cruise vessels. For example, the Curaçao Tourist Board is a cruise task force member – a group that proactively engages with key stakeholders with the goal of stimu-lating quality and growth of the segment. It also actively participates at cruise-related trade shows and offers des-tination branding through its various source markets.”

Barbados has expressed its commitment towards diver-sification of the island’s tourism product offerings.

Tourism is the leading economic sector for Barba-dos, said Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, making the island ‘congenial, comfortable and safe an environment’ as far as possible.

“It is important to diversify our product offerings to appeal to a wider range of visitors and to attract addi-tional people here. There are many visitors to our shores and potential visitors to our shores who are especially interested in matters relating to heritage and preserva-tion and that is an area of our tourism sector which we are committed to developing,” explained Stuart.

The island has lately recorded strong growth in tour-ism, accounting for one of the Caribbean’s highest year-over-year stay over arrival improvements in 2015.

“A repeat visitor told me that whenever she leaves Barbados to go back home, she leaves her heart here and since she knows she cannot live without a heart, she knows she has to come back,” he added.

Guyana is almost ready with its draft National Tourism Policy. Director General of the Minis-try of Tourism, Donald Sinclair said that relevant stakeholders are ‘currently reviewing’ the doc-ument and sending in feedback and responses which will be reviewed to make amendments where necessary. The policy will soon become a public document.

“Interestingly, cruise visits and yachting are a part of this National Tourism Policy because we recognise that those are growth areas for us,” said Sinclair. “So as soon as we get the feedback, it becomes a public document that we will be using to drive our tourism plans.”

According to the President of the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana, Shaun McGrath, 57 members of the association have

already given their feedback on the draft pol-icy to the Tourism Ministry.

The policy will address legislations and regulations for promoting tourism, with regard to concessions, operations, infrastruc-ture, human resource development and pro-moting specific niche markets, among other areas.

Minister of Public Telecommunication Catherine Hughes also pointed out the draft’s emphasis on the role of tourism in job creation and economic growth.

“Within the tourism policy, we re-define Guyana as ‘Guyana, South America Undiscov-ered,’ and tied into that is the beauty of our rain-forest, our savannah, our adventure tourism, our leisure tourism,” Hughes said.

Curaçao aims at greater achievements in the tourism sector

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 24global

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) announced that the WTTC Annual Global Summit will be hosted by Bangkok, Thailand on April 26-27, 2017. The location of the 2017 Global Summit was announced at the closing speech of the 16th WTTC Global Summit in Dallas, Texas.

David Scowsill, President & CEO, WTTC, said, “The WTTC Global Summit is the most influential Travel & Tourism event of the year, bringing together hundreds of leaders from public sector organisations and private sector companies to discuss and tackle the most impor-tant issues in our sector. Thailand is an extremely well established Travel & Tourism economy. Despite chal-lenges, the sector grew by a stunning 18.4% in 2015, con-tributing nearly 21% to the country’s GDP and supported

5.9 million jobs, which is 15.4% of total employment.”“We are excited and honoured to host next year’s

WTTC Global Summit, which is a great opportunity to showcase Bangkok as an important meeting place for gathering the world’s top travel and tourism exec-utives,” said Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, Minister of Tourism and Sports.

Yuthasak Supasorn, Governor, Tourism Authority of Thailand, said, “Holding the Summit in Bangkok is recognition of the city’s importance as an international hub, serving a large number of international visitors through our new Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport. We are looking forward to welcoming every-one in Bangkok next year to experience the beauty of our country.”

Bangkok to host 2017 WTTC Global Summit

Renfe inks partnership with CarTrawler Alexandre de Juniac nominated to become IATA DG and CEO

CarTrawler, the online travel technology platform has announced a landmark partnership with Renfe, the national rail provider of Spain. With this partnership, Renfe passengers will get direct online access to more car rental providers than they will find anywhere else.

Announcing the launch in Barcelona, Michael Cun-ningham, Chief Commercial Officer of CarTrawler, said, “Renfe’s 30 million passengers already have access to an extensive, reliable rail network. Now, CarTrawler will take their travel experience to the next level by enabling them to rent a car with their train ticket on the

world’s best-converting travel platform. Renfe’s cus-tomers will be able to organise their end-to-end trans-portation needs wherever they are going with the mini-mum of fuss, with direct access to a full range of leading car rental providers.”

Ramon Azuara, General Director of Renfe Viajeros, said, “We are announcing Renfe Viajes with the aim to offer our clients hotels, car rental and leisure activities from renfe.com along with leading partners in each sec-tor, guaranteeing a minimum price and providing new value to our website and our loyalty programme.”

Virgin Atlantic enters into a new code-share agreement with FlybeVirgin Atlantic has announced a new code-share deal with Flybe that will enable passengers’ book tickets to travel from one of 18 UK or European airports and con-nect onto a Virgin Atlantic flight at Manchester, Glasgow or Gatwick airports. The partnership will offer seam-less connections between Flybe and Virgin Atlantic and facilitate customers to check themselves and their lug-gage through to their final destination.

Nick Parker, Head of India & Middle East, Virgin Atlantic, said, “Our partnership with Flybe offers us a fantastic opportunity to reach customers looking to travel long-haul from key cities throughout the UK and Europe. This is an additional boost for holiday-makers, offering easy connections to some of our most popular destinations including the tropical islands of Barbados and St Lucia and the US cities of Orlando and Las Vegas.”

Erik Varwijk, EVP- Commercial, Virgin Atlan-tic, said the partnership offers opportunities to reach customers looking to travel long-haul from key cit-ies throughout UK and Europe. “We look forward to offering easy connections to some of our most popular

destinations including the US cities of Orlando and Las Vegas,” he said.

Starting summer 2017, Virgin Atlantic is also intro-ducing Manchester airport’s first ever direct flights to San Francisco and brand new service to Boston.

The Board of Governors (BoG) of the Inter-national Air Transport Association (IATA) unanimously recommend Alexandre de Juniac, Chairman and CEO of Air France-KLM, to succeed retiring Director General and CEO, Tony Tyler. With confirmation by the IATA Annual General Meeting to be held June 1-3, 2016 in Dublin, Ireland, de Juniac will take up duties as the head of the association after a short handover period.

“The IATA Board of Governors is very pleased to recommend Alexandre de Juniac to lead IATA. Alexandre’s broad experience

in aviation and government makes him the ideal candidate to take our association to even greater heights,” said Andrés Conesa, CEO of Aeromexico and Chairman of the IATA Board of Governors.

“I am honoured by the confidence of my industry colleagues and mindful of the heavy responsibilities that the Director General and CEO bears. I look forward to leading IATA as it supports safe, efficient and sustainable global connectivity,” said de Juniac.

De Juniac joins IATA from Air France-KLM where he has served as Chairman and CEO since 2013. Prior to that, he was the Chairman and CEO of Air France (2011-2013).

“Alexandre will be a great leader for IATA. I am sure that he will keep IATA close to its members and fully focused on delivering the value that they expect from their association. Until then, I remain fully committed to my duties and await an exciting AGM in Dublin with great interest,” said Tyler.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 25technology

BookMyForex is coming up with a mobile application for Android and iOS platform to enhance the customer experience in booking and tracking rate in real time. Announcing the launch of the app in a phased man-ner, Sudarshan Motwani, Co-founder and CEO, Book-MyForex, added, “From the past six months, the forex brand is also working on an agent portal which will be introduced by June. We do not want to be seen as a competition to the offline travel agents but are keen on providing them with a larger reach. We will treat all at par and the rates will remain same for all.”

BokkMyForex is also on the verge of announc-ing its tie-up with a renowned Online Travel Agent (OTA), informed Motwani. It will also be providing forex cards to travellers through its partnership with Axis Bank. Along with this, the brand has increased its operations to over 500 cities serving more than 3,500 delivery locations. With this, it aims to boost business five times and achieve a turnover of `1,000 crore, in the current year.

The brand is also focusing strongly on its

international expansion in stronger markets. “In India, the exchange rate is less as compared with other nations such as Europe and Australia. We plan to establish our

foot firmly in the Indian market and post that venture into the outbound arena with new payment products, but not this financial year 2016-17,” Motwani added.

Get the weight off your shoulders with ixigo coolie appFacing problems while negotiating with coolies during travel? ixigo brings a solution to your problem with the introduction of ‘ixigo coolie app’. The app is designed to help Indian travellers’ book coolies at railway sta-tions and porters at airports all across the country. Over one million coolies have been aggregated in the app and ixigo is aiming at onboarding a larger base of coolies and porters to the app from all over the country.

The app has features such as ETA, type of coo-lies, price guide and coolie profiles so that you can see their past ratings, languages spoken, user reviews and much more. The ixigo coolie app will be available on both android play store and apple app store.

Speaking at the launch, Aloke Bajpai, CEO and Co-Founder, ixigo, said, “Our app guarantees a coo-lie within two minutes of arrival at the station, at the lowest possible price. You just need to punch in your station, platform and coach before you reach and we will have the coolie of your choice waiting for you! Also, thanks to GPS tracking, no one can run away with your luggage anymore. It’s safe, cheap, quick and convenient.”

In an endeavour to keep the travellers engaged, ixigo trains app has added more content with its new app discovery platform. Le Travenues’ ixigo app would serve as a platform for marketing and help brands reach the targeted audience.

ixigo has already partnered with more than 20

brands like Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm, Freecharge, PepperTap, DineOut, BlaBlaCar, UrbanClap, Cleartrip, MakeMyTrip, Spicejet, TravelKhana and Twigly for its app discovery platform. Currently, the free trains app has more than 70 lakh users in India, including 18 lakh monthly active users and

3 lakh daily users.The ixigo trans app gives information on train

routes, schedules, coach positions, platform num-bers, real-time seat availability, PNR predictions and waitlisted bookings. The app is currently available on Android and will soon be available on iOS app.

BookMyForex to launch a mobile application for customer service

Goibibo.com has launched a feature for refunds named ‘Go-Time Guarantee’.

“Goibibo.com, guarantees a refund to be processed within two hours from the time the customer cancels his or her travel with the portal. Goibibo transparently shares the exact time in minutes and seconds, taken to process the refund. In case of a failure to meet the two-hour guarantee, the platform promises to credit `100 in the customer’s GoCash wallet for every hour of delay,” said the online travel aggregator.

Goibibo’s internal data reveals that 15% of travellers make amendments/changes to their trips that require refunds to be given to the customers. With the newly

launched feature, it aims to make the fastest refunds in the country thereby projecting itself as trustwor-thy and reliable.

During the week of the launch, Goibobo processed around 99% of the applicable cases within 30 minutes. Ashish Kashyap, Founder and CEO, ibibo (Owner of Goibibo and redBus), said, “Goibibo’s core focus is to constantly increase speed, reliability and trust. The launch of ‘Go-Time for refunds’ is just the start-ing point in solving pain points of buyers. In the next three to four months, we will give ‘time guarantees’ to our customers for all processes. We are going to make GoTime ubiquitous.”

Cleartrip’s mobile app will now feature multi-city flight bookings, enabling consumers to book up to four flights in the same booking.

Cleartrip will offer this feature in the same split screen design that users see on its website and mobile apps.

Besides this, the company also claims that it has introduced a new faster booking flow wherein all the required information and actions will be placed on the same booking screen, thus eliminating the need for con-sumers to go back and forth while making a booking.

Goibibo promises fastest refunds with Go-Time Guarantee

Cleartrip launches multi-city flight bookings

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 26 • technology

Paytm has mapped plans to extend its services into online travel business by branching out into rail, road, airline and tour bookings. As a payment driven portal, Paytm is looking at driving more traffic, add-ing larger payments through tour booking.

Paytm has initiated talks with companies and has partnered with services marketplace Ezeego1 for hotels and flight bookings. Besides approaching several airlines, it has also integrated the rail inven-tory of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Cor-poration on its platform.

With plans to invest around ̀ 120 crore in its travel marketplace in the current financial year, Abhishek Rajan, Head of Travel Marketplace at Paytm, said, “Our intention is to continuously add new travel categories to the platform and drive organic growth without making large marketing invest-ments.” With revenue generated from adding travel to the list, Paytm is definitely heading for a bright future.

Paytm eyes expansion plans into online travel business

OYO Rooms partners with Biotique to provide high-quality personal care products

MiClimate: World’s first wearable climate technology

OYO Rooms has announced its partnership with Bio-tique to provide high-quality personal care prod-ucts for the guests. Biotique products will now be stocked at over 65,000 rooms in OYO’s network, spanning over 170 cities in India. As a part of the

tie-up, Biotique is providing a co-branded personal-care kit comprising body wash, lotion, shampoo and soap specially packed for OYO.

Commenting on the partnership, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, OYO Rooms, said, “With this tie-up we are taking our promise of offering a predict-able hotel-stay experience to the next level. We have already started receiving appreciation from custom-ers who are delighted to find popular Biotique prod-ucts stocked in their room.”

Vinita Jain, CMD, Biotique, said, “With this part-nership, all OYO guests can experience and enjoy our range of high-quality skin and hair care prod-ucts developed from natural Ayurveda. The partner-ship will help us expand our reach and cater to a wide and new segment of customers.”

Jumeirah and Proxce partner to offer smartphone mobile check-inProxce recently announced the adoption of its Proximity Identity Manager (PIM) at the Jumeirah Group’s hotels. Proxce’s PIM will provide guests with a more personalised experience through their smartphones such as mobile check-in and advanced location-based services with many new features to be announced in the upcoming months.

“Proxce’s innovative technology is a power-ful identity management solution that creates personalised interactions for our guests and allows Jumeirah to extend its capabilities to providing the finest service quality and making their experience with us memorable and unique,” said Nancy Wolff,

Vice President of Hotel Systems at Jumeirah Group.With the help of Proxce’s technology, guests will

be able to upload profile information, associate exist-ing profiles, experience real-time location based interaction with the hotel and Jumeirah can create contextual experiences based on each guests’ likes and preferences.

“We are excited to partner with Jumeirah to pro-vide a state-of-the-art identity management and mobile check-in experience. The Jumeirah group has always been at the forefront of innovation especially when it comes to providing exceptional guest experi-ence and we are proud to be a part of that,” said Prox-ce’s CEO and Founder Madhu Madhusudhanan.

MiClimate is a wearable personal climate technology that enables users to experience air-conditioning while out-doors. MiClimate unlocks one’s outdoor comfort by con-trolling climate settings when driving a bike or trekking. Adventure travellers can take this as a boon and drive themselves wherever they want, taking their own climate with themselves.

MiClimate is based on a U.S. Navy technology devel-oped for soldiers operating in extreme weather condi-tions. It has a very versatile design that can be rendered benefiting many areas of usage.

Built around an adjustable belt strap, the MiClimate

system is made up of a lithium-ion battery, a core cooling unit and a Bluetooth remote that can be attached to the handlebars. To control the climate within the jacket, the core unit draws ambient air in and heats or cools it using a thermo-electric system. Once it’s been conditioned the air is directed upwards through a flexible manifold before a flexible internal structure releases it under the jacket.

According to the MiClimate manufacturers, “Soon capabilities will be added to sense skin temperature and perspiration that will automate the switching from cold to hot or vice versa and provide you comfort without you needing to pay attention.”

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 27 technology •

WhereIsWhere aims to transform the travel industry

Dynotag introduces Protagz to track large luggage itemsDynotag, the smart tag provider has recently unveiled Protagz line that helps in tracking large luggage items. Any number of the various tags will go a long way to ensuring your valuable items have an extra bit of security in the form of backend technology that will allow you to pair the luggage with various crucial information stored on the company’s cloud service.

Protagz are larger cards, about the size of a post-card, that get fastened to anything that might be of a grander variety: video equipment, golf clubs, surf-board cases or any other equipment that you abso-lutely need for that leisure or business trip.

CEO, Murat Divringi explains, “The addition of Protagz to the Dynotag series makes it so we are sup-plying the most comprehensive selection of consumer

smart tags for a variety of real world needs. We want to form a trusting relationship with our users, so they feel comfortable using Dynotag Smart Tags in all fac-ets of their daily lives.”

Dynotag explains that you can set up a website for your item that may contain myriad detail like receipts, records or anything you might consider use-ful for your large luggage piece. This makes it far eas-ier for anyone who finds your Protagz to find the pre-viously depressed party who lost such a fine piece of equipment. The technology will cost the consumer less than $20.

Airport transfers become easier with Expedia’s new innovation, WingzIn order to make your airport transfers hassle free, Expedia has introduced a relatively new innovation, Wingz. Wingz works a bit like Uber, but concentrates its efforts on squiring travellers from home to airport and back again.

The service promises to be moderately inexpensive. For example from Venice to Los Angeles for two pas-sengers with two checked bags the quote returned was $29, which is around what you might expect from some Uber services, which ranges from about $16 for Uber-POOL to $21-27 for UberXL.

According to the report, if you are requesting a pri-vate transfer within Expedia, you will happen across Wingz along with the usual complement of other service providers. Wingz even enables you to request to have a driver that drove you on a previous trip. For Wingz, this is a tremendous opportunity to establish its brand in a market that is increasingly flooded by ride-sharing and transfer solutions for busy travellers.

WhereIsWhere is a travel brand that aims to cor-ral myriad businesses across the industry to offer a map resplendent with tourism recommenda-tions. The travel brand has released a video that highlights someone looking at a map of Europe. By the time they whittle their search down to cen-tral London, they happen across a volume of poten-tial stops that might interest them on a trip: restau-rants, hotels or a tourist attraction.

Here the question arises that how valuable this service will prove to be to consumers, which can scour a daunting number of travel websites and even Google Maps for suggestions of where to visit. There is a niche that needs to be served

from an application that gathers motivated brands that wish to pour resources into providing as much information as possible into a solution like WhereIsWhere.

Terence Mak, CEO of WhereIsWhere.com, believes that today in travel, we do not have a con-solidated platform that represents, showcases and markets the entire industry in a way that travel-lers can easily understand. “We believe our new platform will transform how the industry engages travellers,” he said.

In time and with participation, WhereIsWhere might boast of being that go-to web service for the curious traveller.

Google has recently announced an Android Auto to compete against Apple’s CarPlay. It was launched in few countries and now Google is officially rolling it out to 18 new countries including India.

All one needs to do is to connect the device to the car and it will automatically pull up useful informa-tion organised in simple cards that appear just when they are needed. Along with that, there are features like Google Maps, Google Play Music, voice calls and access to apps like TuneIn Radio and Audible.

As more manufacturers adopt the system, it could also improve the experience for travellers who rent self-drive cars and Android Auto will be able to stan-dardise to getting accustomed to the controls and fea-tures of a different car. Also, one can carry data to every car running Android Auto which means one doesn’t have to manually set the GPS or enter home address even in a rented car.

Android Auto to launch in India to improve road travel experience

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 28EVENTS

Three busy days at IMEX in Frankfurt 2016 doing busi-ness, learning about the latest developments and mak-ing new contacts proved to be action packed and ful-filling for meetings and events industry buyers and suppliers.

Altogether close to 9,000 hosted buyers and vis-itors attended the event this year and the number of individual appointments and stand presentations increased by nine percent to 57,000. In addition, 1,200 group appointments were made leading to an additional 10,000 interactions. Over 53% of appointments had pro-files attached.

Ray Bloom, Chairman of the IMEX Group, com-mented, “Our own approach to IMEX in Frankfurt this year has been based on investment and innovation.

“We have invested substantially in bringing more senior hosted buyers into the show for longer periods of time while giving them flexibility to make the most of the opportunities to meet their own needs. At the same time throughout the show, from education to hosted buyer services, there have been many important inno-vations as we continually strive to help exhibitors, buy-ers and visitors achieve their objectives.”

The first PCMA Business School in Europe added a new high level strand to the education programme. After Exclusively Corporate@IMEX nearly 90 cor-porate buyers, with a combined annual meetings and events budgets in the region of $200 million, visited the show floor along with more than 300 association executives who had taken part in Association Day and Evening.

40 politicians and political advisers were at IMEX for the Politicians Forum at which Minister Stuart Ayres, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Major Events for New South Wales, Australia delivered the keynote address.

Business is Personal, also a new theme for the show, met buyers’ personal needs, developing confidence, health and wellbeing. It featured educations sessions, the new Be Well Lounge sessions (by InnerSense and supported by Weichlein Tours + Incentives and Munich Convention Bureau) and the IMEXrun, inspired by Rio de Janeiro which attracted 800 registered participants.

Networking is part of the essence of IMEX. To ensure that buyers have more opportunities to meet their peers through the show – rather than leave it to luck – the IMEX Group has been trialling the use of a network-ing matching system – Zenvoy.com. This uses demo-graphic data to suggest matches between like-minded

peers before the show.After successful trials with association delegates in

America and also with Association Day and Exclusively Corporate delegates in Frankfurt, IMEX plans to roll this out to all hosted buyers at IMEX America 2016.

Reflecting on the show, Ray Bloom said, “It is inter-esting to see that many stands have adjusted their mar-keting positioning. They are making more of their asso-ciated centres of expertise as these are an asset to event organisers and a way to drive inward investment and growth in the local economy. It’s a trend that was central to the discussions at the Politicians Forum.”

IMEX 2017 will take place in Frankfurt from May 16 to 18. The IMEX Group also runs IMEX America, which will take place at Sands® Expo and Convention Center, at The Venetian® | The Palazzo® in Las Vegas on Octo-ber 18 to 20, 2016.

Focus on innovation and investment boosts business at IMEX

ATM 2016 focused on fast track development of the mid-market hotel segment

7th ADTOI Annual Convention

highlights billion plus

opportunities of Domestic Tourism

The number of visitors surged at the Dubai World Trade Centre, recording a visitor growth of four percent, com-pared to that of 2015, at the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) held from April 25-28, 2016.

ATM was officially inaugurated by the Crown Prince of Dubai, His High-ness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, along with a delegation comprising His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Mak-toum, Chairman of Dubai Civil Avia-tion Authority and Chairman of Emir-ates Group and Helal Saeed Al Marri, Director General, Dubai Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing (DTCM) and Director General, Dubai World Trade Centre Authority.

The show, in its 23rd edition, housed 423 main stand holders representing 86 countries, 64 country pavilions with 100 new exhibitors making their debut. What added brilliance to the bonanza this year was the ATM Global Stage, a seminar theatre designed to showcase the best speakers covering high-level strategic topics.

Among interesting panel

discussions was ‘The Future of the UAE as a Global Tourism Hub’, focus-ing on the necessity of an all-inclusive tourism promotion from the seven emirates. Carrying forward the theme of the event, the theatre witnessed a PwC-hosted session titled the ‘Great Mid Market Hotel Debate’ that charted out the current landscape of the mid-tier accommodation segment in Dubai. The disruptions in the hospitality sec-tor were further addressed by Sir Rocco Forte, Chairman of Rocco Forte Hotels through his personal anecdotes at the ‘ATM Leaders Breakfast’ on the last day of the exhibition.

Lauding the impressive representa-tions from destinations, ATM also took care to encourage exhibitor-creativity and business viability by awarding ATM 2016 Best Stand Awards in five independent categories to the most innovative and eye-catching stands.

“These awards reflect the huge effort, investment and thought that go into creating and manning exhibitor space that is a reflection of a brand,” said Nadege Noblet-Segers, Exhibi-tion Manager, Arabian Travel Market.

The Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI) recently held their 7th Annual Convention at Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, from April 8-11, 2016.

Hosted by the Government of Mad-hya Pradesh, the ADTOI Convention revived hope in the growth of tour-ism in the temple town of Khajuraho and the surrounding areas. With the theme ‘Domestic Tourism: Billion+ Opportunities’, the association con-veyed a singular potent message of ‘See the Country, Know the Country’. The convention was a sincere effort in con-vincing Indian travellers to consider ‘Country First and Overseas Next’.

The Convention was inaugurated in the presence of Nagendra Singh, MP from Khajuraho; Vinod Zutshi, Sec-retary, Ministry of Tourism and other eminent personalities from the travel and hospitality industry.

Promoting the potential of domes-tic tourism, Vinod Zutshi said, “The funds have been earmarked to promote

domestic tourism within the state. Also, the soon to be launched tourism policy will support domestic tourism and its stakeholders in a big way.”

Tourists so far have been enam-oured of the exotic temples in Kha-juraho indeed, but the enormous tour-ism potential of the destination has not been adequately exploited, pointed out Nagendra Singh. “The government is making all efforts to establish a seam-less connectivity to Khajuraho in near future. Air India has planned to start a direct flight from Delhi to Khajuraho from October to March,” he informed.

Successful promotion of tour-ism entails product development and infrastructure growth, said Jyoti Kapur, President, ADTOI. “Domestic segment is the backbone of tourism therefore it has a ‘Billion +Opportuni-ties’ and this convention is an attempt to explore those opportunities. Also, the convention will help to rein-vent and rebrand the association itself,” he added.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 29 events •

Owners of tourism businesses looking to use Tourism INDABA 2016 to grow their enterprises should pre-pare to be blown away, as this year’s offering includes more quality networking opportunities, more industry experts behind the microphone, and a renewed focus and perspective on creating future growth through tourism.

South African Tourism Acting CEO, Sthembiso Dlamini, said care has been taken to re-focus the event on the things that really matter to the industry, but more especially on the smaller players.

“In our planning we kept coming back to wanting to create an event that embodies the spirit and soul of what Africa is about but in a business setting. Visitors and exhibitors should expect to come and connect with the roots of Africa’s unique tourism offering; and leave with business opportunities in hand.”

INDABA will create more quality engagements for small business owners and buyers in the form of daily speed-marketing sessions. Through the online diary and matchmaking system, care will be taken to facili-tate suitably matched meetings between exhibitors and credible buyers. The series of carefully tailored tech and trade talks, will see leading industry specialists in their respective fields deliver keynote addresses to equip businesses for future growth.

“The INDABA 2016 programme is being designed in response to feedback from exhibitors who unanimously said that they want a business-enabling and informative show that will allow them opportunities to access the speakers, have face time with media and meet with rep-utable buyers. There are other changes we are working on to implement but all in all, we are excited that the pro-gramme we’re designing will meet the needs and expec-tations of exhibitors and cannot wait to reveal more,” said Dlamini.

With just 30 days to INDABA 2016, over 9,000 meet-ings have already been scheduled and 3,000 meetings

have been confirmed. This is up by 1,000 when com-pared to just over 2,000 last year, which equates to 5.3 meetings scheduled per participant; also up from last year’s 3.2.

INDABA Speed Marketing sessions are part of the many initiatives that will see travel and tourism exhib-itors from across South Africa take centre stage to sell their products and services to buyers from across the world. Exhibitors will have five minutes to demon-strate to between 170 and 200 global buyers that as entrepreneurs they understand how to operate, mar-ket and package their offerings in line with local and global trends.

“We know INDABA Speed Marketing sessions are popular, we are expecting this year’s sessions to be attended by between 170 and 200 global buyers. As South African Tourism we are grateful to our partners that have worked with us as we continue to showcase exhibitors and add value to their participation at this

all-important INDABA speed marketing sessions. We are confident the exhibitors will grab this oppor-tunity with both hands and will use it to grow their businesses,” said Chief Marketing Officer, Margie Whitehouse.

INDABA 2016 takes place from 7-9 May 2016 at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Cen-tre in the coastal city of Durban.

To get the most out of the INDABA 2016 experience, tap into the official INDABA App where you can access a detailed list of all exhibitors, schedule the events you want to attend through the comprehensive calendar, navigate through the expo with a detailed map, set up meetings with other attendees in which special meet-ing rooms will be provided, book exclusive pre- and post-INDABA tours, and join the social media #IND-ABA2016 conversation directly through the app. The app is available for both Android and IOS devices and is very easy to find, install and register.

INDABA 2016 gets ready with business focused programme for exhibitors

GITB 2016 gives new impetus to the tourism industryThe Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), in association with the Department of Tourism, Government of Rajasthan and Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, recently organised the Great Indian Travel Bazaar (GITB) 2016 at Sitapura in Jaipur.

The three-day show, held from April 17-19, 2016, was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Vasund-hara Raje, who articulated the impor-tance of tourism with a special empha-sis on extensive promotion of that of Rajasthan.

The keynote address on the occasion was given by Tourism Secretary, Gov-ernment of India, Vinod Zutshi, who recounted a growth of 13% in domes-tic tourism in 2015 which the govern-ment aims to increase up to 15% by 2018. Besides schemes like the Desert Circuit and Ajmer-Pushkar project, spiritual and pan India thematic circuits that are being developed will also benefit the state, he added.

The Chairperson of FICCI Tourism Committee, Dr Jyotsna Suri, expressed great delight in her welcome address, at GITB’s return to Jaipur once again.

The other dignitaries present at the occasion were Krishnendra Kaur, Rajasthan Minister of State for Tour-ism, Art and Culture; Shailendra Agarwal, Principal Secretary, Tour-ism, Rajasthan; Randhir Vikram Singh, Co-Chairman, FICCI Rajasthan State Council; and A Didar Singh, Secretary General, FICCI.

Rajasthan Government is also plan-ning to organise a Domestic Travel Mart on the lines of GITB for domes-tic buyers, sellers and tour operators by August, announced Agarwal.

Hosted by the state of Rajasthan, this 8th edition of GITB was also supported by leading national and regional associ-ations like Hotel &Restaurant Associa-tion of Rajasthan (HRAR), Indian Her-itage Hotels Association (IHHA) and Rajasthan Association of Tour Opera-tors (RATO).

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TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016 • 30REsPOnsIBLE TOuRIsm

Being Pro-poor – A way to approach tourism

a Lajwanti Naidu & Gaurav Bhan Bhatnagar

Tourism is considered to be one of the largest service industries in the world. With its increasing pres-

ence, increases the opportunities as well as responsi-bilities of stakeholders. Till now the focus of tourism development has been on economic, environmental and cultural benefits. But using tourism as a tool to alleviate poverty is an approach that also needs to be focused on.

There are plenty of opportunities that tourism can provide to the community living below poverty line. Participation of the poor depends on many factors like benefits they gain, type of tourism, planning & reg-ulations, market context, access to capital funds and training.

Factors that affect the participation of the poor in tourism 1. Alternate language, knowing what a tourist is, hos-pitality and sanitation are some of the basic skills that are required by the poor to begin working in the tour-ism industry. Financial capital is needed by the poor to expand their small businesses2. Areas, where the poor have access to social capital, may see greater participation in tourism related activ-ities. Eg. Bali where most restaurants are managed by families or Sekaha – voluntary organisation with clear principles of division of work and revenue3. Participation of women in tourism varies widely from as high as 60% in Bolivia to as low as 10% in some Muslim countries

4. In order to balance out the risks of seasonal, polit-ical and economic changes, tourism should generally be an additional option for the poor to increase their income. It is not an alternate for their core activities like farming, fisheries or livestock management5. Tourism can thrive only in those areas where there is the availability of sufficient quality products like landscape, wildlife, heritage etc.6. Land ownership and tenure play a major role in the participation level of the poor. If the poor sell off

their land in early stages of tourism development, they might end up being workers for outstation entrepre-neurs rather than being decision-makers7. If the poor lack the authority to negotiate with tour-ism companies, government authorities can promote their interests8. Tourists often stay in accommodations owned by outsiders and spend time at attractions that are not benefiting local people. Therefore, the poor gener-ally end up being hawkers outside popular tourist destinations

Impact of tourism on the livelihood of the poor The judgment of the impacts of pro-poor tourism encompasses not only economic benefits but also livelihood and sustainability benefits to the local community.1. There can be various forms of economic benefits from pro-poor tourism. There are wages from employ-ment, earnings from selling goods and services, prof-its from privately owned companies, and collective income from community run ventures2. Tourism can impact the poor people’s access to assets. It can generate funds for the creation of infra-structure, education, and health. But if this infrastruc-ture is not owned by the local community, it hinders the decision-making capability of the poor

Policy implementations to enhance pro-poor tourism 1. In addition to economic, environmental and cul-tural issues, issues of the poor should also be on the forefront of policymakers. While making policies, a

clear focus should also be on alleviating poverty2. Involving the poor and local community in deci-sion-making process3. A greater partnership is required between respon-sible tour operators, local communities and authori-ties to maximise benefits. Policy reform is needed on training, licensing and planning issues4. Pro-poor tourism should not only be limited to only eco-tourism and community-based tourism but it should also be expanded to mainstream tourism by diverting the focus of key stakeholders towards alle-viating poverty using tourism as a medium

From the Indian contextWith a large population to feed on limited resources, any new concept in India faces rapid and often unstruc-tured growth. Effective implementation of pro-poor tourism in the Indian context has to be top-down start-ing from policymakers in government departments. Task force teams need to be set up and major policy changes need to be done to implement the best prac-tices supporting pro-poor tourism. The policy changes can begin with structured training to government bod-ies, which can only be done by experienced responsi-ble tourism practitioners.

A recent visit to Jaisalmer and our Stay at Artist Lodge gave an insight into the musical community known as Manganiars and Langhas. They are tra-ditional Song Givers to the society with various ele-ments of entertainments. Therefore, this community was supported by the Royals of Rajasthan. Most of the songs have been orally sung from generation to gener-ation in the form of stories. With the advent of televi-sion and electronic media, the impact of this genre of music is fading into memoirs.

The stakeholders of the Tourism Industry, espe-cially the hotels, and guesthouse owners promote them by organising their musical evening at their places. Their involvement in mainstream tourism (not as a seasonal activity but as a full-fledged activ-ity) facilitates them to earn a consistent amount on a regular monthly basis. Thus, tourism has facilitated an approach for being pro-poor.

Guest Column

31 Responsible TouRism • TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | may 2016

Dusit International receives Gold Certification by EarthCheck

Green Tourism Active standard awarded the GSTC-Recognised status

PATA signs new organisational partnership with Reef-World

ITP to drive the hotelier-stakeholder engagement process in Hong Kong

Dusit International has become the first hotel group in Thailand to receive multiple properties awarded Gold Certification by EarthCheck. Nine Dusit Inter-national properties have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 34%, cut energy and water consumption by almost 20% and reduced waste production by more than two million litres.

While congratulating Dusit International on their long term commitment to sustainability, Stew-art Moore, CEO and Founder of EarthCheck, said, “Dusit International has worked with EarthCheck since 2009 to implement a sustainability manage-ment system which aligns to the group’s corpo-rate social responsibility approach, and we are very pleased to be awarding Gold Certification to these nine properties.”

Suphajee Suthumpun, Group Chief Executive Officer, Dusit International, said that as a leading hotel group, Dusit International is committed to pro-viding exceptional experiences for guests while play-ing an active part in conserving the environment. “Dusit International believes responsible tourism requires more than operating a building in a sus-tainable way. We encourage everyone, from staff to guests, to understand and embrace our approach to sustainability,” Suthumpun said.

Green Tourism Active (GT-Active) standard has now been recognised by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. This ‘GSTC-Recognised’ status affirms Green Tourism Active’s commitment to promote sustainable tourism products and services.

“We are exceptionally proud of obtaining GSTC-Recognised status. This achievement both high-lights and confirms GT-Active’s commitment to sustainability,” said GT-Active Programme Director, Sophie Nortje.

The GT-Active standard promotes complete and forward thinking, in-depth assessment of business operations, including sustainability management fac-tors as well as environmental, socio-economic, cultural and conservation efforts. It focuses on changing behav-ioural patterns through informed consumer choice, education, cost reduction, and public and conserva-tion benefit programmes.

The awarded status signifies that a sustainable tour-ism standard has been reviewed by GSTC technical experts and the GSTC Accreditation Panel in order to be deemed equivalent to the GSTC criteria. This also entails administration of the standard. Till date, 27 standards have achieved the GSTC-Recognised status.

“We congratulate Green Tourism Active for tak-ing this step to spotlight that their sustainability stan-dard includes the wide breadth of sustainability com-ponents that is proven by gaining GSTC-Recognised status,” said GSTC, CEO, Randy Durband.

AccorHotels recently announced the results of Planet 21, its sustainable development programme and renewed its commitments looking to 2020. As part of its 2020 plan, AccorHotels plans to plant 1,000 vegetable gardens at its hotels, reduce food waste by 30%, in particular by sourc-ing food locally and improve the energy efficiency in its buildings with the ultimate target of making them car-bon neutral.

Sébastien Bazin, the Group’s Chairman & CEO, stated, “The commitment and energy demonstrated by our teams in deploying Planet 21 worldwide are both valuable levers for our sustainable performance. After five years, the results of the first phase of the plan are very encouraging. Today, we want to scale up our ambitions by banking on innovation and accountability. Planet 21 Season 2 must enable us to create wealth sustainably and curb our negative impacts through the mobilisation of our employees, guests, partners and local communities. Our vision is to drive the change towards positive, more responsible and inventive hospitality, wherever we are.”

The programme for 2020 reinforces some of the Group’s fundamental commitments, such as curbing its

environmental footprint, and identifies new objectives which dovetail with both the changes to the business model and its strategic priorities, such as Food & Bever-age and the sustainable management of its property port-folio through HotelInvest.

ITP (International Tourism Partnership) is endeav-ouring to bring hoteliers and stakeholders together to identify and discuss the most pressing issues for the industry with special emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region.

In cooperation with stakeholder engagement spe-cialists GlobeScan, ITP has launched a six month project following the GRI G4 process whereby 200 external stakeholders will engage through online surveys and telephone interviews to deliberate on social and environment issues that concern the hotel sector.

The results will inform an exclusive event in Hong Kong this September where hoteliers can meet and collaborate across these issues with a range of stake-holders. Through the process, hoteliers will be able to connect with industry players to gain first hand insights into sustainability issues in the region.

Fran Hughes, ITP Director, said, “Stakeholder engagement is essential if a business wants to really understand the key issues and develop an effective corporate responsibility strategy. But stakeholders and hotel companies can sometimes struggle to start what can be difficult conversations on challenging issues. ITP bridges that gap by bringing different groups together in a neutral environment to share learning and work together to develop practical

solutions. It’s a win-win for all sides.”To be held on September 27, 2016, this event will

provide a platform for sharing the learning of the 2016 stakeholder interviews with a select audience of ITP member hotel groups. Besides, invited non-member companies and stakeholders will also be present including representatives from academic organisations, certification bodies, corporate cus-tomers, franchisees, government, industry bodies, sustainable business organisations, investors, own-ers, suppliers, trade unions and other bodies.

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and the Reef-World Foundation (Reef-World) have announced a new organisational partnership, strengthening focus on Marine Tourism in the Asia Pacific Region.

As part of the agreement, PATA officially endorses Reef-World and Green Fins, a management approach to promote and measure compliance to an environ-mental code of conduct for sustainable diving and snorkelling activities for destinations, dive operators and related ancillary products and services. PATA members will also have access to relevant informa-tion that relates specifically to diving, snorkelling and Marine Tourism.

PATA CEO Mario Hardy said, “Concerns are grow-ing about marine tourism conservation issues. We look forward to gaining insights about Reef-World’s mon-itoring of best practices of the diving and snorkelling tourism industry internationally through Green Fins. This partnership means that PATA members now have improved access to knowledge that can help us make a real difference, at the grassroots level, on a wide

range of marine tourism issues.”“At Reef-World, we strive to ensure simple and prac-

tical guidance to environmental best practice for scuba diving and snorkelling activities is freely available to everyone, regardless of business size, location or lan-guage spoken. Through this partnership with PATA and using the Green Fins management approach, we will be able to extend the reach of Green Fins to more businesses managers and owners,” said Reef-World Operations Manager James Harvey.

AccorHotels renews its commitment towards sustainable development programme

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