OTM, BLTM, TTF show calendar announcedBLTM emerges as the only international travel trade show in Delhi Fairfest Media, India’s leading travel media organisation, has announced its travel trade show calendar for the Financial Year 2018-19.

OTM Mumbai 2019

OTM, which won accolades as the leading travel trade show in India (on the basis of largest number of participants among travel trade shows in India), will be held at Bombay Exhibition Centre, from 23 to 25 January, 2019.

With 50+ countries in OTM 2018, it is also the most international travel trade show in India.

There are several new features announced for the OTM 2019, one of the most prominent being CineLocales, India’s premier marketplace connecting commercial, film & television professionals to global destinations and locations. It will have interactive sessions with film and TV producers.

OTM 2018 hosted a lively panel discussion by Film Tourism Consortium, curated by Globe Hoppers and represented by top producers like Yashraj Films, Dharma Productions and Viacom. It brought to the forefront the challenges film producers face and how to make it easier for them to shoot a film in India and abroad. Another session by Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) comprised promoting tourism to the eight beautiful and scenic landscapes of the North East - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. In OTM 2019, a larger area for CineLocales will highlight

global film destinations and production houses from all over India will be invited to attend.

Sessions on travel technology provide important knowledge sharing platforms at the OTM. Thought-provoking session by Phocuswright and TravHQ were instant hits at OTM 2018. These will be continued with even greater vigour in 2019, in addition to specialised tracks for wedding planners and travel bloggers.

OTM 2019 targets to draw 1000+ hosted buyers and 15,000+ trade visitors from all over India. It has been traditionally strong in the West and South India which is 60% of the all Indian market. In OTM 2019, it is planned to host 500 hand-picked buyers from Delhi and North India.

According to the organisers, OTM wishes to emerge as the ‘one’ show of India, that cannot be missed. Expanding on its theme ‘From Mumbai to the World’, OTM 2019 is all set to retain its lead in not only India but entire Asia Pacific region, the organisers remarked.

BLTM Delhi 2019

BLTM Delhi is timed strategically a couple of days ahead of OTM Mumbai, to make it easier for the international participants to attend both the shows in one go.

BLTM Delhi has emerged as India’s leading travel mart focused strictly on business, MICE and luxury travel. It moved from Hyatt Gurgaon to a larger venue in Delhi - Leela Ambience Convention Hotel. It can legitimately boast of being the only international travel trade show within Delhi. (SATTE moved to expocentre

in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh). 300 hosted buyers including 100 buyers from across

the world and 200 Indian buyers of MICE travel will put up with 200 marque sellers, at Delhi’s Leela Ambience Convention Hotel.

The addition of 100+ international hosted buyers will position BLTM as also the leading travel mart catering to ‘inbound’ segment - an underserved market.

BLTM Delhi in 2017 received participation of 150+ exhibitors (from 11 countries and 13 Indian states) 250+ hosted buyers and 500+ qualified travel trade visitors attended the show. The highly qualified hosted buyers pre-schedule appointments with the exhibitors of their choice using a state-of-the-art online meeting diary system.

TTF 2018-19 Series

India being a continent size country, the source market is potentially huge but also scattered in different geographical regions. This is the reason for the success of TTF branded shows in different cities to support sellers reach out to the top markets of East, West, South and North India.

Retaining its lead of being India’s oldest and largest travel show network, the TTF 2018-19 series will cover 9 metropolitan, tier I and tier II cities.

TTF Kolkata 2018 is positioned as the gateway to the lucrative East and NorthEast India markets, in addition to the huge Kolkata and Bengal market it already serves. Hundreds of qualified buyers from entire East and North East India will be invited and hosted for the show at the Netaji Indoor Stadium, from July 06-08.

Likewise, TTF Hyderabad 2018 is positioned the travel show of South India. It will be held on July 13-14 at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC). The event will invite and host hundreds of qualified buyers within the five-star show venue hotel Novotel, mainly from entire South India.

Moving on to West India editions TTF Ahmedabad 2018, will be as usual the largest in TTF series and ‘fully sold out’, due to the most lucrative Ahmedabad and Gujarat markets it serves. It will be held from September 07-09 at the Gujarat University Exhibition Hall.

TTF Mumbai, Fairfest’s ‘second’ show in Mumbai (in addition to the OTM), has the distinction of being the leading travel show there before the Diwali and winter seasons.

The ‘satellite’ shows of TTF Ahmedabad and Mumbai respectively - TTF Surat will be held from September 14-16 at Pandit Dindayal Upadhyay Indoor Stadium and TTF Pune will be held from September 28-30 at Messe Global Seasons Mall.

TTF Chennai is scheduled from 08 to 10 February at Chennai Exhibition Centre followed by TTF Bengaluru, from 15 to 17 February at Palace Grounds, Tripuravasini. Plans are afoot to reposition these shows as well, taking into account the source market factors and in close coordination with the industry thought leaders.

The line-up of these travel shows is not only the largest in terms of number of shows coming from a single organiser, but also widest in terms of content and geographical location of the shows, covering all the major source market. This earns the distinction to the organisers Fairfest Media Ltd (also the publishers of this journal) of being the largest travel trade media company in India and Asia Pacific.

Posted at NDPSO, New Delhi - 110001 on 15 & 16 of every month | Date of Publication 1st day of every month | Postal Registration No. DL(S) - 01/3532/2018-20 | RNI No. DELENG/2014/73425

Volume V l Issue 1 Pages 32 www.travelnewsdigest.in `50 / uS$5 May 2018

INDIA 04 busINess & mIce 11 AsIA 12 AfrIcA 17mIDDle eAst 15 AmerIcAs 21 techNology 26 fIlm tourIsm 28 respoNsIble tourIsm 29 eveNts 30cArIbbeAN 23 globAl 24oceANIA 22europe 19

CALE

NDAR

Chennai 08, 09 & 10 February 2019

15, 16 & 17 February 2019Bengaluru

Kolkata 06, 07 & 08 July 2018

Hyderabad 13 & 14 July 2018

Ahmedabad 07, 08 & 09 September 2018

Surat 14, 15 & 16 September 2018

Pune 28, 29 & 30 September 2018

Mumbai 05, 06 & 07 October 20182019.

January 18 & 19 The Leela AmbienceConvention Hotel - Delhi

2019. January 23, 24 & 25 Bombay Exhibition CentreMumbai

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 2 • COVER STORY

Be a pa� of India's biggest travel show network.

Since 1989, Fai�est Media has been providing an annual marketing and networking pla�orm to the travel trade industry in 9 major Indian cities.

TESTIMONIALSKolkataHyderabad

AhmedabadSuratPune

Mumbai

ChennaiBengaluru

July 201806, 07 & 0813 & 14

September 201807, 08 & 0914, 15 & 1628, 29 & 30

October 201805, 06 & 07

February 201908, 09 & 1015, 16 & 17

DO NOT MISSBLTM Delhi : 18 & 19 January 2019OTM Mumbai : 23, 24 & 25 January 2019

TTF is a trade show, visitors below 15 years are not allowed during Trade Hours. Rights of Admission reserved with Fai�est Media Ltd.

To book your vantage stand at TTF write to us at contact@fai�est.inFor more details, contact Raj Kapoor Singh +91 99 8761 5640

Visit www.�fotm.com - www.otm.co.in - www.bltm.co.in

Suppo�edby

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Organised by

The platform provided by TTF has been very helpful in promoting tourism in Sikkim. A platform like this makes it easier to communicate with a wide variety of buyers and we are able to understand their needs and demands better.

Nima Choden Deputy Director-Tourism & Civil Aviation

Government of Sikkim

TTF Hyderabad was a nice platform where we got to present different tourism products of Puducherry. TTF always provides a great chance to meet both buyers and sellers from all over the country under one roof.

S Baskaran Manager (Tourism)

Government of Puducherry

The response that we received at TTF Hyderabad was good and are happy with the buyers we met during these two days. Since this was our first participation at Hyderabad, we got great opportunity to explore the market on the local level.

Sandeep Dutta Marketing Manager

Korea Tourism Organisation

Editor & Publisher Sanjiv Agarwal(editor@fairfest.in)

Editorial BoardV SureshGazanfar IbrahimHarsh AgarwalAbraham JohnSandrine ClaracAbhinav Bhat

Executive Editor Annapurna Agarwal(annapurna@fairfest.in)

Sub EditorKathryn Kannampuzha

ContentShruti DugarDarshan Baid

Head of DesignBruno Peccoud

DesignDilip MannaRitam MaityMaruti More

Managing Director Rajiv Agarwal

Director Raj Kapoor Singh

associate DirectorsGunjan DuttRajarshi DeR MaheshTarique EbrahimVicky MenezesRaminder Singh

ManagersFatima D’CostaUma SurekaYC AnilPhilomena D’SouzaTania DasRamesh ChauhanSanjeev Gupta

assistant ManagersKanika SinghShreya BothraShiv Shankar DuttaGagandeep SinghAakash VermaDimple TakIshika MukherjeeAbhinav Dahiwade

ExecutivesKomal SolankiKhushbu ThakkarPriya DasPriyanka MandalKiran MKanchan ChoudhuryAntara Datta

Circulation Shiv Sagar Mishra

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

Printed at International Print -o-pac Ltd, C-4 to C-11, Hosiery complex, Phase-II, Extension, Noida - 201 301, Distt. G. B. Nagar, UP.

Published at 216A/1, Gautam Nagar, Gulmohar Park, New Delhi-110 049

Editor Sanjiv Agarwal

No responsibility will be accepted for unsolicited manuscripts and photos received. Despite careful selection of sources, no responsibility can be taken for accuracy.

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

All right reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited without written permission from the publisher.

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Web : www.travelnewsdigest.in

Fairfest Media Limited(CIN - U74140WB1988PLC045101)

As a country, we have been participating in other travel trade shows, however, I think BLTM - organised by Fairfest Media is just class apart. The buyers and suppliers here were more qualified than other shows of the same genre. The organisers too have done a great job to get the show on the floor and I am looking forward to taking part in the future editions of BLTM for sure.

Mucyo Ruthishisha Second Counsellor

High Commission Republic of Rwanda

This was my first time at BLTM and I was really impressed by the dedication of the people around and the organisers. Many countries have participated, and Peru, Korea and Ethiopia have come from so far just to attend the show. BLTM has played a vital role in placing India on the map of MICE and luxury tourism. I wish BLTM grows from strength to strength in the coming years.

Vassilis Skronias Plenipotentiary Ministry

Embassy of Greece

It has been a great privilege to welcome all the participants from across the country and abroad to TTF Kolkata on behalf of the government of West Bengal. I had the pleasure of inaugurating the show, which impressed me with its size of the exhibition and the large number of national and international stakeholder’s participation. West Bengal Tourism was happy to be associated with TTF Kolkata as the Host

State. I look forward to future editions of the show.

Manish Jain, IaSSecretary

Department of Tourism, Government of West Bengal

This was our second time at BLTM and in the two days’ time, I observed that many people visited our stall and it was very well received by the visitors.Taiwan is a new destination in the Indian market and BLTM was a great platform to showcase our tourism products. BLTM was a great show and I am very keen to visit BLTM again.

TRuST H.J. Lin Director

Taiwan Tourism Bureau

China and India are neighbouring countries which makes India a great potential tourism market for us. TTF Kolkata gives us a platform to promote and inform the people of India about various new products that China Tourism has to offer, such as the Silk Road Tourism and Panda Tourism. We have participated in TTF many times before and I consider it a very professional and well organised show.

Tian XinDirector

China National Tourist Office- New Delhi

We are very happy to be a part of OTM 2018 as it is the biggest travel trade show of Asia Pacific. OTM 2018 gave us a right platform to showcase our tourism products to the right set of audience. The B2B meeting were very productive and we hope that we carry out business with the network we have built in OTM.

Nuray TopuzCultural and Tourism Expert- City Planner

Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Republic of Turkey

OTM is India’s largest and most international gathering of travel trade buyers and professionals. Most importantly it is conducted in Mumbai each year which is the headquarter of almost all major outbound tour operators in India. Participating in OTM works best for Thailand as agents get to meet face-to-face and build long-term business relations with their partners in India.

Soraya HomchuenDirector

Tourism Authority of Thailand, Mumbai

OTM 2018 was one of the best travel trade shows we have ever been to. There are a lot of takeaways from this year’s OTM. We also got a chance to meet the Indian Tourism Minister KJ Alphons who visited our booth. We had excellent B2B meetings and networked with lots of industry stakeholders in OTM 2018. We are very optimistic to turn our leads into business.

yuji uenoDeputy Director- Delhi Office

Japan National Tourism Organization

Here’s what some of the industry leaders have to say about OTM, BLTM and TTF:

Be a pa� of India's biggest travel show network.

Since 1989, Fai�est Media has been providing an annual marketing and networking pla�orm to the travel trade industry in 9 major Indian cities.

TESTIMONIALSKolkataHyderabad

AhmedabadSuratPune

Mumbai

ChennaiBengaluru

July 201806, 07 & 0813 & 14

September 201807, 08 & 0914, 15 & 1628, 29 & 30

October 201805, 06 & 07

February 201908, 09 & 1015, 16 & 17

DO NOT MISSBLTM Delhi : 18 & 19 January 2019OTM Mumbai : 23, 24 & 25 January 2019

TTF is a trade show, visitors below 15 years are not allowed during Trade Hours. Rights of Admission reserved with Fai�est Media Ltd.

To book your vantage stand at TTF write to us at contact@fai�est.inFor more details, contact Raj Kapoor Singh +91 99 8761 5640

Visit www.�fotm.com - www.otm.co.in - www.bltm.co.in

Suppo�edby

Official Publication

Organised by

The platform provided by TTF has been very helpful in promoting tourism in Sikkim. A platform like this makes it easier to communicate with a wide variety of buyers and we are able to understand their needs and demands better.

Nima Choden Deputy Director-Tourism & Civil Aviation

Government of Sikkim

TTF Hyderabad was a nice platform where we got to present different tourism products of Puducherry. TTF always provides a great chance to meet both buyers and sellers from all over the country under one roof.

S Baskaran Manager (Tourism)

Government of Puducherry

The response that we received at TTF Hyderabad was good and are happy with the buyers we met during these two days. Since this was our first participation at Hyderabad, we got great opportunity to explore the market on the local level.

Sandeep Dutta Marketing Manager

Korea Tourism Organisation

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 4INDIA

Dassault Aviation seeks industrial partnership opportunities in India

Indian trade partners sign MoU with Tourism New Zealand and Immigration New Zealand

Jet Airways and Aeromexico agree to codeshareJet Airways and Mexican carrier Aeromexico have started codeshare sales from Monday for travel commencing May 1, 2018 between Delhi and Mumbai and Mexico City via the Heathrow Air-port in London. Jet Airways will put its “9W” code on flights operated by Aeromexico from London to Mexico’s capital city. In turn, Aeromexico will put its “AM” code on the direct flights offered by Jet Airways from London to cities in India.

India and Mexico have seen a 15% annual growth of traffic rate over the last three years.

Gaurang Shetty, Director of Jet Airways high-lighted, “This is an important agreement for the Jet Airways, as it enables us to offer our guests more connectivity options to Mexico which is gaining more and more traction with the discern-ing Indian traveller looking for new experiences. We are confident that this relationship will help facilitate demand for not only leisure but also in the fast growing trade and business cooperation areas between both nations.”

Anko van der Werff, Chief Revenue Officer, Aeromexico said, “The celebration of this code-share agreement is further proof that Aeromex-ico continues to work to connect its customers to the most important regions of the world, which is why it was fundamental to sign this agreement for travel to India, a country featuring continued growth of its economic activities and diverse tour-ism industry.”

Under this agreement, guests of both airlines will enjoy the benefit of earning miles with the Jet Privilege and Club Premier Loyalty programs when they travel on the codeshare flights.

Paris based aircraft manufacturing company, Dassault Aviation, in a top-level meeting in India last month sig-nalled the importance of building an industrial part-nership in India.

The gathering of the committee illustrates the com-pany’s commitment to pave the way towards building up an Indian aero-defense manufacturing ecosystem, matching the highest standards in this field and posi-tioning India as an industrial supplier reference in the global aerospace market.

In the four-day tour of India, organised by French aerospace trade body, Gifas, 60 French companies interacted with local firms in Delhi, Bengaluru, and Pune in search for industrial partners. Dassault seeked to meet the requirements of the country’s pol-icies - Make in India and Skill India.

In 2015, Dassault had come under a joint venture with Reliance Industries and set-up Dassault Reli-ance Aerospace. In 2016 Dassault won an Indian order worth some EUR 7.89 billion (USD 9.7 billion) for 36 Rafale fighters. The deal requires 30% of the total order invested in India’s research programs related to mili-tary aeronautics and 20% in local production of Rafale components to meet mandatory offset requirements.

Thomas Cook (India), SOTC Travel, Cox & Kings and Kulin Kumar Holidays are the four trade partners who have been roped under an MoU signed between Tour-ism New Zealand and Immigration New Zealand for the Tourism Industry Partnership (TIP) programme which will enable easy processing of visa for the Indi-ans travelling to New Zealand.

In lieu to the existing arrivals that New Zealand has been receiving from India, welcoming 62,000 Indian travellers in 2017, a more streamlined visa application will benefit both the sides as it will cut short the time period from the previous 15 days to only three days for the application to process.

Thomas Cook revealed that New Zealand has been emerging as a popular destination amongst not only the family segment but also millennial travellers looking for adventure and experiences that include river rafting, hiking, bungee jumping, skydiving, self drive in addi-tion to experiencing New Zealand’s spectacular scenery.

Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head - Holidays, MICE, Visa & Passport, Thomas Cook India said, “We have seen a strong and steady growth of travellers head-ing to New Zealand; with a growth of more than 19% over the last few years, it has turned into a key market for Thomas Cook India. We are honoured to have been selected as a preferred agent for this partnership. We are confident of seeing higher uptake.”

The recent report by FICCI – Yes Bank on India Inbound Tourism: Decoding Strategies for Next Stage of Growth recommended that India should encourage the promotion of niche tourism products like medical, wellness, religious and spiritual and MICE travel.

The report was presented by Vasundhara Raje, Chief Minister of Rajasthan, in Jaipur. The report stretched that there is an urgent need to create unique themes to shape inbound tourism by providing niche experiences and luxury tourism so that people across the globe consider visiting India.

The report urged state government bodies like Rajasthan, West Bengal, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, among oth-ers to develop a comprehensive ecosystem and get more involved into the process of making India as the most preferred tourists destination. The report recommends states to undertake new policies, gen-erate inciting marketing campaigns and numerous initiatives like sustainable use of existing resources to further enhance tourism in the country.

The report recommended the development of destination infrastructure, connectivity and tech-nology as they are primarily responsible for the rise in the tourism sector. The report outlined the need for incentivising private players to invest in vari-ous tourism projects and placing the tourism sector under the Service Exports from India Scheme (SEIS).

Furthermore, the report suggested on identify-ing and permitting eco-friendly activities along the waterfronts, standardising the format for collection and publication of tourism data; supporting the emergence of Indian start-ups and recognising the state-owned tourism units which can be operated on suitable PPP models.

The report categorically stated that while cross-ing the 10 million foreign tourist arrival is a momen-tous occasion for the tourism industry, it is important to acknowledge the fact that this is just the tip of the iceberg. While the initial growth surge has been fast, continuing this momentum will require a greater degree of policy dynamism as well as heightened syn-ergy between multiple layers of the industry.

FICCI - Yes Bank Report decodes strategies India should adapt to encourage niche tourism products

AtDc records INr 4.22 cr revenue in 2017Himanta Biswa Sarma, Tourism Minister of Assam while releasing the annual report of 2017-18 of Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) revealed that the state generated INR 4.22 crore last year, sur-passing the 2016-17’s report when it incurred INR 2.24 crore. He termed the 2017-18 fiscal as the “year of development.”

Owing to overcrowding in Shillong, the state gov-ernment is working on developing Umrangso in cen-tral Assam’s Dima Hasao district for tourists to better explore other parts of Assam.

Sarma revealed that the state government will take a loan of INR 730 crore from the World Bank to improve the infrastructure of the tourist destinations in the state and that the trial run of the ropeway connecting the city

with north Guwahati will begin in December this year.“We are also working on a ropeway connecting

Kamakhya temple atop the Nilachal hill from the foot-hills. The budget of the project is INR 25 crore,” he cited.

Sarma further announced that Assam Tourism’s brand ambassador Priyanka Chopra will visit Assam to shoot for a new audio-visual advertisement for the ‘Awesome Assam’ campaign.

Jal Mahal in Jaipur, Rajasthan

Priyanka Chopda, Brand Ambassador of ‘Awesome Assam’

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 5 INDIA •

tourism minister: government will take measures to double tourism in three years

Manipur organises five-day Shirui Lily State Festival to promote green tourism

India may emerge as a potential cruise destinationIndia is fast emerging as a potential destination for the cruise tourism and some new port developers in that country are in talks with international cruise management consultants for setting up terminals that can handle an estimated 200,000 passengers per year, a senior industry official has said.

Speaking about this positive growth in India and growing middle class with strong propensity to travel, Christopher Hayman, Chairman, Seatrade, which regularly organises marine industry events, said “India is a huge untapped market.”

“India is a potential destination and source mar-ket for cruise tourism. I know that some of the (Indian) ports are already in conversation with one of the major cruise terminal consultants,” he said.

“That (discussions with consultants) would be very productive,” he added. He also said that Indian government is also taking initiatives to promote cruise terminals, for inbound and outbound tourists.

He said, according to an estimate, there are over 200,000 Indian cruise passengers a year. “India is seen as a very exciting opportunity for the future. We are going to see more activities from major cruise liners and interest from India to develop the coun-try as a destination for cruise calls and India as a source market for passengers cruising worldwide,” he stressed.

The cruise industry is always in search of new itin-erary opportunity and in order to develop these itin-eraries it needs cruise terminal facilities to accom-modate the ships, Hayman said, adding that cruise liners are expanding strongly in Asia and China has become an established market with more than 2 mil-lion passengers a year.

Aviation minister: foreign airlines to market goaUnion Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu recently commented that the Civil Aviation Ministry had decided to market Goa globally. He also confirmed that he initi-ated talks with international aviation players to market destinations in India, particularly Goa.

Prabhu was speaking to reporters after reviewing the progress of the proposed expansion of the existing facilities at Dabolim airport, which includes the exten-

sion of terminal building and parking bays at the cost of INR 256 crore. He also interacted with the ministers from cabinet advisory committee of state government and other states at Dabolim airport.

“The new airport at MOPA will come up in addition to the present airport at Dabolim, which is being redevel-oped and a lot of infrastructural work has been initiated. Dabolim airport is being renovated and modernised to ensure that the airport will also remain functional even in future and to make sure it will continue to service the

growing demand for tourism,” he added.“We are already trying to modernise the existing

facilities at the Dabolim airport, which will be ready before the beginning of the next tourism season. We had a meeting with all the senior ministers of Goa and had a detailed discussion about how we should promote Goa as a tourism destination, using airport as a medium to achieve that target,” he said.

He said in additional to this the ministry of civil avi-ation has decided to market Goa and is negotiating with foreign airlines. “Recently I had a meeting with Global CEO of Singapore Airlines and told him to market desti-nations in India, particularly Goa. I will have talks with other leading airlines, including Emirates, Lufthansa, British Airways etc giving the message of marketing India and Goa globally. This is a major programme we have launched so that Goa get more high-spending tour-ists, while creating jobs in Goa,” he concluded.

Recently, Manipur State Tourism Department organised five-day Shirui Lily State Festival. The main aim of festival was to spread awareness and conserve the endangered state flower ‘Shirui Lily,’ while also promote the hill district as a potential tourist destination.

Speaking at the inaugural function as the chief guest, N. Biren Singh, Chief Minister of Manipur said, “There would be unity among us when we have cultural, emotional and traditional attachments.”

“It is indeed a pride for the Government to orga-nise Shirui Lily Festival in such a grand manner and we need to join hands to protect and preserve our indigenous endangered Shirui Lily,” he added.

During the Green Shirui Lily event which is part of the Shirui Lily festival celebration, Singh planted the first sapling, initiating the tree plantation cam-paign, following which other dignitaries also fol-lowed suit.

The Green Shirui team organised a campaign that will plant 10,000 saplings along the deforested area and clean-up garbage in and around the Shirui hill during the five-day festival.

Professor Dinabandhu Sahoo, Director, Insti-tute of Bioresource and Sustainable Development donated cherry and sweet apple saplings from Kashmir, joining the campaign.

KJ Alphons, Minister of State for Tourism (I/C), con-firmed that the government is taking all measures to double the tourists’ inflow in India in next three years.

‘‘Foreign tourist inflow in India last year grew by 15.6% and receipts grew by 20.2%. Our targets are very high and we want to double the tourist inflow and receipts in three years,” he said.

It is possible to achieve the target as India has a lot of potential and a 5,000-year-old history, which no other country in the world has, Alphons added.

The Uttar Pradesh State Tourism Development Corpo-ration (UPSTDC) recently started its first 24x7 phone helpline for better convenience of tourists. The helpline will help in providing all the necessary information to the tourists about tourism centres to the lodging of complaints, the helpline will provide all the facilities to tourists.

The main motive behind the helpline is to help trav-ellers lodge any complaints the helpline will guide them for the next step to be taken. There will also be arrange-ments to record the incoming calls on the helpline and the police, administration along with other departments have been appointed to redress all the complaints.

The tourists will be updated about the places to visit, the best modes of travelling and where to eat and stay through this helpline.

After this helpline, the arbitrary recovery made by

auto and tempo drivers in cities will end.UPDESCO (Uttar Pradesh Development System

Corporation) has been given the responsibility for the operation of the helpline.

uttar Pradesh launches 24x7 helpline for travellers

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 6 • india

BLTM is a trade show, visitors below 15 years are not allowed during Trade Hours. Rights of Admission reserved with Fai�est Media Ltd.

To book your vantage stand at BLTM write to us at contact@fai�est.in

For more details, contact Raj Kapoor Singh +91 99 8761 5640

www.bltm.co.in

BLTM identifies high-value target buyers and decision makers with real buying power and helps you meet them face-to-face in the span of two days. We bring you, your customers, your peers and the media together under one roof in a world-class se�ing.

BLTM is designed to maximise your return on investment. Pre-schedule appointments with key buyers using our state-of-the-a� online tool, and meet exclusively with 500+ qualified buyers in a speed networking session. BLTM maintains a 2:1 buyer to seller ratio, benchmarking it with the best in global MICE focused shows.

Pa�ner Countries Feature Countries

Organised byMedia Pa�nersKnowledgePa�ner

OfficialPublicationInstitutional Pa�ners

Pa�ner HotelFeature StatesPa�ner Airlines

2019.January 18 & 19

The Leela Ambience Convention Hotel, Delhi

Some of our Pa�ners & Suppo�ing Organisations at BLTM 2017

India's leading trade show onBusiness, MICE and Luxury Travel.

150+ sellers from 11 countries met 250+ fully hosted buyers from 30+ cities in India, by appointments made online and on-the-spot, in BLTM 2017.

150+Sellers

11Countries

250+Hosted Buyers

13Indian States

IRCTC offers package tour to Thenmala and Courtallam

Travel agents based in Mysuru are banking on introduc-ing a special election package to global tourists to lure in tourism at a time when Karnataka assembly elections are to roll out on May 12.

Done in a bid for foreign tourists to explore as India unfolds its democratic exercise with their diversified rallies and campaigns, Mysuru-based travel agent BS Prashanth, who is also an office-bearer of Karnataka Tour-ism Forum, has been promoting the concept among his contacts and is trying to woo few international tourists. He has circulated the message among 70 different travel agents across India.

With Mysuru being one of the country’s most preferred tourism destinations, industry stakeholders are hoping to cash in on the flavour of the season since the elections are coinciding with the peak tourist season. Tour opera-tors are planning to approach foreign tourists interested in seeing the election process as campaigns by various politi-cal parties are gathering pace, especially in the rural pock-ets of Mysuru.

Prashanth said India has great scope for election tour-ism but little has been done to tap its potentiality. “Our plan is to take foreign tourists to election campaigns, events and rallies in Mysuru and show them how elections in India are fought. They will also be taken to villages nearby to give them a real experience of democracy in India. I’m sure tourists would love the experience,” Prashanth said.

HP Janardhan, Deputy Director of Tourism Depart-ment, Mysuru, stated that the election tour idea seemed to be a good one. “We’re really open to any such initiatives to introduce our republic to the peo-ple of all nations.”

“We’re in the process of making a 3-5 minute pro-motional video and use them on social media to reach out to a large number of tourists. I have a few open jeeps that will come in handy for this election tour-ism,” Prashanth said.

The subsidiary of the Indian Railways, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Cor-poration (IRCTC) will be offering a rail tour package from Chennai to Thenmala and Courtallam. Thenmala is an eco-tourism retreat while Courtallam is the ‘Spa of South India.’ The package includes a return jour-ney in SL for standard package and 3AC for comfort package, a 2-nights AC accommo-dation at Courtallam, AC road transfers for sightseeing places, and all sightseeing and excursions as per the itinerary will be provided. The package is one among a host of other rail and air travel packages that IRCTC is offering this summer.

Dalmia Bharat signed a Memorandum of Understand-ing (MoU) with Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, for adoption of Red Fort monument under the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ project. With an estimate of over INR 5 crores per year, Dalmia Bharat joined ‘Monu-ment Mitras’ from other various private sector compa-nies to look after the operations and the maintenance of this heritage site for the next five years.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Chief Guest K J Alphons, Minister of State for Tourism (I/C) and other senior officials of Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Culture and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

Puneet Dalmia, Managing Director, Dalmia Bharat Group said, “We are very honoured to have adopted one of the India’s top heritage sites. At Dalmia Bharat, we take pride in Indian culture and practise it at the workplace. Adopting a heritage project is a unique endeavour by Ministry of Tourism which envisions in developing monuments, heritage and tourist sites across India to enhance their tourism potential and cultural importance. We look forward to adding value to India’s heritage sites in every possible manner.”

Sundeep Kumar, Executive Director, Dalmia Bharat Group said, “With our dedicated efforts we will endeavour to make Red Fort a world-class monument in terms of amenities and experience. Such initiatives will enhance the tourist experience, resulting in more footfalls from both domestic and foreign tourists. With our efforts we will make Indian heritage sites a symbol of pride for all of us.”

The first of its kind adoption enables Dalmia Bharat to construct, landscape, illuminate and maintain activ-ities related to provision and development of tourist amenities. This includes various basic and advanced amenities such as public conveniences, clean drink-ing water, cleanliness of the monument, accessibility

for all, signage, cloakroom facilities, illumination and night viewing, surveillance system, tourist facilitation cum interpretation centre among others.

In addition to this, Dalmia Bharat will also intro-duce other key amenities for the visitors like App based multilingual Audio-Guide, Digital Interactive Kiosk, Digital (LED) screening, free Wi-Fi and cafete-ria along with souvenir shop which will help in pro-moting local art and craftsmanship. There will be construction of ramps and differently-abled friendly toilets. Facilities like wheelchair availability, battery-operated vehicles, and braille signages are some of the key additions which will make Red Fort a barrier free monument. Use of advanced surveillance system like PTZ based CCTV cameras will also be installed

as permissible guidelines as per ASI. Dalmia Bharat will also assist in controlling the advanced tourist flow management system linked with carrying capacity of the monuments including light and sound shows with regular cultural shows and facilitation of night visits to the monuments.

The ‘Adopt a Heritage Scheme’ (Apni Dharohar Apni Pehchan Project) was launched by President of India on World Tourism Day (September 27, 2017). According to private and public sector companies and corporate individuals are invited to adopt heritage sites and to take up responsibility for making them and pro-mote sustainable tourism through conservation and development under their Corporate Social Responsi-bility (CSR) activities.

Ministry of Tourism and Dalmia Bharat sign Mou to adopt Red Fort

Dalmia Bharat signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, to adopt Red Fort, under the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ project

Karnataka based travel agent eye election tourism

The union home ministry recently announced a pub-lic-private partnership (PPP) for three projects each in Andamans and Lakshadweep under the centre’s initiative for the sustainable development of islands.

Key tourism projects under this scheme include an eco-friendly resort on Andamans’ Smith Island where one can indulge in adventure sports and turtle

sighting, a premium resort in Long Island’s Lalaji Bay where game fishing will define the agenda as well as wellness activities on Avis Island.

The home ministry, in consultation with other cen-tral departments and the administration of Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands, gets projects on track for development of pre-identified islands with a

focus on exploiting their tourism potential.As many as 26 islands have been identified for

development, of which plans are ready for nine while suitable projects shall be conceived for 17 oth-ers. An investment of INR 650 crore is expected from private companies in tourism, MSME and IT sectors in these islands.

centre announces ppp to boost tourism in Andamans and lakshadweep island

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TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 8 • india

Suresh Prabhu: Swachh Bharat can address public health issue, promote tourism

PHDCCI and IYA sign MoU to promote Krishna circuit tourism

Recently, The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has signed its Annual Performance Contract (APC) for the year 2018-19 with Ministry of Civil Aviation.

The MoU was signed between R.N. Choubey, Secretary (Civil Aviation) and Dr. Guruprasad Mohapatra, Chairman, AAI. Senior officials from the Ministry and Board Members of AAI were also present.

The MoU specifies various parameters and tar-gets to be performed by AAI during the year. The parameters and targets include all the major areas of AAI i.e. finance, capacity utilisation, research and development, project implementation, HR and cargo etc.

The AAI has undertaken an ambitious tar-get of INR 4,100 crores towards capital expendi-ture on airport infrastructure development dur-ing 2018-19.

The AAI has also signed target to utilise 94% of its total passenger capacity at its airports. Also, to improve the quality of services, AAI has under-taken to carry out Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Survey at its top 20 airports by an International agency i.e. Airports Council International. AAI has also agreed to carry out HR audit at its air-ports in order to strengthen its Human Resource.

The Ministry of Tourisms’ ambitious culinary insti-tute aimed at promoting Indian cuisine as a niche tourism product was inaugurated recently.

The Indian Culinary Institute (ICI), with its cam-puses in Noida and Tirupati, will offer diplomas as well as undergraduate and postgraduate degrees to research in culinary arts.

The institute will also have fully equipped kitchen labs, microbiology labs, cuisine theatres, training restaurants, fully equipped classrooms, library and

a modern hostel with facilities for 400 students, the statement said.

The ICI campus in Noida was launched by K J Alphons, Minister of State for Tourism (I/C) and Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Culture, who was the chief guest at the inauguration event.

The Noida campus is spread across five acres of land. With the total project cost of INR 98 crore, the campus has an academic block, commercial area, hostels for boys and girls, guesthouse for visiting faculties and other amenities like water harvesting.

The statement by the tourism ministry said that the main objective of setting up of the ICI was to institu-tionalise a mechanism to support efforts intended to “preserve, document, promote and disseminate Indian cuisine, meet the sectoral requirement of specialists spe-cific to the cuisine, as also of promoting it as a niche tour-ism product.”

At present, there is a dearth of state-of-the-art train-ing grounds in the country to groom top-of- the-line chefs of international standards, it said.

To fill this void, the Indian Culinary Institute would provide the appropriate training platform at par with the elite chef schools functioning in different parts of the developed world, the statement added.

The PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) and the Indian Yoga Association (IYA) recently signed a memorandum of understand-ing (MoU) to facilitate interaction and cooperation between the two organisations to promote wellness, spiritual and cultural tourism in the Krishna Circuit.

The MoU was signed between D K Aggarwal, Vice President, PHDCCI, and Kamlesh Barwal, Secretary General, IYA, in the presence of yoga guru Ramdev.

The two organisations have joined hands to pro-vide a holistic tourism experience to domestic and international travellers looking for some spiritually invigorating and cultural experiences.

On the occasion, a curtain raiser of the first edition of the Tourism Summit, proposed to be held on Sep-tember 1-2 at Vrindavan and Mathura, was unveiled by Ramdev and H R Nagendra.

In his address, Ramdev focussed on the unique and rich heritage of India, which, he said had the potential to make it a frontrunner in the wellness, spiritual, knowledge and health sectors.

This niche sector is sought to be promoted effec-tively by industry partner PHDCCI, which is com-mitted to bringing about effective changes in the management, innovation and proactive develop-ment of strategies and strengthening the linkages for advancement through partnerships with like-minded organisations.

Places associated with Lord Krishna constitute the Krishna Circuit in Uttar Pradesh. The centre has been trying to promote it as a major tourist attraction.

Suresh Prabhu, Aviation Minister, recently com-mented that government’s ‘Swachh Bharat’ or ‘Clean India’ initiative has the potential to address public health issues and promote tourism in the country.

“Swachh Bharat can become a big change agent for India. It has huge potential to push economic growth,” Prabhu said. “Once this campaign is suc-cessful, there will be economic growth because the moment sanitation issue is addressed, the public health will get addressed which will give a boost to economic growth.”

“I think several issues will get addressed by Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. We can address public health related issues, tourism, which is the fastest growing sector, will also be benefited by Swachh Bharat,” he said.

“Sanitation is something that requires effort of all, not just the government. Government can only moti-vate, facilitate and help but without self-motivation, we cannot do it,” he added.

Recently, the Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with Google India launched a 360° virtual reality (VR) experience video on the Incredible India campaign. K J Alphons, Minister of State for Tourism (I/C) stated the project was aimed at showcasing the country as an “iconic destination.”

“India is an iconic destination that offers unique experiences of climate, geography, culture, art, litera-ture and food,” he said.

The function was also attended by Rashmi Verma, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Chetan K , Director, Policy Planning and Government (Google India), and Google representatives.

The minister said the centre wanted to give the peo-ple in India and across the world an opportunity to immerse in the country’s rich heritage. And through the partnership with Google, it wants to engage new and global audiences, and offer them immersive content in a never seen before manner.

“Taking virtual reality to the common man at a low/

free cost will further enable an increase in the tourist footfall in iconic monuments and other tourist destina-tions with a focus on museums. Incredible India in 360 degrees, as never seen before, takes one through a jour-ney across Hampi, Goa, Delhi and Amritsar. One can explore the places and people that make each of these iconic sites incredible,” Alphons added.

Ministry of Tourism collaborates with Google India for 360° VR campaign

Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Civil Aviation

AAI signs APC with Ministry of Civil Aviation for 2018-19

Ministry of Tourism launches Indian Culinary Institute

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 9 INDIA •

Rakesh Bawa, Senior General Manager - Sales, received the 2018 Outlook Traveller Award

sotc travel wins awards for excellence across its business segments

“Bollywood on a Boat” to promote Indian tourism in Amsterdam

Aviation minister: government is undertaking programmes for skill development in aviation sectorCivil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu recently chaired a meeting of airlines and airport operators during which he stressed the need for making India the next cargo hub. Prabhu also emphasised developing a robust chopper service, manufacturing of aircraft hardware in India and carrying out a demand survey for development of routes.The minister said suggestions have been invited from all stakeholders on the proposed cargo policy as the aim was to make “India the next cargo hub”.

Ajay Singh, CMD, SpiceJet who attended the meeting, said there is a great potential for air cargo in India, which is set to become a USD 5 trillion industry by 2025, and the minister stressed that the opportunity should not be missed in achieving the stated objectives.

“We also told the airlines and airports that service delivery is extremely important,” Prabhu said. The Min-ister said that as aviation is a service driven industry,

customer feedback was crucial for better ser-vice delivery.

The suggestions of members of Parliament should also be taken note of “in a proper man-ner” for bettering services, he said. Prabhu said the Government is undertaking pro-grammes for skill development in cooperation with airlines as there was a huge job require-ment in the civil aviation sector and related sectors also.

The meeting today was described as an introductory one where the Minister sought to take suggestions from the stakeholders in the aviation sector. During the deliberations, he praised the efforts of all stakeholders in achieving close to 30% growth during the last couple of months.

SOTC Travel Limited has won two awards at the 2018 Times Travel Awards for Business Travel and Domestic Holidays. The Times Travel Awards salute India’s Travel & Tourism Stalwarts who have transformed the industry with their innovative products, services and practices.

SOTC Travel was also recently awarded the Best Outbound Tour Operator at the 2018 Outlook Traveller Awards. The Awards recognised excellence in travel and tourism sector in India.

SOTC has been the pioneer in the development of organised leisure travel in the outbound and domes-tic division. SOTC Business Travel continues to pro-vide customised travel and travel-related solutions to India’s top corporates. We attribute our success to our commitment and conviction to constantly rein-vent ourselves. Supported by an esteemed jury panel, these awards put into perspective the emerging trends

in India’s tourism Industry.Speaking on achieving the awards, Vishal Suri, Man-

aging Director, SOTC Travel said, “It is truly an honour and a proud moment for us to be awarded these pres-tigious accolades. These awards applaud SOTC’s inno-vation and excellence across enterprise and consumer segments. At SOTC, we drive customer centricity in all our business segments. The awards showcase our ongo-ing commitment and efforts in embodying the spirit of customer delight while offering them enriching travel experiences.”

In an initiative to promote tourism to India and its culture “Bollywood on a Boat” in association with India Tourism and Jet Airways was launched in Amsterdam on the Kings Day.

Decked with banners of Incredible India and upcoming International Yoga Day celebrations, the boat with folk dancers and Dhol (drum) players sailed through the three main canals of Amster-dam - Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizers-gracht, a statement from the Indian Embassy said.

Dancers from the Netherlands Marathi Man-dal performed folk dances from different parts of India like Dhol, Lavani, Bihu, Bhangra and Ghoomar, while members of the Bollylicious Troupe showcased Bollywood dances on the boat.

Indian Ambassador to the Netherlands Venu Rajamony and prominent members of Amsterdam flagged off the boat on the occasion of the Kings Day.

April 27 is celebrated as the Kings Day in The Netherlands in honour of the birthday of King Willem-Alexander. A national holiday, the Day is marked with nationwide parties, flea markets and concerts.

In Amsterdam the streets and canals burst with orange - the national colour - as the “Amsterdam-mers” enjoy the biggest street party of the year. This year the “Bollywood/Folk Dances on a Boat” was a colourful and novel addition to the canals of Amsterdam which are the most popular tourist attractions of the country.

Darshan Baid | Kolkata In recent years, India has drastically grown into a med-ical tourism hub. In 2015-16 more than 460,000 interna-tional patients were treated in India. Speaking exclu-sively to Travel News Digest about the boom in Indian medical tourism space, Dr. Vinod Sonawane, MD- Hair Transplant Surgeon and Managing Director at Bloom Hair Transplant said, “India’s current medical tourism market is around USD 3 billion and is expected to grow exponentially by 2020. We have seen a 40% increased footfall in the number of patients at our clinic over the past 3 years.”

Furthermore, Sonawane confirmed that India will stand out as a global hub for medical tourism in the global map in near future due to improvement in health systems, affordability and high quality of treatments supported by the use of the latest technology.

Sonawane also pointed out the ease of getting a med-ical visa is one of the driving points of the medical tour-ism boom in India. He said, “Visa application has been super easy due to India’s growing tourism industry, improved customer support and variety in the desti-nation options present in India. Prospect patients now plan a recreational tour to India with medical tourism being one of the parts on their agenda.”

Speaking about the popular treatment in India, Sonawane commented, “Some key procedures where India has been on the forefront are hair transplant,

mesotherapy, stem cell therapy, botox, liposuction, body hair transplant (scalp, eyebrow, moustache and beard). Indian counterparts have done fairly well in a highly competitive global market due to improved practices, knowledge share, updated technology, top quality and cost benefits one has to offer.”

He confirmed that countries like Bangladesh, UAE, Indonesia, UK and Malaysia are the key markets for India in medical tourism. He also said, “Foreign hos-pitals and clinics look for a tie-up with Indian doctors as more doctors are equipped with the latest skills. The pattern has now focused on patients seeking quality as a priority when going in for a treatment.”

Sonawane asserted, “India will be future for medi-cal tourism due to its strong health systems, equally pro-ficient doctors, top-notch quality, updated use of tech-nology and last but not the least affordability being one of the criteria.”

India turning into one of the preferred medical tourism destinations Indian medical tourism market churns revenue of around USD 3 billion and is expected to grow exponentially by 2020

MTDC signs seven LoI with travel trade to boost tourism in the stateMaharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) signed multiple Letter of Intent (LOI) agree-ment with leading hotel chains, tourism companies and potential investors.

The agreements are the first step towards identifi-cation of partners to collaborate on the large opportu-nities of promotion of Maharashtra as a medical tour-ism hub. Agreements were signed with Eram Group and ITL Group offices from United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to pro-mote Maharashtra as a preferred destination for medical, wellness, cultural, experiential and heri-tage tourism.

Speaking on the occasion, V. K. Gautam, Sec-retary for Tourism, Government of Maharashtra, shared, “Maharashtra has many large-scale natural landscapes which have huge tourism potential. We were successful in taking some of these discussions forward and signed collaboration agreements with established names in the travel and hospitality space.”

MTDC is also promoting its major tourist attrac-tions spanning magnificent coastline and beaches, wildlife, hill stations, pilgrimage centres, adventure tourism, experiential attractions and the cultural heritage.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 10INDIA-Hospitality

lulu group International launches hotel-cum-convention centre in Kochi

OYO eyes over 1 million keys by 2018

7 Pines - “An English Retreat” in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh is the newest accommodation offering by the Leisure Hotels Group. Positioned as a bespoke leisure property featuring 12 rooms, the group will be market-ing it as a premium offering at a rack rate of INR 12,000 per night. Strategically located two hours from Chan-digarh and 5.5 hours from Delhi by road, 7 Pines is one kilometer ahead of Jagjeet Nagar, overlooking the Hima-layan valley.

Alongside, the company will be opening a 72-key business hotel in Greater Noida in Delhi-NCR by Octo-ber this year and launching its first hostel project in

Rishikesh. Alternative accommodation and the hybrid product is a new product and Leisure Hotels is enthusi-astic about it, commented Vibhas Prasad, Director, Lei-sure Hotels.

Ideal for families, small corporate groups, etc., the boutique property is designed for people to disconnect with the hustle and bustle of a city life. Targeting the markets of Delhi and Punjab, both online and offline mediums are being adopted to attract the trade and con-sumers alike. Indoors 7 Pines can accommodate 25 peo-ple at a time. The experiences and activity options will be further enhanced in due course of time. As of now, guests can indulge in morning yoga, picnic lunches, gui-tarist singing by the bonfire, small indoor kid playing area, movie collection, library, cooking classes, access to hop in and around Kasauli to shop and adventure hikes for adventure-seeking people. A unique itiner-ary is designed for people from West India.

“After 28 years of hospitality experience in Uttarakhand, we are the largest as we have already con-quered the market. We wanted to expand into new ter-ritories and Himachal seemed a good opportunity as a weekend destination,” said Prasad. He also added that they are thinking of launching a wellness spa as well - a specialist spa program in partnership with Tattva Spa. Leisure Hotels is already functioning with Tattva in four of its hotels in Uttrakhand in Rishikesh, Haridwar, Cor-bett, and Nainital.

OYO will be expanding its portfolio in the Indian hospitality sector by partnering with hotels and real estate assets with large inventory portfolio consisting of 100+ rooms under its franchisee and management contracts. OYO has already partnered with 12 such hotels and is managing them across markets includ-ing Delhi, Goa, Bengaluru, Tirupati, Hyderabad, Noida, Vrindavan, and Patna.

Commenting on the milestone, Maninder Gulati, Chief Strategy Officer, OYO, said, “In the past year, we’ve on-boarded with hotels ranging from 100-200 rooms each as well as hotels having over 80 rooms. With similar additions in the coming months, we’ll continue to expand our large hotel portfolio. We are upbeat about our India story and plan to go deeper into our existing markets while adding 50+ cities to the network and capturing a 5% share of India’s hotel market by 2018-end.”

LuLu Group International, a UAE based retail brand, has established the INR 1,800 crore conven-tion centre and hotel project in Kochi. Yusuff Ali M A, Chairman and Managing Director, LuLu Group International announced it is the largest convention centre in India with a total capacity of 10,000.

“The project is part of INR 13,000 crore expan-sion plan of the group in India in the retail, hospital-ity, and food processing centres,’’ he said. The pro-posed projects include a shopping mall in Lucknow; hotel, convention centre, and mall in Visakhapat-nam; shopping mall in Hyderabad, and food process-ing centres in Telangana. The hotel and convention centre at Bolgatty Island will be managed by Hyatt Hotels and Resorts.

Ali added that with the launch, he aims at making Kochi and Kerala the hub of MICE in India. Accord-ing to him the lower cost, good connectivity, and scope for leisure activities will lure more travellers to the centre at Kochi.

LuLu Group’s other projects in Kerala that are under construction include a shopping mall in Thiruvananthapuram, a cyber tower at Infopark in Kochi, and expansion of its convention centre at Thrissur.

Yusuff Ali M A, Chairman and Managing Director, Lulu Group International

Jose Ramapuram – Director Marketing, Evolve Back Resorts

Leisure Hotels unveils 7 Pines - “An English Retreat” in Kasauli

Shruti Dugar | Kolkata Karnataka has been on the global map for some time now making headlines ranging from startups to its rich cultural heritage. “We are dedicated to providing exquisite holiday experiences that promote the purity of nature and culture of the local land,” said Jose Rama-puram – Director Marketing, Evolve Back Resorts (for-merly known as Orange County Resorts).

Speaking exclusively to Travel News Digest on the expansion plans this year, Ramapuram revealed that the demands from tier I and II cities in India has been on rise lately, owing to the huge market potential. “We are looking to tap the new-found interest among peo-ple for experiential travel, especially at untapped desti-nations. We’ll be launching a resort at Kumta in North Karnataka district, based on the theme of local fishing village, spread across an area of 30 acres with an invest-ment of INR 50 crore,” announced Ramapuram.

He added, “We also plan on broadening our hori-zon to central India by expanding to the medieval town of Mandu in Madhya Pradesh, which will be a palace-themed resort with an investment of INR 35 crore. On the international front, Evolve Back plans to expand to Africa and Asia in the coming years with a proposed integrated architectural development that complements the location.”

Highlighting their marketing strategies this year, he cited that they participate in national and international trade shows as per needs. With the profusion of online portals and platforms, familiarisation (FAM) trips and roadshows have become a great source of avenue for engaging with the target audience regularly.

Speaking about the speciality of the brand, Rama-puram highlighted that Evolve Back is devoted to the concept of ‘Responsible Tourism’ and by engaging in various initiatives that contribute to the economic, social and environmental well-being of the local community, it is doing their role for a sustainable development of the society.

Currently Evolve Back operates in Coorg, Kabini and Hampi with 146 keys across the three properties. With the four new projects lined up over the next three years, with a total investment of INR 112 crore, they are eying on building a brand value both nationally and internationally.

Evolve Back Resorts to expand with four new properties by 2021

Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty opens in India It will be the first Grand Hyatt hotel in South India

Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced the launch of Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty, the third Grand Hyatt branded hotel. The 264-room luxury hotel is a waterfront urban resort situated in Kochi in the south Indian state of Kerala. The resort is owned by Lulu Group International and is adjacent to the sprawling Lulu Bolgatty Interna-tional Convention Center, the largest in South India.

Speaking on expanding the footprint of the brand in the region, Sunjae Sharma, Vice President of Oper-ations - India, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, said, “We are delighted to introduce the Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty, which is a spectacular destination resort setting a new standard for living grandly in the city. Both inside and out, the hotel’s design, cuisine and grand experiences cel-ebrate the hospitality of Kochi.”

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 11Business & MiCe

fcm travel solutions targets INr 4,000 cr turnover in 2018

Tamil Nadu emerges as a critical market for business travel with 23% growth

MICE reactivates travel to non-seasonal destinations As per research reports, outbound and inbound travel to and from India is on a considerable growth. Indian trav-ellers took three leisure trips and two in five Indians took international trips. At the AccorHotels Showcase 2018 last month, it was revealed that MICE is on the rise glob-ally, and India is quick to take its advantage with it emerg-ing as an ideal hub to hold meetings and conventions.

Arif Patel, Vice President Sales, Marketing, Distribu-tion & Loyalty AccorHotels said, “By 2020, Indian out-bound travel is estimated to reach 48 million and foreign tourist arrival is forecast to cross the 10 million mark. The Indian customers knows about destination, and our role is to demonstrate what we can offer in the destination. By further fueling the MICE segment, our country stands a chance in attracting investments into the sector.”

Safae Guerehoun, Senior Sales Manager, Fairmont Ajman commented, “We are mainly focusing in the MICE and Destination weddings from Indian market. In last four months we had five destination weddings all of them from the India. We are exploring more exposure in the Indian market, as we want to be known among all the wedding planners in India.”

As a large part of middle class are getting incomes as well as knowledge of the world to travel, the activity asso-ciated with MICE has become an important pull factor which provides a boost for urban destinations. It makes it possible to reactivate the non-seasonal destinations and eventually increases the demand for high-end ser-vices and provides a relatively high mean expenditure per visitor.

philippines’ bacolod city to host mIcecoN 2018Bacolod, a city on the northwest coast of Negros Island in the Philippines, is chosen to host the Meeting, Incentive, Convention and Exhibitions Conference (MICECON) in August this year.

“In the tourism world, MICECON is a highly special-ised program that is prestigious and very lucrative. This is something that is very prestigious and our hosting will mean that we are also now in the league of big players

in tourism,” pointed out Evelio Leonardia, Mayor of Bacolod.

The Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) has been alloted to formulate and implement an integrated mar-keting program for Philippine tourism. The TPB will also be responsible in propagating Philippines as an ideal destination, both domestically and internation-ally, as a major global tourism destination.

Leonardia highlighted the tentative opening of MICE-CON might fall on August 8, which also coincides with the 10th anniversary of the Bacolod Government Center.

Em Ang, Councilor & Chairperson of the City Council committee on tourism, citing that event, being strategi-cally located, will boost tourism in Bacolod and also give the opportunities for the employment in the area to grow considerable since MICECON is such a big gathering of the country’s influential professionals and practitio-ners. The event is expected to feature atleast 600 exhib-itors including airlines, hotels, resorts, convention cen-ters, event organisers specialising in the MICE segment.

Rakshit Desai, Managing Director - India, FCM Travel Solutions, revealed that the company is aiming to achieve around 50% growth this fiscal year and has targeted to incur INR 4,000 crore. The company, which follows a July-to-June fiscal year, had clocked a revenue of INR 2,700 crore in the country in the financial year 2016-17.

“We have an extensive portfolio of businesses across leisure, corporate travel and forex. 55% of our existing business is from corporate travel including SMEs and the remaining 45% business is from leisure travel and forex,” Desai added.

FCM Travel Solutions is the Indian subsid-iary of Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) in Aus-tralia. Desai stated, “The accelerated economic growth of the country ranks the Indian chapter as one of the top five countries for the company’s global growth. Noticing this, we are adding cor-porate offices across key metros, tier II and III cit-ies across India. We also plan to increase our foot-print across 20 more cities in the next two years through the franchise route.”

Recently, FCM Travel Solutions rebranded their travel retail and holiday brand -Flight Shop under a single leisure brand Travel Tours.

Tamil Nadu has emerged as a critical market accounting for about 10% of the overall leisure busi-ness with a year-on-year growth of 23%. With leisure business expected to see a growth of 20-25% this year as a result of increasing outbound from tier II,III and IV Indian cities, Thomas Cook (India) suggested the growth is due to policy reforms over the years.

Romil Pant, Senior Vice President – Leisure Travel, Thomas Cook (India) said, “This year, we’ll be focusing on strengthening our presences in the tier II,III and IV cities by launching regional tours, which includes regional language speaking operator, co-travellers and regional cuisine. Since its launch in Tamil Nadu, we’ve received an encouraging success.”

Highlighting the emerging trends that as visa pro-cedures becomes easier, people are excited to explore newer market. On the domestic front, he said the emerging trend was to combine religious travel with a domestic trip.

The emergence of Bengaluru as the “Silicon Valley of India” has made it one of the world’s most dynamic cities with exceptional economic growth and strong business activity. With a constant rise in the number of business travellers visiting the city, Bangalore has been attracting the hospitality sector over the past few years now Marri-ott International opened its second Sheraton in the city.

Faiz Alam Ansari, Complex General Manager of Sheraton Grande Bengaluru Whitefield Hotel & Con-vention Center and Aloft Bengaluru Cessna Business Park, stated, “The travel and tourism industry has huge growth potential, not just in Bengaluru but across India. With multiple initiatives by the Government of India, the tourism industry is looking forward to the expan-sion of the e-visa scheme. This alone is expected to dou-ble the tourist inflow to India.”

The Indian hospitality sector is predicted to wit-ness high growth in the coming years. Citing that Busi-ness travel and MICE are expected to be the key growth

segments in India, Ansari stated that the domestic travel is likely to be the primary driver of the sector’s growth. India’s rising middle class and increasing disposable incomes continue to support the growth of both domes-tic and outbound tourism.

MICE & Business travel acquires major foothold in Bengaluru

Faiz Alam Ansari, Complex General Manager of Sheraton Grand Bengaluru Whitefield Hotel & Convention Cente

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 12ASIA

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Melissa Yang, Co-Founder, Tujia

Japan records USD 10.5 billion spending by international travellers

Home-sharing industry in China soars

SriLankan Airlines and Air Seychelles enter special prorate agreementRecently, SriLankan Airlines and Air Seychelles have entered into a Special Prorate Agreement that will enhance their respective route networks and provide greater travel options in a seamless manner to the pas-sengers of both airlines.

Capt. Suren Ratwatte, CEO, SriLankan Airlines, said, “We are indeed happy to embark upon this part-nership with Air Seychelles, which we are confi-dent will be a win-win situation for both airlines and most of all to our valued customers. For SriLankan’s

passengers, this will allow easy access to three new destinations in South Africa, Mauritius and Madagas-car via Seychelles, while customers of Air Seychelles will have enhanced options to connect to India and the Far East on SriLankan flights.”

Remco Althuis, CEO, Air Seychelles, said, “We are delighted to begin working together with SriL-ankan Airlines as our new interline partner. This deal will provide our guests with more travel options to Asia and on the reverse side, allow travellers flying with SriLankan Airlines to connect onto our Indian Ocean network. Partnerships such as this are essen-tial in widening our reach and providing more value to travellers.”

Passengers on SriLankan Airlines will have expanded options to fly on Air Seychelles to Johan-nesburg, Mauritius, Madagascar and the domestic destination of Praslin in the Seychelles. Passengers travelling with Air Seychelles will be able to pur-chase through-tickets for SriLankan Airlines flights from Seychelles to Colombo, and onwards to Mumbai, Bangkok, Singapore, Tokyo, Beijing and Hong Kong.

Vietnam and Taiwan encounter massive tourism exchange in 2017

Vietnam welcomed more than 616,000 Taiwan-ese tourists last year, which represented 121.5% increase year-on-year compared to 2016. The number of travellers is also expected to continue increasing past 800,000 visitors for the year 2018.

Similarly, a giant increase in Vietnamese tour-ists to Taiwan was also recorded last year. Over

380,000 Vietnamese tourists visited Taiwan last year, which is a 94.94% increase over 2016. Taiwan expects to host about 700,000 Vietnamese guests in 2018.

Vietnam noted that the MoU signed between the two nations in 2012 has resulted in easier visa poli-cies hence assisting the tourism to grow drastically.

Japan encountered a robust growth in the foreign arrivals this fiscal year through March. According to Japan Tourism Agency, the figures had jumped 19.9% from the previous year to welcome 29.77 mil-lion international travellers.

Spending by the foreign tourists in the January to March period surged 17.2% from the previous year to JPY 1.13 trillion (USD 10.5 billion), buoyed by shop-ping sprees by individual travellers from China and South Korea. The average spending per visitor in Japan also rose to 0.6 % to JPY 148,891.

From January-March this year, Chinese travel-lers spent the most totalling to JPY 439.1 billion, fol-lowed by Taiwanese at JPY 149.5 billion, South Kore-ans at JPY147.6 billion and visitors from Hong Kong at JPY 81.9 billion.

Home sharing industry is on a humongous rise in China as the market value reached around USD 680 billion (RMB 4.5 trillion).

This sudden growth in home sharing is spurred by several factors, one of which being an increased interest in customised, independent travel experi-ences in the Chinese domestic tourism market. This home sharing industry will grow at a rate of 40% annually in the next five years.

Tuija, China’s largest home sharing company, noted that the company has a vast network of 130,000 landlords and operators.Home sharing in Chinese market has promoted for the development of its shared-accommodation industry.

Home sharing companies like Tujia and Airbnb bring an extra income to the home owners in most of the vacant properties. Unlike in many Western coun-tries, home sharing is becoming more of a mainstay source of income for many Chinese homeowners, instead of a supplement income.

To lure the Japanese travellers and to strengthen the ties with Japan, Nepal recently organised ‘Nepal Festival’ in Fukuoka, Japan.The Nepali community in Japan, who has been working to promote tourism by spreading the Nepali art, culture and heritages in Nepal, held a tour-ism publicity campaign at Fukuoka, Japan. The cam-paign which was limited to Tokyo only has now been taken outside the capital of Japan.

The two-day festival was organised recently for the first time at Fukuoka on the west to Tokyo. According to organisers, the objective of the festival was to make the Japanese nationals aware about the Nepali art and culture and inspire them to visit the country. Fukuoka will be hosting the Nepal Festival every year on the occa-sion of Nepali New Year.

The Ambassador of Nepal to Japan Pratibha Rana praised the Nepali community residing at Fukuoka of their efforts meant for promoting the country’s tourism. She was hopeful that such efforts would help send more and more investment to the country.

Ram Krishna Shrestha, the former president of the Festival Organising Committee and Fukuoka Nepal

Society, said that the Nepal Festival is being organised as it would benefit not only the Nepalis in Japan but also the Nepalis back home. More than 15,000 people enjoyed the festival.

The exhibition stalls showcased Nepali food, cos-tumes and culture along with publicity materials on Mt Everest, Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam Bud-dha, the apostle of peace and tourism sites as Sauraha, among others were featured in the Festival. Nepal Fes-tival will be organised also in Nagoya in the near future.

Nepalese community in Japan organises ‘Nepal Festival’ to lure travellers

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TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 14 • asIa

china to develop hainan to generate more tourism from the region

South Korea receives 1.37 million travellers in March 2018According to the data from Korea Tourism Organization(KTO), arrivals from Hong Kong have increased by 30.3% year-on-year in March. Overall, visitors to South Korea jumped to 10.7% to 1.37 mil-lion in March 2018 from 1.23 million in March pre-vious year.

Visitors from Taiwan grew by 26.3% year-on-year, and those from Vietnam jumped by 49.7% year-on-year, during the period.

A total of 13.3 million foreigners visited South Korea in 2017, down 22.7% from 2016.

The number of visitors from the neighbouring country grew by 11.8% on-year to 403,413 last month, according to the data.

The number of outbound South Korean nationals, meanwhile, came to 2.25 million last month, up 16.1% from 1.94 million a year earlier, the data showed.

To lure more international travellers, Hainan prov-ince in China is getting tourism packages with best policies and insurances covering tourism, duty-free shopping and medical services. Known as China’s Hawaii, Hainan, will become a “free trade port,” to boost economy with the increase in tour-ism industry.

Hainan will also adopt more open duty-free shopping policies and international flight routes will be increased.

The tourism plan by China is aimed to increase the domestic and foreign tourists to Hainan. The entrepreneurs and real estate developers are invest-ing to build luxurious and ultra-luxurious resorts and shopping destinations along with sandy, white beaches.

About 67 million tourists visited Hainan last year. It is helping to grow its tourism industry to RMB 81 billion (UND 13 billion). There are 1.1 million over-seas visitors visiting in China’s Hawaii last year.

Thailand is aggressively positioning itself as a strong MICE and wedding destination, to take advantage of the expanding Indian market for these segments. Accord-ing to a data by The Thailand Convention and Exhibi-tion Bureau (TCEB), Thailand welcomed 129,717 MICE travellers from India in 2017 which is an increase of 36% over the previous year.

Cities like Chiang Mai, Pattaya, Rayong, Phuket, Khon Kaen, Hua Hin and Chiang Rai hold a great poten-tial for MICE tourism.

The recent Mega Fam tour from India showcased some excellent properties in Bangkok and eastern part of Thailand, which are aggressively targeting the MICE and weddings market.

Avani Pattaya Resort & Spa: Located in the middle of Pattaya city, with its lush tropical gardens and pan-oramic views over the beach, Avani Pattaya Resort & Spa offers its guests an opportunity to relax in a green tropical paradise, within hopping distance of the beach, walking street, and other attractions. The hotel boasts of almost 300 luxury rooms and suites designed for total comfort and relaxation. Every room has a private ter-race with natural decor reflecting the brand’s interest in maintaining the balance of art, nature and community. Avani Pattaya Resort & Spa is the best weekend getaway for the travellers from India and other neighbouring countries who are looking for relaxing and a fun-filled weekend, after a busy convention or conference. (www.minorhotels.com/en/avani/pattaya)

Rayong Marriott Resort & Spa: Set on the beautiful Eastern Thai coastline just two and a half hours drive from Suvarnabhumi Airport, Rayong Marriott Resort is emerging as one of the most popular destinations for Indian weddings. With over 200 well-appointed spa-cious rooms and 25,000 sq ft of event spaces, indoor hall, lawns, beach, hilltop and a bar, it is well-equipped to host big fat Indian weddings, having hosted 25 big ones last year. Guests can enjoy beachfront resort activities and boat excursions to the pristine nearby islands, such as Koh Mun and Koh Samet. As a MICE venue Rayong Marriott Resort & Spa scores full marks for innova-tive and extensive meeting spaces including spacious

state-of-the-art venues, efficient event management team, and just about anything which a demanding Indian wedding group could require.(www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/bkkrr-rayong-marriott-resort-and-spa/)

Montien Riverside Hotel: Located along the pic-turesque Chao Phraya River, Montien Riverside Hotel boasts its own traditional Thai boat - the Montienthip. The hotel ensures perfect stay for the MICE and busi-ness traveller and is equipped with an Executive Floor offering personalised service and a list of executive priv-ileges, including panoramic views of the river from its rooms. The Hotel offers variety of amenities and priv-ileges to its guest like outdoor swimming pool with sundeck, table tennis, aerobic dance studio and tra-ditional Thai massage, oil massage, foot massage and sports massage amongst the other world class facili-ties. The Montien Riverside Hotel was the gracious host of the opening Gala Dinner for the Mega Fam, where the top brass of the Tourism Authority of Thailand presented their vision and plans for the coming year. (www.montien-riverside.com)

Thailand hotels gear up for the Indian MICE and weddings market

Recently, Bangladesh and Nepal have launched a trial bus service between their capitals through India as two buses carrying delegates of the three nations left Dhaka for Kathmandu.

“The trial run aimed to establish communication with Nepal by road,” said Fariduddin Ahmed, Chair-man, Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) who led the delegation of 25 Bangladeshis, 12 Indians, six Nepalese and one Asian Development Bank (ADB) official that left yesterday.

Officials familiar with the process would scrutinise in detail all aspects of the journey on the 1,200-kilome-tre route.

“A protocol is expected to be signed on the basis of the delegation’s report for launching a regular and direct bus service between Dhaka and Kathmandu,” said Naz-rul Islam, Secretary, Bangladesh Road Transport and Highways division, adding, “This marks a good begin-ning of sub-regional connectivity.”

The proposed commercial bus service comes under

the purview of BBIN (Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal) Motor Vehicles Agreement, which the four countries signed in June 2015 to enable movement of passenger and cargo vehicles.

Operators say the proposed route will cut short the journey by more than 100 kms, while straightening the way. Currently, passengers use the Lalmonirhat-Burimari-Changrabandha-Siliguri route to go to Kathmandu.

Trial run of Bangladesh-India-Nepal buses flags off in Dhaka

Avani Pattaya Resort & Spa

Rayong Marriott Resort & Spa

Montien Riverside Hotel

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 15middle east

Hassan Madah, Director, Israel Ministry of Tourism, India & Philippines

Avedis Guidanian, Tourism Minister, Republic of Lebanon

Maitha Saif Majid Al-Mahrouqi, Undersecretary, Minister of Tourism, Sultanate of Oman

Ola Cabs and Israel collaborate to lure Indian travellers

lebanon looks at targeting the mIce segment

uAe tourism booms, jobs in the sector to grow by 4.1% this year

Kathryn Kannampuzha | Mumbai

Lebanon, known as a leisure destination, promoted the country as a favourable destination for MICE at ATM 2018. Avedis Guidanian, Tourism Minister, Republic of Lebanon was present at ATM and talking exclusively to Travel News Digest, he informed, “In the past Lebanon mostly looked at promoting leisure tourism and this was

the main image of Lebanon when it came to tourism. Now we are looking at promoting other segments too, mainly MICE. We are trying to make Lebanon a destination for conferences and events. We are planning to target all those companies that can consider Lebanon for their events.”

Highlighting the facilities in Lebanon to support MICE tourism, Guidanian said that Lebanon has the right infra-structure and venues for the conferences and have facil-ities like restaurants and good hotels that will help cater to the MICE segment. “Lebanon is a destination where one can have their conference and also enjoy a leisure trip as we have a great nightlife in Lebanon, pleasant weather and good cuisine. We can satisfy every type of tourists be it leisure or MICE.”

Lebanon is targeting new markets and new kinds of tourists. So far Lebanon majorly focused only on gulf countries but, now we have the chance to target new mar-kets like India, China, Russia and European countries since we have the stability and security in place, averred Guidanian. “Lebanon already has tourists flowing in from European countries like France, Germany and England and hence we are at ATM to promote a new image of Leb-anon,” added Guidanian.

In UAE, the travel and tourism sector contrib-uted a total AED 154.1 billion (USD 41.95 billion) – 11.3% to the UAE’s GDP in 2017, according to data released by the World Travel and Tourism Coun-cil (WTTC). The figure is expected to rise 4.9% in 2018 and 3.8% per annum to AED 234.2 billion (USD 63.77 billion) by 2028, constituting 10.6% of the UAE’s GDP. Additionally, the direct contribu-tion of travel and tourism to GDP in 2017 was AED 69.1 billion (USD 18.81 billion), a figure expected to rise 5% to AED 72.6 billion (USD 19.77 billion) in 2018.

The data also revealed that the travel and tour-ism sector generated 300,000 jobs directly in 2017, contributing to 4.9% of the total employment. In 2018, jobs generated by the sector are expected to grow 4.1% to 312,500, including restaurant and lei-sure industry jobs supported by tourists.

By 2028, travel and tourism will account for 396,000 jobs directly, and support a total of 720,000 jobs, or 10.2% of total employment, said Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy, UAE.

In 2017, the UAE also generated AED 123.5 bil-lion (USD 33.62 billion) in visitor exports, which is expected to increase 5.3% in 2018.

Capital investment in tourism is also expected

to go up 7.2% in 2018, from an estimated AED 25.4 billion (USD 6.92 billion) in 2017. By 2028, capital investment is forecast at AED 62.1 billion (USD

16.91 billion) in 2028. Travel and tourism’s share of total national investment will go up from 8.2% in 2018 to 11.2% in 2028.

Israel Ministry of Tourism and Indian cab aggre-gator Ola Cabs signed up to collaborate on a two-week contest that ran from April 16-30 on the Ola app which was valid for its Mumbai and Pune users only. The Ola users who undertook the maximum number of rides during the two weeks period and used the code “ISRAEL” stood a stand a chance to win a free trip to Israel for 3 nights and 4 days.

Talking more about the association Hassan Madah, Director – India & Philippines, Israel Ministry of Tourism, said, “Ola is one of the larg-est taxi services in India and have a large user base, especially in metro cities. We are always thinking of distinct ways to promote Israel and felt this association with Ola cabs will help us reach Ola’s over 80 lakh users in Mumbai and Pune.”

The company promoted the contest by market-ing digitally, through push notifications, in-app promotion, mailers (Mumbai and Pune database), Ola website and running the campaign on their social media pages.

Israel welcomed close to 10,000 Indian travel-lers between January and March this year, result-ing in a 15% increase in Indian tourist arrivals compared to the same period in 2016. Eying the responsive growth, recently Air India launched direct connection from Delhi to Tel Aviv.

Kathryn Kannampuzha | Mumbai Oman Air launched 787 new Boeing first class seats at ATM 2018 as one of the strategies to expand to new destinations in India, Russia, European countries and Morocco.

“We are expanding a lot in India as we all know that India is one of the areas where there is lot of poten-tial. India today is one of the top most source mar-kets for travel and tourism. We launched in China last year, this year we announced Russia and new destina-tions to Europe. We also announced to Morocco. We increased our frequencies to Europe and also region-ally,” informed Maitha Saif Majid Al-Mahrouqi, Under-secretary, Minister of Tourism, Sultanate of Oman.

Previously, people just used Oman as a stopover connecting hub from Asia to Europe or vice-versa and other destinations but, Oman has seen an average of 15-20% increase in Indian tourists every year, said Al-Mahrouqi.

Another major development in Oman is the new air-port. Opened last month, Muscat International Airport has a capacity to accommodate 3 million passengers at a time, highlighted Al-Mahrouqi.

Oman caters to not only leisure but also a large

number of business tourists and this destination is also one of the most preferred locations for weddings especially by Indians. Oman has all that is needed for an Indian wedding, averred Al-Mahrouqi.

Oman is also closely working with film producers and few films are in the pipeline to be shot in the country.

Oman Air launches new first-class seatsExpands to new destinations in India, Russia, Morocco and European countries

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 16 • middle east

Aries group’s Indywood consortium to invest usD 10 bn in India

India emerges as fourth largest market for Ras al-KhaimahKathryn Kannampuzha | Mumbai

Ras al-Khaimah has focused on the Indian market since a couple of years and today the Indian mar-ket has become our fourth largest after Germany, UK and Russia, said Haitham Mattar, Chief Execu-tive Officer, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority, Government of Ras Al Khaimah.

Ras al-Khaimah witnessed a growth of 20% year-on-year and Mattar gave the credit of this growth to the wedding segment. He averred, “The wedding tourism kicked off in Ras al-Khaimah in the year 2016 with two weddings and in 2017 with 16 weddings. In 2018, 20 weddings are already in the pipeline and they all are from India.”

Mattar agrees that Indian market looks for exclu-sive destinations for weddings and Ras al-Khaimah serves as one of the best destinations for an Indian wedding. Ras al-Khaimah has also won an award in India for the most sought after destination for weddings.

Speaking exclusively to Travel News Digest, Mattar highlighted, “In 2016 Ras al-Khaimah had achieved 11% growth and in 2017 about 19% growth. Hotels too are enjoying a fantastic growth. In the first quarter of this year we have achieved a 12% growth and hotels have seen 4% occupancy growth in the first quarter. March has been a great month with 87.5% occupancy growth – one of the highest in any UAE destinations. RevPAR has seen a 5.5% growth.”

Ras al-Khaimah targets to welcome 1 million vis-itors by the year end and by 2025, aims to receive 3 million visitors, cited Mattar.

Ras al-Khaimah is also eyeing on the millennial travellers who seek adventure by introducing the longest zipline in the world.

The UAE-based Aries Group’s Indywood Consor-tium has initiated USD 10 billion investment in India and Middle East as part of ‘Vision 2020’ said Sohan Roy, CEO and Chairman of Aries Group.

“We will increase our market share in marine, tourism and entertainment sector by 2020. We will invest USD 10 billion in the next five years and it would generate 100,000 job opportunities.”

Shruti Dugar | Kolkata

Jordon, a country famed for its ancient monuments, nature reserves and seaside resorts and also home to the famous archaeological site of Petra, has renewed their tourism strategies this year and are eying signif-icantly on adventure tourism and religious tourism to boost tourist’s arrival to the Middle Eastern country.

Ala’a Al-Hindi, Director of Digital Marketing & IT, Jordon Tourism Board, while speaking exclusively to Travel News Digest at the side-lines of ATM 2018, stated that GCC serves as an important source market for them and that this year they plan on positioning the country as an ideal destination fit for adventure and faith tourism.

Jordon boosts 21,000 archaeological and histori-cal sites. The Roman ruins of Jerash, the Dead Sea and Wadi al-Kharrar, or Bethany Beyond the Jordan, where some biblical historians believe Jesus was baptised are some of the important sites which will be promoted for religious tourism to attract growing number of tourists from Asian countries including India, China, Malaysia and Indonesia, cited Al-Hindi.

India ranked among the top 10 source market for Jordon, announced Al-Hindi. He said that owing to growing arrivals from India, they have eased visa appli-cation. He also highlighted a new promotional tool, “Jordon Pass” whereby booking tickets online will give them opportunity to explore the major sightseeing in

Jordon, a package especially tailor-made. The country has set a target to welcome 7 million

tourists by 2020 and hence is also tapping strategically on its medical tourism drive. In March, Jordon eased visa application for medical purposes from major Mid-dle east and African countries and allowed them to obtain visa within 48 hours.

The kingdom hopes to woo more European trav-ellers as per a recent agreement with a low-cost airline Ryanair for 14 new routes between Europe and Jordon.

Jordon to position as an ideal destination for religious tourism

Sohan Roy, CEO and Chairman of Aries Group

Haitham Mattar, Chief Executive Officer, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority, Government of Ras Al Khaimah.

Ala’a Al-Hindi, Director of Digital Marketing & IT, Jordon Tourism Board

India ranked among top 10 source market to Jordon

QtA opens office in mumbaiQatar Tourism Authority (QTA) has opened a represen-tative office in Mumbai, India at an event held on May 3 at The Trident. The 11th in a network of offices around the globe, the office is set to tap into one of the fastest-growing outbound tourism markets in the world, sec-ond only to China.

Rashed AlQurese, Chief Marketing and Promotion Officer at QTA commented, “The rapid growth of India’s outbound tourism market in recent years, coupled with QTA’s intensified efforts to diversify and grow visitor source markets makes it the right time to establish our on-the-ground presence in India.” He added, “The steps taken to make accessing Qatar easier are particularly targeted at visitors who are seeking to experience our

country’s luxury hospitality and unique cultural offer-ings, all while benefiting from the convenience of rela-tively short flights.”

QTA’s representative office in India will oversee a wide range of promotional initiatives, including work-shops, sales visits, travel agent destination training through QTA’s online Tawash programme, partner-ships with tour operators, familiarisation trips, media campaigns and a variety of innovative activities to raise Qatar’s profile as leisure and business tourism destina-tion among Indian tourists.

Qatar has become an increasingly accessible destina-tion for Indian travellers, especially after Qatar waived entry visa requirements for Indian citizens last year. In the first quarter of 2018, Qatar welcomed more than 110,000 visitors from India. The country’s award-win-ning national carrier has 100 weekly direct flights con-necting the capital Doha to thirteen major cities across India. These are matched with another 67 weekly flights on board Indian airlines Indigo Airlines, Jet Airways and Air India Express bringing the total to 167 flights a week.

QTA’s office in Mumbai closely follows the opening of a representative office in Moscow, Russia last March. It joins an international network currently covering the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, the United States of America, China, Russia, the GCC markets and South-East Asia.

Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Chairman, Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority, Government of Sharjah

Kathryn Kannampuzha | Mumbai

Sharjah has set a target of getting 10 million tourists by 2020 and to achieve this target, new hotels and prop-erties coming up in Sharjah to cater to the niche mar-ket. Currently Sharjah has an inventory of 10,000 rooms and more than 5,000 rooms are in the pipeline which will come up in the next three years, said Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Chairman, Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority, Government of Sharjah.

India is a huge market and is being perceived by many destinations. India is a very important market for Sharjah, averred Al Midfa. “We had 138,000 hotel guests from India last year and we know that we have a high potential to get tourists from India as our aircraft - Air Arabia flies from about 13 cities in India.”

The airport expansion by Sharjah is on-going which currently can accommodate about 10 million passengers

and we plan to expand the airport to accommodate more 5 million passengers within the next five years. An amount of 1.5 billion AED is already invested in this project, highlighted Al Midfa.

Sharjah targets 10 million visitors by 2020

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 17AfricA

Lagos has the potential to become Africa’s tourism hub: Alhaji Lai MohammedRecently on the occasion of Lagos Tourism Summit, the Minister of Information and Culture of Lagos, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has stated that Lagos has the potential to become Africa’s tourism hub. The min-ister also confirmed that the government will sup-port the tourism ministry in making tourism a devel-oped sector.

The minister commended Gov. Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos for his interest in the tourism and creative sectors of the economy; both at the state and national level.

Mohammed said, “Federal Government had iden-tified the tourism and creative sectors as alternative to oil, adding that his ministry was working toward developing the industry.”

After taking over the office his ministry of tourism organised a national tourism summit to provide the platform for harnessing the potential in the sector.

He also confirmed that the ministry had revived the national tourism master plan to catalyse the development of the sector and also hosted a round-table on financing tourism.

Darshan Baid | Kolkata

Situated in North Africa, Morocco is home to beauti-ful and pristine beaches, mosques and ancient cities. According to the data shared by Morocco’s Tourism Ministry, in 2017 Morocco welcomed more than 11.35 million travellers from across the globe making it one of the most visited countries in Africa.

Speaking exclusively to Travel News Digest, on the sidelines of recently concluded Arabian Travel Mart (ATM) official spokesperson from Moroccan National Tourist Office said, “Our main object of participating in ATM is to attract travellers from different markets across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.”

Pointing out India as source market, he asserted, “ India is definitely one of the important markets for us. We are focusing on the Indian market, we will organ-ise FAM trip, roadshows, promoting our destination through Media. We will also work on improving the

air connectivity between India and Morocco.”Notably, Morocco welcomed more than 21,850

Indian travellers in 2017 and the Moroccan Tourist Ministry is eyeing to double the above-mentioned arrivals from India in 2019.

The official spokesperson also confirmed that a representative body from the Moroccan National Tourist Office (MNTO) will open in New Delhi in order to promote Morocco’s high potential in the Indian market.

In regards with exchanging tourism with India, Moroccan Ambassador in India, Mohamed Malki said, “The opening of a representative body of the MNTO will allow us to plan strategic promotion programs in order to benefit from the Indian mar-ket, which offers great opportunities.”

The official spokesperson highlighted that Morocco tourism is also focusing on the highly lucra-tive Indian destination wedding market.

Morocco eyes to double the number from India in 2019; to set-up a representative office in India

www.ethiopianairlines.com

JULY 2018

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 18 • africa

The African country of Rwanda has been awarded World Travel & Tourism Council’s (WTTC) first Global Leadership Award. The award was pre-sented to Dr. Edouard Ngirente, Prime Minister of Rwanda at the Gala Dinner of the 2018 WTTC Global Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Announcing the award at the Gala Dinner in Buenos Aires, Gloria Guevara President & CEO of WTTC said, “It is an honour to present our first Global Leadership Award to such an inspiring and transformative country. Much of the world has heard about Rwanda, but mostly about its troubled history. Since the worst genocides in our lifetime in 1994, the country has gone from bor-dering on a failed state and a real-world cemetery to one of the most remarkably transformed coun-tries in Africa.”

Rebuilt on a strong foundation of reconcilia-tion and powered by the determination to suc-ceed, Rwanda is now a leader in education and in environmental responsibility. Its economy is robust, helped by a focus on sustainable travel and tourism.

Rwanda now welcomes a million tourists a year. Travel and tourism represents 13% of the country’s GDP and 11% of employment. Initia-tives to protect the country’s unique Gorilla pop-ulation, while generating significant income from the visitors they attract, as well as the establish-ment of national parks to protect the environment ensure tourism growth benefits not just the nat-ural environment but the communities who live and work there.

The WTTC Global Leadership Award is an annual award which recognises countries which have not only prioritised travel and tourism but have put sustainability at the heart of the sector’s development.

WTTC honours Rwanda with Global Leadership Award

Dr. Edouard Ngirente, Prime Minister of Rwanda

Mogobo David Magabe, Consul General, South Africa Tourism and Hanneli Slabber, Regional Manager- Asia, Australia and Middle East

Kenya Association of Travel Agents sees growth in air tickets by Sh2.5bnThe total number of air tickets that we have sold in the last two months have increased by 15% to stand at Sh2.5 billion announced Nicanor Sabula, Chief Executive Offi-cer, Kenya Association of Travel Agent (KATA). This is a result of increased air connectivity in Africa and rela-tive tranquility on the conclusion of Kenya’s presiden-tial election.

“The country is relatively peaceful as we speak. We see the figure rising to about Sh4.5 billion in the next three months.”

According to data released by the Ministry of Tour-ism in February, Africa was the second largest source of tourists to Kenya in 2017 at 29% behind Europe’s 36% while the US came third at 15%.

“We have seen an increase in the number of carri-ers that are coming into play. For instance, Air France is already here, Air India is coming and Qatar Airways is introducing a flight to Mombasa very soon. This means that there will be increased seat capacity on our airlines which is good news for us,” asserted Sabula.

The UN World Tourism Organisation also stated that 1.3 million tourists spent Sh100 billion in Kenya last year, a 17% increase from the previous Sh85 billion. The UN Agency reported total international arrival by air and sea increased by 16.7% to stand at 877,602 tourists com-pared to 752,073 in 2016.

Shruti Dugar | Kolkata Since its official launch of a representative office in India in 2013, Seychelles Tourism Board (STB) has been eying the Indian market exponentially. While speaking exclu-sively to Travel News Digest on the side-lines of Ara-bian Travel Mart, Sherin Francis, Chief Executive Offi-cer, Seychelles Tourism Board, informed that India has emerged as a very positively growing market.

Within a year after reaching the top 10 in 2016, India ended 2017 as Seychelles’ seventh leading source mar-ket from the Asian continent, with over 14,000 Indian tourists having visited the island destination, a 15% up from the previous year’s statistics.

Speaking about the promotional strategies planned for India, Francis revealed that India being a new source

market for them has performed extensively well and hence this year they plan on positioning the country as an ideal destination for family and MICE segment.

Though Seychelles is renowned for welcoming honey-mooners across the world, they want to grow beyond.

“Yes, tourists travelling here are primarily for romantic honeymoon travel, but we have realised that there’s so much more one can do in Seychelles. The pos-sibilities are still unexplored and that’s why we want to pass the message that this year we plan on expand-ing our segments to family, MICE and business travel,” said Francis.

In 2018, Seychelles plans on encouraging its adven-ture tourism potential by promoting snorkelling, cruising, jet skiing, unique fishing experiences and windsurfing.

Seychelles recorded the highest source market from Germany, welcoming around 50,000 arrivals. France and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) recorded 42,000 and 25,000 tourists and emerged as second and third largest source revenue generating market for the island country respectively. Italy and UK welcomed on an average around 20,000 visitors.

Seychelles taps on Indian arrivals extensively in 2018

Sherin Francis, Chief Executive Officer, Seychelles Tourism Board

Shruti Dugar | Kolkata India has emerged as the eighth largest source market for South Africa. For the period of January 2017 to Septem-ber 2017, MICE contributed 32.8% of total Indian arriv-als into the land, leisure holidays made up 26.8% while business travellers made up 16.4% and Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) was at 16%.

Another significant observation was the rise in mil-lennial Indian travellers to South Africa. In the first quar-ter for 2017, nearly 35% of the Indian visitor base com-prised of 35-year-old while, for the second quarter of the

year, it grew to 46%. In 2017, Delhi contributed 22% to the overall Indian arrivals to South Africa while Mumbai was at 37%, Gujarat at 11%, Bangalore at 8% and West Bengal at 7%.

Since 2005, when the South African Tourism first started positioning itself in the Indian market, the demand from the land has been on constant high. Term-ing it as a special year, South Africa plans to achieve more than 1 lakh holiday arrival by the end of 2018, informed Hanneli Slabber, Regional Manager: Asia, Australia and Middle East.

Mogobo David Magabe, Consul General, South Africa Tourism, who was present at ATM 2018 in Dubai, cited that UAE is one the largest and important source mar-ket to South Africa. One of the key focus plan this year is to raise awareness about new destinations like Oudt-shoorn, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Port Elizabeth and the Drakensberg region. The immensely popular Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Kruger National Park will be further developed to lure the travellers.

The Departments of Home Affairs and Tourism of South Africa are also setting up a dedicated team of offi-cials to fast-track progress in easing visa requirements for visitors in order to boost the number of tourists to South Africa. This is done in order to simplify travel by minors and also ease the visa requirements for residents of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) and the introduction of electronic visas for incoming tourists.

India emerges as 8th largest source market to South Africa

To market adventure tourism and experiential travel segment

Plans to ease processing the visa to attract tourists from BRICS nation

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 19europe

Cyprus records 3 million arrivals in 2018

European Union launches European Capital of Smart Tourism

In addition to consolidating its position as an indispensable tourists’ destination, Turkey, in the recent years has created a niche in health tourism. It has primarily become a center of hair implan-tation by welcoming people from more than 70 countries who demanded hair implant services.

Highlighting that Turkey has emerged as a pio-neer and the “reference country” in hair trans-plantation across the world, Özlem Safiye Kurt, Council Member of Turkish Medical Tourism Development, announced that last there had been 31% increase in health tourism where more than 1 million arrivals amounted to health tourism lead-ing to foreign exchange inflow of more than USD 10 billion.

“Turkey is one of the leading countries in the world in the field of hair transplantation. Our doctors dealing with health tourism have serious hand skills attracting attention from around the world. Our achievements in this area are spread-ing throughout the world with every passing day. We aim to increase this figure to a much higher point by 2023. “

Pointing out that Turkey has come under the spotlight in this area on a global scale. Kurt noted that demand from Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar are high and from equally responsive from European countries like Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and France.

According to Kurt, hair transplantation opera-tions worldwide are expensive hence paying half the price in Turkey, along with its geographical proximity and hospitality people prefer Turkey which overall makes a positive contribution in the development of tourism potential in Turkey.

Approved by the European Parliament, the Euro-pean Commission launched the European Capi-tal of Smart Tourism to recognise the outstanding achievements in smart, innovative, sustainable and inclusive and the culturally diverse tourism by the European Union (EU) cities that showcases innovative measures taken by them to promote Europe as an ideal destination for tourism.

Two European cities that demonstrate innova-tion, creativity and excellence in four categories - accessibility, sustainability, digitalisation, cul-tural heritage and creativity - will be awarded the title of European Capital of Smart Tourism 2019 that aims to highlight the multi-faceted contribu-tion of tourism to sustainable development.

The awarded achievements will be presented on the European Tourism Day, i.e. on 7 Novem-ber 2018 in Brussels. The winners of the Euro-pean Capital of Smart Tourism 2019 will receive expert communication and branding support for a year, a marketing video, a purpose-built sculp-ture for their city centre, and tailor-made promo-tional actions. In addition, four European cities will receive thematic European Smart Tourism Awards for their outstanding achievements in the categories listed above.

Smart tourism responds to new challenges and demands in the ever changing tourism sector which is filled with digital information, techno-logical upheaval, equal opportunities and access for all visitors, sustainable development of the local area and generating employment by pro-moting local creative industries. Tourism is the EU’s third largest socio-economic activity - it rep-resents almost 10% of EU GDP and supports 25 million jobs.

Cyprus is experiencing a robust arrival this year by welcoming of 369,438 tourists, compared to 285,693 arrivals last year for the travel period Jan-uary to March. According to data from the Passen-gers Survey, the figures are an up by 29.3% as per last year’s statistics.

The 2018 figures also set an all-time record for number of arrivals for the first three months of the year. The month of March registered 192,090 tour-ists compared to 140,873 during the same month last year – an increase of 36.4%

According to the Passengers Survey, the major-ity of tourists belonged to the 20-44 age group whereas 73.6% of arrivals were here on holiday, 13.2% were visiting friends or relatives, and 13.1% arrived for business.

The results of tourist arrivals for March 2018, which officially wrapped up the winter season (November 2017 – March 2018) recorded an increase of 23.2% when compared to 2016-17 period created a high sense of responsibility apart from optimism, an official from the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) stated.

Turkey’s tourism sector has made a fast start in 2018, as the recent positive early booking figures and demand across the globe suggests that the country expects 40 million tourists and over USD 30 billion in tourism revenue this year.

Taking into account the favourable demands from Europe, which is defined as the country’s main mar-ket, and the Commonwealth of Independent States, tourism experts predicts that Turkey is to witness record breaking arrivals in 2018. Firuz Baǧlıkaya, Chairman of Travel Agencies Association (TÜRSAB) said as a result of a favourable demand from abroad this year, the sector expects to see an all-time high.

Baǧlıkaya also added that within the scope of the tourism revenue at the end of 2018, they anticipate that the average tourism income per capita will reach USD 750. While the country welcomed 32.4 million last year, according to Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data.

Numan Kurtulmuș, Minister Of Culture and

Tourism, Republic of Turkey stated that Turkey tour-ism’s next five year target is to welcome 50 million tourists and generate USD 50 million income by 2023.

According to the Culture and Tourism Ministry, Turkey welcomed 3 million foreign visitors in the first two months of 2018 during its winter period, which increased by 34.91% year-on-year in the first two months.

Baǧlıkaya revealed that demands from Germany and Russia, which are Turkey’s main tourism mar-ket, are very positive. Germany’s demand increased by 60% whereas Russia’s by 30%. From its European neighbours, Turkey expects the number of visitors from UK and the Netherlands to rise. In terms of outbound arrivals to Turkey from Russia, the coun-try is forecasting an increase of 20%. According to British flight search app Skyscanner data, April 30 - May 9 flight bookings from Russia to Istanbul have increased by 102% compared to the same period last year.

Turkey anticipates 40 million tourists, uSD 30 billion income in 2018

Turkey

Cyprus

Turkey witnesses 31% increase in health tourism in 2017

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 20 • EUROPE

more than 250,000 chinese visited turkey in 2017

Portugal to boost employment by spreading tourism in unexplored places

ritz hotels makes world record by auctioning furniture for eur 7.3 millionRecently, Ritz hotels in France auctioned off its lux-ury furniture for EUR 7.3 million making the world record in hotel industry. The hotel which was the home for a while to writers like Ernest Hemingway and Marcel Proust and fashion legend Coco Chanel. The hotel authorities sold off all 10,000 pieces of fur-niture and decor.

The auctioned furniture included stools from the Hemingway Bar, a 19th-century bathtub and sofas and a harp from the Proust Lounge. Earlier, Hotel de Crillon made EUR 5.9 million from a furniture sale, while Plaza Athenee made EUR 1.4 million. The Ritz Hotel sale outperformed those of other hotels around the world, the auction house said.

The buyers bid for objects ranging from velvet

security cordons and curtain ties to rugs, bed frames and sets of bathrobes and slippers embroidered with the Ritz insignia. The price estimates ran from EUR 100 for a pair of tablecloths to EUR 10,000 for a pair

of nymph sculptures carrying bronze candelabras that used to decorate the lobby.

The hotel decided to sell the pieces from its famous Place Vendome address when it reopened in June 2016 after four years of extensive renovations. Owned by Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed since 1979, the Ritz Hotel had accumulated all the impressive quantities of objects since it was opened in 1898 by Cesar Ritz.

It has served as the backdrop to several key moments in history. The Nazis requisitioned it dur-ing World War II but had cleared out by the time Hemingway burst in with a group of Resistance fight-ers on Aug 25, 1944, gun in hand, to “personally lib-erate” it.

Spain surpasses US to become second most visited destination The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has announced that Spain was the second most popular tourist destination after France in 2017. WTTC stated that cultural diversity, openness, and affordability of Spain helped it to achieve such feat.

Catalonia is the most visited region in Spain, the slight drop in tourism last year was more than made up for by Spain’s 16 other autonomous regions. With the value of international travel expected to grow by 3.1% this year, Spain is well positioned to take advantage of tourism’s economic benefits.

Spain is home to the third largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, making it a popular destination for tourists with an interest in Spain’s dynamic history. These include the Moorish archi-tecture of the Alhambra Palace, the gothic cathe-dral of Santiago de Compostela, and Real Alcázar, more familiar to television viewers as Dorne from Game of Thrones.

Furthermore, Spain is the second largest coun-try in Western Europe, a fact that speaks to its geo-graphic diversity. Tourists can ski in the Pyrenees, bask in the sun along the beaches of Costa del Sol, or hike through one of Spain’s 15 national parks.

The tourism industry is a key source of economic growth. There are more than 400,000 companies connected to tourism which employed 4.9% of Spain’s workforce in 2017. According to the WTTC report, 14.9% of Spain’s GDP can be attributed to tourism.

To boost the economy of the country, The Tour-ism Department of Portugal aims to generate more employment from the travel and tourism industry.

On the occasion of 13th International Tourism Forum the tourism industry experts gathered in Vila Nova de Gaia, near Porto, where they discussed how they will consistently hold the Portugal’s honour on travel and tourism industry.

Luis Araujo, president of Tourism Portugal said they should focus on the positive effects. The urban revitalization and job creation are the major respon-sibilities on travel and tourism industry.

Araujo also said that tourism must grow around the whole country. He suggested activities like cycling, walking and touring packages will help to tourists in exploring Portugal’s remote, rural areas apart from the regular destinations. To cope with increased pressures on municipal services Lisbon and Porto have introduced tourist taxes.

Turkey received huge flow of Chinese tourists in 2017, more than 250,000 Chinese tourists visited Turkey, up by drastic 47% from 2016.

During the first two months of 2018, more than 57,000 Chinese visited Turkey, twice the number of the same period last year.

Numan Kurtulmus, Turkish minister of Culture and Tourism, said, “China-Turkey Tourism Year was launched in Shanghai recently, aiming to boost tourism and cultural exchanges between the two countries. Dur-ing the year, more than 60 activities including music per-formances, art and craft exhibitions, will be held in sev-eral Chinese cities.”

The tourism year is expected to encourage more Chi-nese to travel to Turkey, and the number of Chinese tour-ists is expected to top 400,000 this year, Kurtulmus said.

Tourism in UK and Ireland remained high and recorded a surge of 3% in 2017 and in first early quar-ter of 2018. On the tourism front UK and Ireland have improved drastically compared with growth rates in previous years. Weak pound may be seen as one of reasons that travellers flock to British Isles in large numbers.

Visit Britain predicted a total of 41.7 million vis-itors from around the world to visit Britain in 2018. Last year some 38.9 million were counted. Visit

Britain hopes to strengthen tourism in all parts of the country. At present London receives half of all foreign visitors travel to the capital.

Germany is the third largest source market for Ire-land. It took only four years to increase the number of German visitors by 42%.

In order to lure more German travellers, Tourism Ireland has launched a TV and online advertising campaign at the start of the year to bring the “diver-sity and beauty of Ireland” closer to Germans.

Tourism in British Isles soars; Visit Britain predicts a total of 41.7 million tourist arrivals

Santiago de Compostela

Antalya Turkey

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 21americas

visit oxford to celebrate National travel and tourism week

COPA increases daily flights between Panama City and Montego Bay

Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board launched the ‘LA Insider,’ a online training tool for travel trade professionals. The mobile and tablet operating pro-gramme is the first of its kind for LA Tourism. It has been designed to help travel trade better sell the city and stay updated with its latest information.

In 2017, a record breaking 48.3 million tourists vis-ited LA, which is expected to reach 50 million by 2020.

Launching the product, Francine Sheridan, Europe and ME Regional Director, LA Tourism said, “We’re proud to launch such an advanced training programme, one that will help our clients discover LA like an insider and sell LA like an expert. Los Angeles’ welcoming spirit, celebration of diversity and perfect weather are bringing visitors in greater numbers. New restaurants, attractions and hotels are opening up quickly to meet

demand and it can be difficult to stay on top of all the new developments – LA Insider aims to provide the travel trade with a one-stop-shop platform for every-thing they need.”

“We are extremely grateful for the ongoing support we receive from our industry partners,” said Ernest Wooden Jr., President and CEO of LA Tourism. “The launch of LA Insider speaks to our commitment to travel trade professionals by providing them with help-ful tools they can use on a daily basis as well as recogni-tion for their expertise.”

Developed by TravPRO which also launched Visit California’s STAR program, will provide easy access to LA tourism’s marketing assets, sales collateral such as factsheets, maps, videos and even neighborhood tours in virtual reality.

Beginning this July, Compañía Panameña de Aviación (COPA), the flag carrier of Panama, will increase its daily service between Panama City and Montego Bay bringing to eleven the overall number of flights weekly between both countries.

Currently, Copa operates four flights into Montego Bay and the same number into Kingston weekly, but soon it will operate seven flights into Montego Bay and four into Kingston weekly.

“The move to daily service between Panama City, Copa’s major hub, and Montego Bay, Caribbean tourist capital, will make it easier for tourists visiting from sev-eral nations, including Argentina and Chile, which are among our most robust Latin American markets,” out-lined Edmund Bartlett, Tourism Minister of Jamaica.

“This is a game changer that will lift arrival num-bers from this important part of South America. Amer-ica is a very large market with a rapidly growing mid-dle-class keen on travelling the world. Argentina specifically contributed approximately 5,000 visitors last year alone. I have set a target aimed at doubling the number of Argentinean tourists coming into Jamaica from 5,000 to 10,000 by 2021,” Bartlett indicated.

Latin American markets with growing middle classes and better airlift options are driving demand for leisure travel overseas. Transporting 13 million pas-sengers annually and serving over 70 airports, Copa Airlines provides passenger and air cargo services to countries in North, Central, South America and the Caribbean. Its hub is located at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, and has emerged as the most connected airport in the region.

Visit Oxford (a city in Mississippi) is gearing up to celebrate the National Travel and Tourism Week starting from May 6-12. It is a program organised by the US Travel Association to promote awareness of tourism in communities and contribute to the local economy and for this Visit Oxford has part-nered with local organisations to promote tourism in Oxford and to educate its local partners on tour-ism resources and all Oxford has to offer.

“It’s a great way to kick off summer travel, and the timing is perfect with it being graduation week at the University of Mississippi with so many people trav-eling to Oxford,” said Jessica Lynch, Partnerships Manager at Visit Oxford.

To raise awareness about the program, the com-munity has launched various marketing campaigns, especially through social media. Various interactive contests are also on the agenda to encourage people’s participation.

According to official data, tourists who visited Oxford in the fall of 2017 spent USD 174 million dol-lars an increase of 13.3% from the year prior. Over 2,200 jobs in Oxford-Lafayette County are generated from the travel and tourism industry.

Los Angeles has been recognised as a Top Travellers’ Choice Destination – US winner in the 2018 TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice awards for destinations ranking 13 out of 25. Award winners were determined based on the quantity and quality of reviews and ratings for hotels, attractions and restaurants in destinations worldwide gathered over a 12-month period, as well as traveller booking interest on TripAdvisor. In the 10th year of the awards, TripAdvisor has recognised 402 destinations around the world.

Thanking TripAdvisor for acknowledging them, Jamie Foley, VP Global Communications, LA Tour-ism, commented, “Los Angeles is a unique and beau-tiful melting pot of diverse cultures where everyone is welcome. Equally diverse, our range of activities from exploring 75 miles of coastline and Hollywood history to innovative cuisine and buzzy cultural offerings awaits visitors.

LA has more museums and theaters than any US city, along with a music and art scene. One of the best ways for travellers to experience the city is by visiting its cultural attractions. The museums of LA include Getty Center in Brentwood and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on Museum Row. There are monthly art walks that take place throughout the city and include popular events in Downtown LA and Venice Beach. The City of Angels is also famous for its beaches.

“It’s clear in looking at this year’s list of Travellers’ Choice award-winning destinations that our millions of reviewers across the globe love exploring iconic cit-ies that are full of history and rich culture,” said Brooke Ferencsik, Senior Director of Communications for TripAdvisor. “Travellers can use TripAdvisor to get inspired to plan and book their next trip with highly-rated value hotels, hot restaurants and fun things to do in these popular destinations.”

Los angeles wins 2018 Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice award

Oxford, city in Mississippi, US

Getty Center in Brentwood, Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles Tourism launches online agent training programme - LA Insider

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 22OCEANIA

NSW to showcase its varied food products in IndiaNew South Wales food and beverage exporters are planning to be a part of an inaugural food expo to showcase the varied food and beverage of the region to Indian foodies.

Gladys Berejiklian, Premier, NSW, made the announcement during her trade trip to India, with the NSW food expo to be held annually to showcase the state’s best exporters in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets.

The state’s farmers and producers will show-case their goods to Indian buyers, which will range from fresh fruit and vegetables to meat, dairy and processed foods such as jams, honey and pasta.

A delegation of food and beverage exporters will travel to Mumbai where the expo will take place in September.

“This will provide our producers with a major opportunity to showcase the fantastic quality and diversity of our state’s food and beverage industry and connect our best export compa-nies with potential Indian buyers and grow-ing markets,” Berejiklian said in a statement on Thursday.

The expo will help farmers and producers promote their clean, safe and fresh produce to a market where middle-class numbers are tipped to swell from 250 million to 550 million people by 2025, Berejiklian said.

The premier said the state’s agricultural exports to India grew almost 200% in 2016-17 with “massive potential” for further growth.

India is turning as one of the most preferred source market for Australian Tourism as India beats China in terms of growth rate. Due to greater awareness amongst the upper middle class Indian population has helped in fueling the number of travellers from India to Australia.

In a recently organised Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) 2018, Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager, India and Gulf, Tourism Australia said, “Australia Tourism’s 2020 goal of 300,000 arrivals from India has been achieved in 2017. In fact, Austra-lia witnessed 302,200 Indian arrivals in 2017.”

ATE is Australia’s largest annual event for building tourism opportunities and relationships. ATE 2018 ran from April 15 to 19 in Adelaide and was organised by Tourism Australia in partnership with the South Aus-tralian Tourism Commission.

John O’ Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Australia, described India as a ‘rising star market’, and attributed the growth to the Cricket World Cup, which was held in Australia in 2015. O’Sullivan said, “We’ve got a strong cultural connection with India as we are both former British colonies, and cricket is our game. The Indian Cricket team was in Australia for almost six months and that was a real driver for tourism.”

In 2017, India was eighth largest source market for Australia in terms of tourists arrivals, seventh

largest market for visitor spend, and the market with the highest growth rate. In 2017, Indian visitors spent 15.7 million nights in Australia, an increase of 7% over 2016. The average length of stay for the Indian visitor was 55 nights, with a 49% repeat visitation. And the average spend by the Indian traveller was INR 2,53,200.

O’Sullivan also stated that cricket is one of driving force for Indians visiting Australia apart from those who visit their friends and families.

He also confirmed the Tourism Australia is work-ing on cricket trail package that consisted of tours of various cricketing grounds and museums dedicated to cricket and cricketers had been put together.

Cricket is one of the driving force for travellers from India: O’Sullivan

Melbourne Cricket Ground

According to Australian Bureau of Statistics official data, China became the top source country for travel-lers to Australia surpassing New Zealand for the first time. In the period of Feb 2017 to 2018 more than 1.36 million Chinese travellers visited Down Under, a 13.2% up from the 2017 figures.

Overall tourist arrivals to Australia rose to a record high of 8.9 million during the period Feb 2017 to 2018. The spendings by the travellers, too, reached a record AUD 41.3 billion (USD 32 billion).

“Tourism is generating income, wealth, jobs and eco-nomic activity across the economy,” pointed out Ryan

Felsman, senior economist, CommSec, adding that the industry accounted for 10% of Australia’s exports.

“The Chinese traveller is evolving and the growing middle class in China are chasing new experiences,” said Hianyang Chan, Industry Analyst, Euromonitor International.

“Australia is a preferred destination due to its vast landscape, pristine nature, good food, security and art and culture,” he concluded.

Australia’s largest airline, Qantas, posted a record half-year profit in February as higher visitor numbers drove both international and domestic flyers.

Australia sees huge inflow of travellers from China as it tops the charts

Tourism New Zealand targets 1 lakh Indian arrivals by 2023 New Zealand is eyeing double-digit growth in footfalls from India in 2018-19, which will help it achieve the tar-get of 1 lakh visitors by 2023.

In 2016-17 travel period, 53,424 Indian tourists visited New Zealand, and last year 62,000 arrivals were noted from India which was a sharp 16.05% growth. So looking at the trend this year, which began in March, we expect

the growth to be in double-digits this year, pointed out Steven Dixon, Regional Manager, South and South-East Asia, Tourism New Zealand.

“India is among the top source market to New Zea-land. Hence this year we are looking at a wider target audience and reach them through digital and social media as people in India are among the highest users of these platforms,” Dixon remarked.

New Zealand has been emerging as a popular des-tination amongst not only the family segment but also millennial travellers looking for adventure.

Explaining about the strategies adopted this year, Dixon said, “This year we will reposition our country as an ideal destination to welcome leisure travellers, hon-eymooners and families. We’ll be increasing awareness through different promotional programmes and the tie-up with the four Indian travel trade agents is an integral step for us to achieve the targeted growth and welcome higher caliber visitors from India. ”

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 23CAribbeAn

Hugh Riley, Secretary General, Caribbean Tourism Organization

puerto plata records significant increase in tourist arrival

Jamaica welcomes Airbnb to diversify tourism

Jamaica to establish caribbean tourism Innovation centre

Carlos Muñoz, Head of Public policy at Airbnb Inc, Cen-tral America and the Caribbean, cited that the natural warmth and friendliness of Jamaicans were the major factors in Airbnb’s decision to give Caribbean the sig-nal honour of establishing the first Airbnb host club in the Caribbean.

“On the one side, Government has been tremen-dously receptive to the concept of Airbnb and home sharing in general as a way to diversify the tourism prod-uct that Jamaica offers. Also, it allows for more every-day Jamaicans to participate in the tourism industry,” Muñoz explained.

While the launch took place in Kingston, Muñoz said the long-term plan was for more branches to be launched in Montego Bay, Ocho Rios, Port Antonio and other resort areas, as needs dictate, in the long run.

Havanah Llewellyn, President of the Jamaica Home Sharing Association, put into perspective the game-changing potential of the tourism dynamic and cited,

“Airbnb is probably one of the single most important things that’s happened to Jamaica in the last 50 years.”

She added, “Although Jamaica is known for sand and sun and all that is great, but it’s really about our peo-ple. Now you get an opportunity to really interact with our people.”

At the 63rd meeting of the United Nations World Tourism Organization Regional Commission for the Americas (CAM) in Asunción, Paraguay, Jamaica was asked to lead the development of a Caribbean Tourism Innovation Centre through the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF).

“Jamaica is excited as we are honoured to be asked to establish this centre, especially given the fact that we ourselves have created the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation. Jamaica has gone a long way as a leading destination in the development of smart tourism,” Edmund Bartlett, Tourism Minister, Jamaica.

Bartlett stated that the new model of TEF,

restructured to operate as Jamaica’s Centre of Tourism Innovation, will create the added value that the industry needs to go one step further, by being ahead of competition and defining the new ways in which Jamaica is going to remain top-of-mind in the industry.

The restructured TEF will include new divi-sions such as the Tourism Linkages Network, the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation and the Craft Development Institute.It will also include a Data Analytics Division, which will use big data to monitor new trends in the indus-try globally to guide decision-making within the ministry.

Representatives from Dominican Republic’s Puerto Plata Tourism Cluster (Cluster Turistico Del des-tino Puerto Plata -CTDPP) highlighted the region’s trending visitor arrivals and hotel projects at the 2018 Dominican Annual Tourism Exchange (DATE) con-ference. Most notably, cruise arrivals to Amber Cove increased significantly, upto 20%, welcoming 490,873 passengers in 2017 when compared to 2016. Accord-ing to the latest statistics and pending improvements revealed by CTDPP, on an average, 5,000 cruise visi-tors arrive weekly to Puerto Plata. Amber Cove antic-ipates welcoming over 700,000 plus cruise passen-gers this year.

In 2017, Puerto Plata welcomed 60,000 tourists to its region which boasts 16 diverse tourism avenues including family, adventure, wellness and other trends in areas such as Cabarete, Sosúa, Punta Rucia, San Felipe and more.

Additionally, Puerto Plata is home to a series of exclusive golf competitions, such as the second annual Puerto Plata Open, a PGA Tour qualifier held May 14–20 and the Puerto Plata Golf Classic, among others. These announcements will continue to estab-lish Dominican Republic as the leading Caribbean destination for the US vacationers.

CTDPP announced it will host the country’s first ever Dominican Rum Festival July 6–7 at the Puerto Plata Amphitheatre located in La Puntilla. The event will celebrate Dominican’s rum heritage and offer seminars, workshops and tastings, in addition to a concert the group recently unveiled with the perfor-mance of the stellar singer Gilberto Santa Rosa.

Dominican Republic experienced unprecedented growth in Q1 of 2018, recording a 7.7% growth, and owing to the additional flights this year, Puerto Plata plans on exceeding visitors arrival this year. Several routes have been added to Gregorio Luperón Inter-national Airport including Apple Vacations’ non-stop weekly routes from Pittsburgh; American Air-lines is adding five additional routes from Charlotte, North Carolina; and additional routes have been added from Canada, Warsaw, Poland and other des-tinations. In 2017, it experienced nearly a 10% growth of air passenger arrival.

The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) is working on a plan to have tourist-based businesses accept cryp-tocurrency payments. In partnership with Bitt Inc., a blockchain company out of Barbados, CTO wants to implement crypto-based merchant applications in the travel industry and other related sectors. Another goal is to further integrate the region’s economies through more cryptocurrency transactions.

Hugh Riley, Secretary General, CTO, cited that that the region aims to fully examine the advantages offered by the new financial technology. He asserted, “Cryptocurrencies, as well as blockchain services, can advance exponentially the tourism sector and will sub-stantially promote the objectives of certain programs and activities.”

The agreement with the local company will facili-tate the implementation of more efficient payment pro-cesses for tourism products and services. A memoran-dum of understanding has been signed in order to help foster broader economic participation in community-based tourism and related sectors through the use of

cryptocurrencies. The partners intend to implement efficient and cost effective digital payment products and services in the region’s most important industry.

“Tourism is the largest single contributor to the Caribbean economy. It is absolutely critical to every sin-gle Caribbean nation’s well-being and development. We know how transformational our technology can be. We see this as a very natural and necessary association,” said Rawdon Adams, CEO, Bitt Inc.,

Tourism is the main economic provider to the Carib-bean nations. Over USD 50 billion of the area’s gross domestic product comes from tourism each year. In 2017, over 30 million tourists descended on different islands around the Caribbean, a growth rate of 1.7% over 2016.

Another industry that can benefit greatly from the introduction of cryptocurrency is the import/export industry. The economies of Jamaica and Barbados, the largest of the Caribbean economies, are based primarily on the exchange of goods and services and have to find ways to fund their endeavors. Since cryptocurrency is

truly global by nature, they can facilitate the activities, both internationally as well as at home. This has the promise of reducing losses incurred by poor exchange rates or delays in payments. It will also help to increase the bottom lines of the trading companies.

Caribbean Tourism Organization embraces cryptocurrency to boost tourism

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 24global

PCMa celebrates Global Meetings Industry Day

Royal Caribbean International’s Symphony of the Seas - the largest cruise ship in the world was launched last month. With its launch, TIRUN Travel Marketing, the Indian representative of Royal Caribbean Cruises, will be able to offer Indian travellers a chance to experience a cruise onboard - Symphony of the Seas.

RCI recently held an honorary event to mark the traditional flag-changing ceremony which symbol-ises the ship’s official delivery from the shipbuilder, STX France to its owner, Royal Caribbean. Held at STX France’s shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France, the event was attended by Michael Bayley, President and CEO, Royal Caribbean International; Richard Fain, Chairman and CEO, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., and Laurent Castaing, General Manager, STX France.

Symphony of the Seas is the 25th ship in RCI’s fleet. It weighs 228, 081 gross registered tonnes, and measures 238ft tall and 1,188 ft long. With a capacity to welcome 5,518 guests at double occupancy in 2,759 state rooms, it also includes 28 additional balcony rooms that overlook the ocean or the signature Boardwalk neighbourhood,

one of the seven distinctive neighbourhoods punctuat-ing the Symphony.

Commenting on the launch, Ratna Chadha, Co-Founder and CEO, TIRUN Travel Marketing said, “Pushing the envelope of innovation, Symphony of the Seas has redefined the idea of cruise ships by a long mar-gin. RCI’s Oasis class has always been a trend-setter in terms of design, amenities and infrastructure, but with this ship, it has managed to take cruise vacationing to an

all new level. We are proud to welcome this royal new member to the RCI family, and we firmly believe that this fine example of hard work, technological brilliance and resource collaboration will embark upon boundless adventures, creating everlasting memories and innu-merable happy guests in the process.”

Symphony of the Seas’ maiden 7-night Mediterra-nean voyage departed on April 7, 2018 from Barcelona, Spain, where the 2,200 international crew members, proudly representing 77 countries around the world, initiated the journey amidst rousing celebrations. The ship then homeported in Barcelona for the summer, visiting Palma de Mallorca, Spain; Provence, France; and Florence/Pisa, Rome and Naples, Italy. Begin-ning November 10, Miami, FL. will be the ship’s year-round homeport, making it the first new Oasis Class ship to sail from the cruise capital of the world through Royal Caribbean’s new state-of-the-art Terminal A. The 7-night Eastern and Western Caribbean cruises will then arrive on CocoCay, Royal Caribbean’s newly revealed destination in the Bahamas.

To mark Global Meetings Industry Day, PCMA-ICESAP (Professional Convention Management Association - The Incentive Conference & Event Society Asia-Pacific) hosted its first Knowledge Exchange for corporate event organisers, agen-cies and associations at the PricewaterhouseC-oopers (PwC) Experience Centre in Hong Kong last month.

Following the success of the PCMA Knowl-edge Exchange series in Europe, the topical ses-sion, entitled “Integrating Digital Technology into Your Event Experience” offered participants insight into the cutting-edge digital innovations across the industry for attracting new customers and keeping existing ones engaged. Tools include augmented reality (AR), facial recognition and interactive screens. Participants learnt to evalu-ate their current event digital strategy and iden-tify opportunities to integrate latest technologies to further enhance participant experience and engagement.

Michelle Crowley, PCMA Vice President, Global Growth & Innovation, PCMA said, “As part of our commitment to enable industry col-laboration and provide a platform for localised, senior-level education, we are holding our first Knowledge Exchange in the region in Hong Kong. A catalyst for creating invaluable business con-nections, this interactive session aimed to give industry peers the opportunity to exchange ideas about the most debated topics across our indus-try in the digital age and find innovative ways to engage key audiences.”

The session explored the digital evolution of leading business events in the region, presented by industry experts - Guy Parsonage, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers; Tony Chow, Regional Director, Creative and Content Marketing, Marri-ott International; Darren Chuckry, Regional Vice President, PCMA-ICESAP and Managing Direc-tor, Uniplan.

Accorhotels eyes doubling its global presenceSó hotels announced the upcoming addition of four hotels to its growing line of vibrant, one-of-a-kind properties. This includes new European addresses in Berlin, St Petersburg and Vienna, and the brand’s first hotel in the southern hemisphere in Auckland, New Zealand. All are set to open under the Só ban-ner by end of 2018.

These four additions will expand the Só portfolio to eight. They join an exclusive network that already includes two SO/ properties in Thailand – Bangkok & Hua Hin, Só Mauritius and Só Singapore.

Joao Rocco, Vice President, Luxury Brand Man-agement, Sofitel Brands explained, “Só has created a stylish and playful experience, enhanced with an unconventional attitude inherited from its French roots. We have plans to introduce the SO/ brand into leading markets around the world and are very proud of all the new projects that will go live over the next few months. These properties will offer a

luxurious yet irreverent approach to hospitality, celebrating and embracing their destinations’ vibe, energy and local trends.”

An additional line-up of Só branded hotels will soon be unveiled, with over 10 new addresses expected by 2021 in destinations such as Jakarta, Samui, Kuala Lumpur and more.

Royal Caribbean debuts Symphony of the Seas

Following a series of award-winning design and renovation projects last year, Belmond revealed the details of seven highly distinctive developments across its portfolio of hotels, trains and cruises in 2018.

Beginning last month with the launch of three new Art-Deco Grand Suites on board historic Venice-Simplon-Orient-Express, Belmond’s diverse range of designs honour timeless craftsmanship, celebrate heritage and tradition and look to the future work-ing with innovative designers and local materials.

Lined up for the year is Belmond Savute Elephant

Lodge in Botswana; Belmond Casa de Sierra Nevada in Mexico, a historic renovation of Belmond Cadogan Hotel in London and a luxury beach resort Belmond Cap Juluca in Anguilla.

“When you walk into a Belmond property you can feel the ‘soul’ of the place, and it’s our job to keep the soul and spirit alive with the design concepts. We are working with talented designers to carefully merge the genuine elements of the local culture with a mod-ern-day relevance that resonates with our guest’s lifestyle and aspirations,” highlighted Joe Ferry, Art & Design Director at Belmond.

Belmond unveils its ambitious plan for 2018

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 25 global •

Mauricio Macri President of Argentina

Helen Marano, EVP, External Affairs, WTTC

Clacton’s MP celebrates launch of a new global tourism campaign

Airbnb introduces ‘Healthy Tourism’ initiative

Wttc appoints Argentinian president mauricio macri as its first World leader for travel & tourism

In the recent WTTC Global Summit which took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mauricio Macri President of Argentina was today recognised by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) as its first World Leader for Travel & Tourism.

The WTTC World Leaders for Travel & Tourism ini-tiative recognises serving Heads of State or Government who have shown exceptional support for the sector dur-ing their term of office, both within their own country and at the global level.

Since taking office in 2015, President Macri has cham-pioned the Travel & Tourism industry by transforming aviation, investing in infrastructure, and putting in place

fiscal policies which support business growth and stabil-ity. In his speech to the World Economic Forum in Janu-ary 2018, President Macri highlighted the economic poten-tial for tourism in Argentina, particularly in the north of the country and where significant investment is planned.

Gloria Guevara Manzo, President and CEO, WTTC, asserted, “President Macri has demonstrated great com-mitment to the Travel & Tourism sector and we are proud to recognise the President as our first WTTC world Leader for Travel & Tourism. His clear message of Argentina being ‘open for business’ has benefited tourism enor-mously. President Macri has set the standard for best practice in global leadership within the Travel & Tourism industry as his policies have facilitated continuous growth and economic development within Argentina. Moreover, his leadership extends to the Presidency of the G20 and we thank him for his support for our sector in that forum. On behalf of WTTC and our members, thank you and congratulations.”

Last year Argentina recorded over a million more air passengers than in 2016, and hotel occupancies the highest ever. According to WTTC data, last year contribution from the Travel & Tourism sector to Argentina’s GDP grew one and a half times faster than the wider economy, showing how the focus on Travel & Tourism is bringing economic benefits and jobs across Argentina.

As part of English Tourism Week, Giles Watling, Member of Parliament (MP) of Clacton, celebrated the launch of a new global tourism campaign in England.

Giles Watling and Michael Ellis, Member of Par-liament for Northampton North; Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism met the representatives of Vis-itBritain and discussed the new campaign, “I Travel For.” The initiative has been running for seven years, aims to showcase the benefits of the tourism indus-try to local communities and the economy.

Watling stated, “The tourism industry is vital to coastal constituencies like Clacton. It is this indus-try that provides significant employment oppor-tunities locally whether that is provided by those offering overnight accommodation, days out, res-taurants, seafront attractions or shops. That is why I am proud to support this vital campaign, to ensure that we showcase the benefits of tourism along our fantastic Sunshine Coast.”

Ellis added, “In 2017 more than 44 million Brits holidayed in the UK and this week gives us a chance to raise the profile of the destinations that are so important at creating jobs and supporting the local economy.”

Online accommodation platform major Airbnb launched the ‘Office of Healthy Tourism’, a global ini-tiative to drive local, authentic and sustainable tour-ism in countries across the globe.

The company also announced the creation of its new Tourism Advisory Board which will comprise travel industry leaders from around the world.

“With travel and tourism growing faster than most of the rest of economy, it is critical that as many people as possible are benefiting - and right now not all tourism is created equal,” said Chris Lehane, Global Head of Policy and Communications, Airbnb.

To democratise the benefits of travel, Airbnb offers a healthy alternative to the mass travel that has plagued cities for decades, he added.

The company has already embarked on a number of initiatives to promote Healthy Tourism around the world. In India, the company’s efforts have focused on promoting tourism in areas that have not tradi-tionally benefited from tourism and hospitality.

Increasing interconnectivity and cheaper travel has cre-ated enormous opportunities – but at a price. An inter-national summit will take place on June 6 and 7, 2018 in Ágora Bogotá Convention Center in Bogotá DC, Colom-bia, to address the exploitation of children in travel and tourism.

The International Summit on Child Protection in Travel and Tourism will bring together world lead-ers, the UN; governments; travel agents, tour opera-tors, hotels and other travel businesses; technology and booking companies; police; international NGOs; and civil society organisations. Over two days they will discuss how to better protect children, prevent abuse from happening and catch those committing this crime.

Helen Marano, EVP, External Affairs, WTTC, com-mented, “WTTC is proud to support the International Summit on Child Protection. Serving on the Task Force allows WTTC the opportunity to is serving on the Task Force as well to mobilise the strength of the Council as it is vital to engage the private sector as we work collab-oratively in combatting this challenge.”

The sexual exploitation of children is often facili-tated through tourist hotels, bars and restaurants – and offenders frequently avail themselves of the services of the travel industry to exploit children. This puts the travel and tourism sector in a unique position to work towards protecting children and ending this crime.

María Lorena Gutiérrez, Colombian Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism, summit host, said,

“Colombia, as a member of the GARA Child Protec-tion Action Group for the Americas, is strongly enforc-ing laws and Responsible Tourism codes amongst our industry, because we understand that we are all -states, business and citizens- the main warrantors of our chil-dren’s rights. We cannot turn our heads in another direction. This first Summit in his kind will be an excep-tional opportunity to learn and share what’s been done around the world to fight this terrible crime.”

Colombia to host international summit to address the exploitation of children in travel and tourism

VFS Global expands German visa application at Muscat VFS Global recently inaugurated its new visa applica-tion centre for Germany at Muscat Grand Mall (MGM), Oman. H E Thomas F Schneider, Ambassador of Ger-many to Oman said, “In 2017, we issued about 11,000 visas to Omanis. We estimate that the number will increase gradually in the near future.”

The centre has several advantages. Customers can track their applications online through our dedicated website. Student visa applicants fall into a different category and for that, they have to visit the embassy. This service is for those who want to visit Germany for tourism and medical treatment.

The centre began its operations on April 4 and has processed Schengen visa which allows one to travel to many countries in Europe. The centre will also process visa applications for Iceland. The centre has trained

staff and claims to process an application within 40 minutes. It also has the facility for door-to-door deliv-ery of passports.

Vinay Malhotra, COO - Middle East of VFS Global said, “We have German visa services in other Gulf countries and now happy to start the same in Oman. Our expertise will help ease the process of visa applica-tions submitted by prospective travellers to Germany.”

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 26technology

mmt to buy a stake in oyo rooms; to delist fabhotels and treebo hotel

Independent bed banks getabed and roomsXML recently merged their businesses and also unveiled a new brand Stuba which will be headquartered in Dubai. Stuba will be significantly larger in scale to what room-sXML and getabed were individually.

Ruchir Bang, Executive Director of roomsXML will be Chief Executive of Stuba while getabed’s Managing Director Matt Stuart will be Chief Commercial Officer of the new company.

Stuart said, “With the accommodation wholesale market evolving rapidly, we needed to ensure that we remain relevant. Our merger with roomsXML is a result of our shared passion, ethos and vision.”

“We wanted something unique and fresh to cele-brate the merger hence we felt unifying under a new banner will go a long way to help integrate the teams across offices,” assured Stuart.

Bang said, “We currently are in a very interesting phase within the travel wholesale industry and cer-tainly see a great future if we have the right mix of pas-sionate team, user-focused technology and strong financials. This all started with the vision on where we

want to see our businesses in future and what growth opportunities we can bring to our valued staff members across offices, rather than just seeing if the balance sheet numbers added up- and that’s exactly what both room-sXML and getabed bring to the table.”

As a result of the merger, the companies now offer a genuine global business across UK & Ireland, India EMEA and APAC.

Two online travel giants, Travelport and Priceline.com have recently announced that they have signed a long-term renewal agreement. According to the deal, Travelport will continue providing pricing, booking and ticketing technology and content to Priceline.

“Travelport has proven to be a valued partner over the last twenty years in helping Priceline cus-tomers find and book the best deals,” said Brigit Zimmerman, Senior Vice President of flight, hotel and packages, Priceline.com.

The two companies signed the first accord 20 years ago and after series of strong business, the companies have renewed the deal of doing the busi-ness together for a longer span of time. Both the industry giants have worked together to make the process of buying and selling travel and tourism products easier for customers who look for great deals.

Jason Clarke, Senior Vice President and Manag-ing Director, Travelport, asserted about their long-standing relationship with Priceline and said, “We are committed to supporting Priceline with our industry-leading search and pricing capabilities, as well as offering Priceline new technologies that offer faster connections, greater content and more rele-vant choices.”

Recently, after having OYO back on its platform, MakeMyTrip (MMT) will reportedly buy a stake in the company. MMT will also delist other room aggregators like FabHotels and Treebo Hotel, from its travel bookings platform.

MMT which has three online travel booking brands- MakeMyTrip, Goibibo and Redbus. Of these, Redbus only offers bus bookings while the other two offer blanket travel and hotel booking services.

OYO was not featured on MMT’s platforms after it was delisted in 2015 from its two platforms. Yatra also delisted OYO in 2015, but renewed part-nership in 2017.

OYO Rooms is diversifying its revenue model from hotel aggregation to a self-operated hotel brand Townhouse. As the travel segment grows, competition is likely to get tougher. Google has also announced that it will now allow users to compare and book hotels via its search page directly. Such service was earlier only offered by online travel agents. The partnership between MMT and OYO could be a strategy to strengthen their hold in the space.

Recently, MakeMyTrip announced a partner-ship with Flipkart where the online travel agent’s three brands MakeMyTrip, Goibibo and red-Bus will leverage the large customer base of Flip-kart platform to drive online bookings in travel services.

TravelTriangle announced that it has raised INR 78 crore Series C funding led by Fundamentum, the growth-capital fund for mid-stage technology com-panies in India backed by Nandan Nilekani and San-jeev Aggarwal. Existing investors- SAIF Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, RB investments and a clutch of angel investors also participated. This is the first investment by Fundamentum and Ashish Kumar, Partner, Fundamentum will join the Trav-elTriangle board.

Announcing the investment in TravelTriangle, Nilekani said, “We met more than 50 companies before investing in TravelTriangle and we were very impressed by the team. We believe that this team is amongst the very best that we have seen in the Indian technology eco-system, by virtue of their learnability, customer-centricity, frugality, and hunger to build a very large business. They have the foresight and demonstrated operational experience to win this cat-egory. We are very excited about partnering with the team to build this business together.”

To win the confidence of pedigreed entrepre-neur investors like Nandan and Sanjeev is a great

validation of our journey thus far, cited Sankalp Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO, TravelTriangle. “The vision of the company is to encompass all the com-ponents of online holiday ecosystem and be the one-stop solution for the traveller,” he said.

Ashish Kumar, Partner, Fundamentum, said, “Holidays is a very large and profitable market, and requires a team with product-first DNA who can take along multiple ecosystem players. Sankalp and the team have the right combination of technology exper-tise, business acumen and domain knowledge to win the holiday travel market. We are delighted to collab-orate with TravelTriangle and look forward to the exciting next phase of growth.”

According to experts, the Indian holiday market is a USD 10 billion opportunity, and is stated to become USD 30 billion in the next 5-6 years. This growth is largely driven by independent travellers wanting to travel overseas or domestic as a couple, family or individuals and this is the segment that TravelTrian-gle has focused on, to rapidly scale and attain mar-ket leadership.

The funds will be used to invest in building

technology that further strengthens the customer interaction layer using artificial intelligence and machine learning, while the data analytics will help build a recommendation engine. The company will also expand to newer destinations and invest in brand building.

TravelTriangle raises INR 78 crores Series C funding led by Fundamentum

getabed and roomsXML merge; launch a new brand Stuba

Travelport and Priceline.com sign renewal agreement

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 27 technology •

Mudit Shekhawat, Chief Marketing Officer, Yatra.com

Tourism Malaysia launches MyTA app for safety of tourists

Utilising technology to its full extent important for Singapore to excel in tourism: Iswaran

tourism Ireland hosts conference on impacts of technology in the tourism sector

MMT report: 24% more Indians are travelling this summer

Tourism Ireland hosted a conference in Aviva Stadium in Dublin, highlighting the impact of technology on tourism.

The conference created an understanding among people working within the tourism sector about the impact of emerging technologies on their businesses. It also examined how to take full advantage of new tech-nologies to grow their business. Discussions centred

on the nature and drivers of technological change – including artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, accel-erated computing, data and MarTech, as well as changes in consumer behaviour – and outlined the scale of the opportunities and risks they have.

A panel of expert speakers highlighted the scale of change under way and how it was related to tourism. They showcased case studies and workshops specifi-cally geared towards the tourism and travel sector. Gerd Leonhard was the keynote speaker, a leading voice on a wide range of topics, including digital transformation and the opportunities and challenges it presents.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said, “The strong attendance by tourism representatives from across the island of Ireland at our conference demon-strated the importance of technology in our industry and the critical need to look to the future of Irish and global tourism, in the face of fast-moving technology advances. The conference discussed some of the excit-ing developments in the digital world, how these will affect the tourism industry specifically and how tour-ism companies can understand and leverage emerging travel tech to win business.”

According to a report by Make My Trip(MMT), most Indians are plan-ning for long-haul international destinations with booking going up by 25% compared to last year.

The report also stated that about 50% of the booking is made by trav-ellers on the 25-35 age groups.

“Long-haul destinations have registered higher growth this year compared to short-haul ones, with a significant 25% growth in the number of trips year-on-year,” said Mohit Gupta, Chief Operating

Officer, MakeMyTrip.Gupta averred that there has

also been a significant increase in the number of people travelling this summer. He said 24% more Indians are travelling this season.

The report said destinations like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome and Toronto are the top des-tinations amongst the international destinations. While places such as Thekkady, Wayanad, Guwahati and Shillong are the top domestic destination.

Tourism Malaysia recently announced the launch of My Tourist Assist (MyTA) a mobile app to support the safety of traveller in the country. The app is developed by UST Global and managed by Jana Tiga Holdings Sdn Bhd, a company working with large Malaysian conglomerates.

My Tourist Assist™ is an e-Gov-ernment service under Tourism Malaysia. Malaysia is one of most vis-ited destination in the world and app will ensure the safety of travellers visiting the country. The app is avail-able for download on Google Play and App Store.

Commenting on the launch, Gilroy Mathew, Head - APAC, UST Global, said, “We are happy to work with the Malaysia Tourism department in launching My Tourist AssistTM app. We launched UrSafe a few years back in India and witnessed a huge traction and applause by the Police department.”

The app will also assist the traveller in locating places like police stations, hospitals, pharmacy, ATMs, Embassy, train stations and petrol pumps. Tour-ists can select the service they are

looking for and open its location on the map to reach there.

George John, Director ASEAN, UST Global, said, “We are excited to launch MyTA app with UrSafe feature developed by our Malaysia team. We are confident that the app will be of great use to the millions of tourists visiting the country and will help make Malaysia a safer place to travel to.”

Dato James Wong, Chairman, Jana Tiga, said, “I’m proud to bring this app as it would certainly make the travel of tourists safer in Malaysia. Millions of travellers would benefit most from the many features of this apps.”

Apart from being user friendly and easy to use, the app is highly recom-mended by the Tourism Malaysia. More features will be added in the coming days.

At the 2018 Tourism Industry Conference, S Iswaran, Minister for Trade and Industry, Singa-pore, announced that with quantifiable support from technology, the tourism industry in Singapore can reach to new heights.

He highlighted that technology can be used to sharpen marketing and outreach efforts, refresh tourism offerings and drive greater productiv-ity. Travellers are also increasingly discerning, seeking new and differentiated experiences wher-ever they go.

The Tourism Information and Services Hub (TIH), was an important way technology has been applied in the sector, said Lionel Yeo, Chief Executive Officer, STB. “TIH is an integrated B2B2C platform to help businesses connect, collaborate and syndi-cate tourism information and services in real-time,” said Yeo.

He said that TIH fulfils this need by aggregat-ing tourism content and travel-related services and makes this available to tourists through application programming interfaces.

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) had announced in February that visitor arrivals and tourism receipts for 2017 recorded new high for the second time in two years. Arrivals to Singapore increased by 6.2% to 17.4 million, with seven of the top 15 markets - China, India, Vietnam, Philippines, United States, United Kingdom and Germany - also hitting record visitor arrivals.

Yatra.com appointed Mudit Shekhawat as Chief Marketing Officer of the company. He will be responsi-ble for leading marketing activities, alliances and ancil-lary revenues across all company’s business-lines and group entities.

In addition to further strengthening Yatra’s brand positioning, he will also manage all consumer market-ing initiatives across platforms to drive customer stick-iness and loyalty.

With a portfolio of having consumer marketing expe-rience of more than 12 years in the consumer internet space, most recently with Ola, Shekhawat was head of marketing. He has worked with Myntra, Yahoo and HCL Technologies in various marketing leadership roles.

Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com, welcom-ing Shekhawat to the company said, “As a veteran of the industry, he brings with him vast experience in

digital and consumer marketing, which will spur addi-tional growth for us and cement our position as India’s travel planner.”

yatra.com ropes in Mudit Shekhawat as CMO

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 28film tourism

Korean government launches spring travel WeekShowcases famous destinations featured in Korean movies and TV shows

Ritz Hotel in Hyderabad now open to shoot films

Jharkhand tourism department to shoot videos of lesser known destinations to lure travellersThe state tourism department of Jharkhand has come up with an initiative to film tourist destinations in the state to attract more travellers to visit the well-known as well as less travelled destinations.

“The objective is to promote the famous and lesser known tourism destinations of the state through video films. As of now, we can only see stills pictures of famous tourist sites on our website. But there has been a demand from visitors about films on such destinations along with available amenities. The films would be in Hindi and subtitled or dubbed in English,” said Rajiv Ranjan, State Tourism Department Joint Director and General Manager, Jharkhand Tourism Development Corporation Limited (JTDCL).

The procedure of choosing a private agency has already been started by the state tourism department to make films that would be exhibited and promoted at national and international travel marts and also would be uploaded on the tourism board’s website.

“The tender process has begun. These will be opened on April 24. An agency will be empanelled initially for two years with a provision of yearly extensions depend-ing on performance. The agency must have its own pho-tographers, video photographers and editing lab. This apart, the firm should have a director, script writer, cin-ematographer, editor and music director. The agency will have to use HD cameras,” said an official involved in the bidding process.

A list of 100 tourist destinations from Jharkhand will be finalised by the state tourism department among a

series of efforts to upgrade the state website for the con-venience of tourists. The list would then be uploaded onto www.jharkhandtourism.gov.in after prioritising the destinations on the basis of significance (natural beauty, hill station or waterfall, religious importance, adventure, water sports etc), facilities and footfall.

Spring Travel Week has been launched by the Min-istry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea for 16 days from late April to early May. The Spring Travel Week introduced travel destinations and programs based on locations featured in popular Korean mov-ies and TV shows.

Started in 2014, Travel Week is a Korean govern-ment organised tourism campaign consisting spring and autumn editions. This year’s campaign consists of travel programs in Busan, Daegu and Ulsan, along with Gyeonggi, North Chungcheong, South Jeolla, South Gyeongsang provinces and Jeju Island. The other 10 regional governments in Korea are slated to participate in the Travel Week taking place in autumn.

17 travel spots featured in popular TV shows and films will be highlighted as part of the Travel Week campaign like Saehan Bookstore in Danyang-gun, North Chungcheong Province, shown in the movie “Inside Men”, Hwaam Temple in Goseong, South Gyeongsang Province, from “Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds,” and Cheongso Station of Boryeong, South Chungcheong Province, in “A Taxi Driver”.

Regional travel programs include a tour around well-known filming spots in Busan, Daegu and South Gyeongsang Province.

Currently under the possession of Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation, 103-year-old Ritz Hotel of Hyderabad is now open to shoot films. Though the Hotel has been a location for several films in the 1990’s, the tourism department has started rent-ing it out for film shootings recently.

“We are ready to give access of the premises for any event provided there won’t be any damage to the structure. A film shooting is going on now, and in future also, we are willing to let out the space which is lying idle,” averred B Manohar, in-charge MD of the corporation.

Ritz Hotel is also the shooting location of an upcom-ing Telugu movie. Director Bhimaneni Srinivasa Rao has shot the film’s entire climax of nearly 25 minutes here at the Hill Fort palace. A few scenes of recently released Bhagmati were also shot in the same place.

“The corporation is charging about INR 1.2 lakh inclusive of GST for each day’s shoot. We needed a place which is aloof. The architecture and ruins are ideal for our climax sequence. The location with vast open space, bushes, lots of rooms, cellar, terrace etc is an ideal shooting location,” stated Srinivasa Rao.

When asked why would anyone choose Ritz Hotel when real-like movie sets and reputed studios are available, he said, “I agree that even a medium bud-get movie cannot afford the corporation’s rent but a movie set of similar nature would cost INR 60 lakh to INR 1 crore per day and we have finished our seven-day schedule with INR 7.2 lakh.”

In a first, an International Children Film Festival in Gujarat is being planned by the Government of Guja-rat. The state tourism department plans this festival in order to attract more tourists and also cater to the locals.

Most probably the International Children Film Festival would be organised either before the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investor Summit (VGGIS)-2019 or after the event.

INR 10 crore has already been invested by the state government for this festival. For technical sup-port, Gujarat Government has collaborated with the National Film Development Corporation of India and may also take the help of the Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI).

Jenu Devan, Managing Director, Tourism Corpo-ration of Gujarat Ltd (TCGL) stated, “The govern-ment has planned to organise an International Chil-dren Film Festival in the state to attract international and national tourists to the state as well as benefit film

enthusiasts. In many parts of the world and some places in India, film festivals attract a lot of tourists. Hence, as part of the government policy, TCGL is organising this festival.”

“We are planning to organise during or before the upcoming Gujarat Vibrant Summit in which we expect participation by all leading countries as well as people from different parts of the country. The state govern-ment has a very attractive policy for film-making in Gujarat,” Devan said.

“In the recent past, a number of major movies were shot in the state. We have the best variety of locations in Gujarat. The children’s film festival will show dif-ferent foreign and Indian languages movies. We aim to organise related seminars also. The main events of the festival will be held in Ahmedabad while other events will be organised in a few other cities of Gujarat to mar-ket as many possible tourist places of the state besides giving exposure to international films to the local audi-ence,” Devan informed.

Gujarat to organise the first ever International Children Film Festival

Jeju Island

Vijay Vilas Palace

Hill Fort Palace

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 29Responsible TouRism

uNWto nominates messi as the ambassador of responsible tourismBarcelona and the Argentina forward Lionel Messi joined the World Tourism Organization to promote the value of responsible tourism. Zurab Pololikash-vili, Secretary-General, UNWTO appointed Messi as UNWTO Ambassador for Responsible Tourism.

On being appointed as ambassador for responsi-ble tourism, Messi said, “During my travels I have had the opportunity to know other cultures and soci-eties as well as others ways to see the world and this is very enriching. The World Tourism Organisation as a specialised Agency of the United Nations works to make tourism a source of development and I am happy I can join this mission of promoting respon-sible tourism.”

“Messi is a unique sportsman and an example of how willpower and constant work yield good results. It is a great honour to have Messi joining UNWTO and other well-known personalities in promoting the positive values and benefits that tourism repre-sents,” asserted Pololikashvili.

Messi is the first football player in history who won five Ballon d’Or – the first four won consecu-tively – and four European Golden Shoes. He is an example of talent and constant work in football. Messi is admired all around the world not the least due to the positioning he brought to the F.C. Barce-lona in recent years, team with which he won a total of 30 titles, including eight Spanish Leagues, four Champion Leagues and five King’s Cups of Spain.

Lionel Messi joined the Spanish football player Fernando Hierro and the mythical Spanish coach Vicente del Bosque, as the first personalities that UNWTO appointed to advance the links between sports and tourism and promote the transformative power of responsible tourism.

Education and empowerment are two important aspects which contribute to the growth of any student. As an academician whose prime motive is to inculcate these two, I always believed in the fact that academics are to be amalgamated with activities. With this inten-tion we organised an educational tour to Jim Corbett National park as a part of Responsible Travel.

Responsible Travel includes the following:

• Minimises negative economic, environmental, and social impacts;

• Generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities, improves working conditions and access to the industry;

• Involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances;

• Makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity;

• Provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues;

• Provides access for physically challenged people;

• Being culturally sensitive, engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence.

The group of 48 students were sensitised and the visit to Jim Corbett Museum and Heritage Village at Choti Haldwani was an amazing experience to interact with some of the local villagers. Over the last 15 years this simple community of Chhoti Haldwani has evolved into the Corbett Gram Vikas Samiti. The inception was as Kumaoni Sanskritik Utthan Manch 2002 to Corbett Dharohar Prabandi Samiti to Corbett Gram

Vikas Samiti in 2003. In 2004 it was registered under the societies act and has 80G & 12A certificates. Cor-bett Gram Vikas Samiti is a registered Non-Gov-ernment Organisation, formed by the community of Chhoti Haldwani in 2002 to realize the dreams of Jim Corbett and follow his principles. It offers nature guide services, heritage walks, bird watch-ing, home-stays and folk dance & music programs by its members as part of its community-based tour-ism programme.

An important activity of the members of the samiti who have been trained on nature and heritage walks is to conduct the visitors on the various trails in Kaladhungi and Chhoti Haldwani. Visitors going on these trails have to be accompanied by a guide from the samiti at a nominal charge. This fee is distrib-uted amongst the members of the samiti. The village of Chotti Haldwani completed 100 years in 2015. The community of the village that Corbett, once owned, remember him fondly till date and to realise his dreams and take his legacy forward have got together to form the Corbett Gram Vikas Samiti(CGVS).

The predominant feature which this community propagates is the homestay facility which empowers them economically. The local community are well versed with the environmental preservation of flora and fauna. These two factors are encompassed with social factor which give them the much-desired visi-bility in the society.

It is therefore convinced that primarily the desti-nations or the places that tourists visit, should con-duct their business and where local communities and tourists and the tourism industry interact, that the economic, social and environmental impacts of tourism need to be managed responsibly, to maximise positive impacts and minimise negative ones.

It was recognised that Responsible Tourism takes many forms, that different destinations and stake-holders will have different priorities, and that local policies and guidelines will need to be developed through multi-stakeholder processes to develop responsible tourism in destinations.

We need to call upon countries, multilateral agen-cies, destinations and enterprises to develop simi-lar practical guidelines and to encourage planning authorities, tourism businesses, tourists and local communities – to take responsibility for achieving sustainable tourism, and to create better places for people to live in and for people to visit.

We also urge multilateral agencies responsible for development strategies to include sustainable responsible tourism in their outcomes. Determined to make tourism more sustainable and accepting that it is the responsibility of all stakeholders in tourism to achieve more sustainable forms of tourism, we should commit ourselves to pursue the principles of Respon-sible Tourism. To conclude, “Let us Together make Places and People to live better.”

Zurab Pololikashvili, Secretary-General, UNWTO and Messi

Classroom to Community - an academic approach towards Responsible Travel

Responsibly Yours- Guest Column

A Lajwanti Naidu

J&K government bans use of polythene at tourism hot-spotsIn a move to conserve the nature and to promote green and sustainable tourism, the Jammu and Kashmir Gov-ernment has declared tourist hotspots and resorts in Ladakh and Kashmir as no polythene zones. The gov-ernment also banned the use of non-biodegradable plastic at the tourist hot-spots.

Mehmood Shah, Director, Kashmir Tourism, said, “In order to make Kashmir division, including Leh and Kargil, polythene-free, it is hereby ordered that all tour-ist units are declared polythene-free zones. The tour-ist destinations or resorts are also brought under the ambit of no polythene zones.”

Revealing further on this move, he stated the tour-ism department has installed a magnetic waste disinte-grator and an auto-composer at the Gulmarg ski-resort, which will be capable of processing bio-degradable waste. He said, “The disintegrator shreds polythene and converts into ash. It has been helpful to process waste without causing any harm to the environment.”

This move will likely motivate tourists to become more responsible, and help government achieve sus-tainable tourism.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | MAY 2018 • 30EVENTS

IMEX FRANKFURTMay 15-17, 2018

Messe Frankfu�, Germany

ITB CHINAMay 16-18, 2018Shanghai, China

TTF KOLKATAJuly 06-08, 2018

Netaji Indoor Stadium &Khudiram Anushilan Kendra

TTF HYDERABADJuly 13-14, 2018

Hyderabad InternationalConvention Centre

TTF AHMEDABADSeptember 07-09, 2018

Gujarat UniversityExhibition Hall

PATA TRAVEL MARTSeptember 12-14, 2018MIEC, Langkawi, Malaysia

TTF SURATSeptember 14-16, 2018Pandit Dindayal Upadhyay

Indoor Stadium

TOURISM EXPO JAPANSeptember 20-23, 2018

Koto, Japan

TTF PUNESeptember 28-30, 2018Messe Global Seasons Mall

TTF MUMBAIOctober 05-07, 2018

Nehru Centre

IMEX AMERICAOctober 16-18, 2018

Sands Expo, Las Vegas, USA

TTG INCONTRIOctober 10-12, 2018

Rimini, Italy

OTMJanuary 23-25, 2019

Bombay Exhibition Centre Mumbai

SKÅL WORLD CONGRESSMOMBASA 2018

October 17-21, 2018Mombasa, Kenya

ITB ASIAOctober 17-19, 2018

Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

WTM LONDONNovember 05-07, 2018

ExCeL London

ATTA’s AdventureNEXTDecember 10-12, 2018Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

EVENTS CALENDAR 2018-19Save The Dates

BLTMJanuary 18-19, 2019The Leela Ambience

Convention Hotel, Delhi

TTF CHENNAIFebruary 08-10, 2019

Chennai Exhibition Centre

TTF BENGALURUFebruary 15-17, 2019

Palace GroundsTripuravasini

Recently, Visit Monaco successfully concluded the, “Monaco Residential Con-clave 2018” in Goa. Monaco has been a top-end luxury destination with a com-mitment towards environmental-friendly living. The Monaco Government Tour-ist Bureau, with the theme, “Green is the New Glam”, endeavoured to take major steps in green and sustainable practices, keeping the prime interest of Indian travellers in consideration.

The two-day affair laid emphasis on sustainable tourism and responsible lux-ury as the core of its communication, through, a panel discussion on energy con-servation, in association with the luxury lifestyle magazine, Peaklife. Moderated by Jamal Shaikh, National Editor-Brunch and New Media Initiatives at Hindustan Times, along with, Actor and Celebrity youth icon, Huma Qureshi and Corinne Kiabski, Press and Communication Director, Monaco Government Tourist & Convention Authority. The conclave saw top-notch, industry influencers, travel enthusiasts, corporates, business heads, fashion influencers, wellness profes-sionals and distinguished decision makers, from across the length and breadth of the country, who came together for exchanging views and opinions on green initiatives across various industries.

Fashion Icon, Amit Aggarwal, designed special canvas Moodboards, for the Monaco Residential Conclave. The artworks depicted Aggarwal’s inspiration from the carvings and motifs of Destination Monaco’s architecture as well as the Med-iterranean colours with hues of recycled fashion, imbibed. Along with this, vari-ous Interesting Workshops, Presentations, Fun and Engagement Activities, were customised, so as to educate and refresh the bond that they share with Destina-tion Monaco. The informative sessions were synced by a holistic mind and soul workshop by Vesna Jacob, wellness expert, healer and clinical hypnotherapist.

The Senior delegation from Monaco was led by, Corinne Kiabski - Press & Com-munication Director and Charlotte Valli - Sales & Marketing Manager, Monaco Government Tourist & Convention Authority, along with hotels partners includ-ing, Fairmont Monte Carlo, Le Meridien Beach Plaza Monaco and Monte-Carlo SBM Group - an exceptional resort. Followed by an, indulgent wine tasting tricks

and treats, by Dominique Milardi, President of the Monaco sommeliers Asso-ciation, the Monaco Residential Conclave, received a positive response from all present.

Talking on the occasion, Rajeev Nangia, India Director, Monaco Government Tourist Bureau, said, “Monaco, has been the epitome of luxury and has always attracted the crème de la crème of society from across the globe. We do under-stand that luxury also comes with a responsibility. Thus, Monaco has adopted the theme “Green is the New Glam” and consciously growing towards industrial sustainability with a commitment of value beyond business, in the light of green initiatives and turning to eco-friendly practices.”

Over the period, the green mission of urban agriculture farming, called, Terra de Monaco, believes, Good Food is Green, which makes Monaco, a world first, to have the largest number of organic farms and vegetable gardens on rooftops. With Mobee and electronic bike installations, the idea of green transportation, is now an inevitable part of destination Monaco, too. Monaco is the second small-est country in the world to globally address the environmental issue of reducing the carbon footprint.

Visit Monaco organises Monaco Residential Conclave 2018 in Goa

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INDIA 12 BUSINESS & MICE 22

ASIA 26

AFRICA 30

EUROPE 28

MIDDLE EAST 27

AMERICAS 32

FILM TOURISM 34

RESPONSIBLE TOURISM 36 EVENTS 38

CARIBBEAN 33

OTM 2018 receives overwhelming response;

98% of participants likely to return next year

Contd on page 2

OTM Mumbai, the largest travel show in the Asia

Pacific region concluded on an optimistic note. The

event recorded 1,000+ sellers from 50+ countries and

25+ Indian states who networked with more than 15,000

trade visitors from January 18-20, 2018.

In an exit survey, 98% of the participants confirmed

they are likely to return to OTM 2019. More than 90%

opined that participation in OTM was a must.

More than 800 quality buyers from renowned

companies scheduled meetings at this edition. OTM

2018 featured over 400 hosted buyers from across the

globe who met the pool of domestic and international

exhibitors showcasing their travel products and services

at OTM this year. Several hosted buyers confirmed that they have been

ensuring their presence at OTM for many years now. A

number of them exclaimed that they had graduated from

visitors to hosted buyers.The show was inaugurated by KJ Alphons, Minister

of State for Tourism (I/C), Government of India. In his

inaugural address he expressed his delight seeing the

turnout of the global participants. He also expressed

satisfaction about the mix of international and national

participants at the show floor - approximately 400 and

600 respectively.Host State Maharashtra had a powerful presence

presided over by the Guest of Honour Jaykumar Rawal,

Minister of Tourism, Government of Maharashtra. He

remarked that Mumbai was proud to host the leading

travel show in the Asia Pacific region. He also marvelled

at the long history of OTM as an o�shoot of the oldest

travel trade show in the country.

OTM 2018 had a balanced mix of participants from

outbound and inbound, outlined Neela Lad, Regional

Director (West), India Tourism Mumbai O�ce. Driving

an enhanced response from the travel show, she

added that OTM has assisted in creating awareness

on destinations in the North East. Through OTM, the

North Eastern travel destinations in India have initiated a

dialogue with the Indian film producers, she highlighted.

The dignitaries present at the inaugural session

included KJ Alphons, Minister of State for Tourism

(I/C), Government of India, Jaykumar Rawal, Tourism

Minister, Government of Maharashtra, Nabin Pokharel,

O�ciating Director Tourism Marketing and Promotion,

Nepal Tourism Board, Michael Michailidis, Head of

Market Research Department, Greek National Tourism

Organisation, Majed Ishaq, Marketing Department,

Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, State of Palestine,

Betty Ichan, Regional Marketing Manager, Kenya

Tourism Board, Maipelo Mogotsi, Counsellor III,

Botswana High Commission, Tian Xin, Director, China

National Tourist O�cer New Delhi amongst other

o�cials. Turkey was the Premium Partner Country at OTM

this year. The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism

has been participating at OTM for the last eight years

with a large number of tour operators. Nuray Topuz,

Cultural and Tourism Expert - City Planner, Ministry of

Culture and Tourism, Republic of Turkey asserted that

they were very happy to be a part of OTM 2018 as it is the

largest travel show of the Asia Pacific region.

KJ Alphons, Minister of State for Tourism (I/C), Government of India & Jaykumar Rawal, Minister of Tourism, Government of Maharashtra

inaugurating OTM 2018 along with other dignitaries

Inauguration of the Incredible India pavilion at OTM 2018

OCEANIA 29

TECHNOLOGY 24

GLOBAL 35

We debuted the last year and

returned to OTM this year again! Greece

is very happy with the selection of buyers

at OTM this year. OTM has given us a great

oppo�unity to establish business with

the Indian stakeholders. Thank you to the

organising team for a great event and we

are definitely looking forward to the next

edition of OTM.

Michael Michailidis

Head of Market Research Depa�ment

Greek National Tourism Organisation

OTM is India’s largest and most

international gathering of travel trade

buyers and professionals. Most impo�antly

it is conducted in Mumbai each year

which is the headqua�ers of almost

all major outbound tour operators in

India. Pa�icipating in OTM works best

for Thailand as agents get to meet face-

to-face and build long-term business

relations with their pa�ners in India. Soraya HomchuenDirector

Tourism Authority of Thailand, Mumbai