Vivek Shukla has promoted to chief executive officer at The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group.
In his new role, he will be responsible for product enhancement, driving key initiatives along with leading the overall business performance for the brand.
With over 31 years of experience in the luxury hospitality industry, he was previously vice president – operations where he led the group’s operations, corporate affairs and governance.
The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, home to the Taj Mahal, introduced its new tourism policy in November 2022, which sets out to provide a conducive business environment with an investment-friendly approach to encourage and sustain private sector participation.
The policy also focuses on marketing and promoting new tourism products, events, and the lesser-known destinations of the state globally to attract incremental tourist footfalls.
The government of Uttar Pradesh recognises that it expects the tourism sector to play a key role in the state’s ambition of becoming a trillion-dollar economy.
Mukesh Kumar Meshram, principal secretary & director general, tourism, government of Uttar Pradesh, said: “We want to promote theme-based activities like wellness, heritage, adventure, cuisine tourism, eco-tourism and film tourism – to name a few. Investment-based subsidies have been offered to the hotel industry in the new tourism policy. We are also offering a two per cent extra incentive to film shoots that highlight lesser-known tourist destinations of the state.”
Rajiv Mehra, president, Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO), said: “Uttar Pradesh has many hidden facets that international travellers (have) yet to explore. From the forts of Bundelkhand to the state’s rich flora and fauna, the tourism products of Uttar Pradesh are diverse. A large number of international travellers travel to Agra (to see) the beauty of the Taj Mahal but the majority are unaware of places like Soor Sarovar Bird Sanctuary, which is a heaven for birders and nature lovers conveniently located on the Delhi-Agra highway.”
The government of Uttar Pradesh is planning to give a facelift to the forts located in the Bundelkhand region in order to develop them as new centres of tourism.
“We are looking to work with private partners to introduce light and sound shows and trekking facilities at the Kalinjar Fort. We also plan to introduce water sports activities in Barua Sagar lake which is located adjacent to the beautiful fort complex of Baruasagar,” revealed Meshram.
The state’s tourism department, Eco-Tourism Board and forest department are working closely together to promote eco, nature and wildlife experiences in both domestic and international markets.
“We believe that a holistic and collaborative approach to nature-based ecotourism and cultural tourism is essential for sustainable progress as they are both undeniably co-dependent. While efforts have been ongoing to promote these circuits, we are now taking more active measures to develop an awareness of these possibilities to the world of travellers,” shared Mamta Sanjeev Dubey, principal chief conservator of forest & head of forest force, government of Uttar Pradesh.
The UP Nature and Bird Festival 2023 was organised from February 1 to 3 at Vijay Sagar Bird Sanctuary in Mahoba district to highlight the biodiverse-rich wildlife reserves and sanctuaries of Uttar Pradesh. The festival welcomed an audience of national and international experts in the fields of birding, nature conservation, and wildlife tourism and photography.
As Uttar Pradesh is blessed with expansive and picturesque rivers, the tourism department of the state is also keen to develop and promote river tourism, especially in the luxury segment.
The commencement of the world’s longest river cruise journey – Ganga Vilas on January 13 this year – is expected to bring the spotlight onto the river cruise tourism potential of the state. Operated by Antara Luxury River Cruises, the journey starts off from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and ends at Dibrugarh in Assam.
“The government of Uttar Pradesh is very keen to showcase the potential vested in its river cruise tourism market. Within the state, we are planning to begin river cruises between Prayagraj and Ballia as well as Ayodhya and Varanasi. These river cruises will also allow tourists to explore remote areas of the state,” said Raj Singh, founder & chairman, Antara Luxury River Cruises.
The new tourism policy of Uttar Pradesh has also identified wedding and business event segments among its focused areas. The tourism department is spotting wedding destinations to be listed in an online inventory system that will aid wedding planners and event management firms. Furthermore, locations are being finalised in destinations like Agra and Ghaziabad for the establishment of convention centres that are supported by an event ecosystem to project the state as an attractive business event destination.
Sarbendra Sarkar, founder & managing director, Cygnett Hotels & Resorts, said: “Uttar Pradesh’s new tourism policy is designed to be investment-friendly and to promote a variety of tourism offerings.
“To capitalise on this, we are planning to open a property in Vrindavan by the end of this year, with a focus on the wedding market. We are also eager to open our hotels in other parts of the state.”
Uttar Pradesh had a valuable chance recently to show off its hidden gems to an international audience. As part of India’s G20 Presidency, 11 meetings were held between February 13 and 15 in various cities of Uttar Pradesh. These meetings were used to offer foreign delegates a taste of unique local experiences, like Braj culture through folk song and dance performances. Braj is a region in India of which a significant area (Mathura-Vrindavan) falls in Uttar Pradesh. Eco-tourism experiences were also presented to the visiting delegates.
Stakeholders believe that the new tourism policy is key to promoting the state’s diverse tourism offerings, but careful implementation is needed.
“A high-level committee should be set up under the chairmanship of the chief minister or a senior officer from his office to monitor the implementation of the policy. A destination like Agra needs no promotion, but it should be made tourist-friendly by ramping up infrastructure and amenities in the city,” opined Sunil C Gupta, managing director, Travel Bureau.
Brand USA organised its first sales mission in India after a hiatus of more than three years due to the pandemic.
As part of the India Sales Mission, a delegation of 25 exhibitors visited Mumbai and Delhi from March 19 to 23, 2023.
“We are in the post-pandemic recovery phase. It is the first time we are here since September 2019 and we are excited to be back. Last year, India was the number four overseas source market (excluding Canada and Mexico) for us with about 1.3 million visitors – 15 per cent down compared to 2019 visitations,” said Jackie Ennis, vice president, global travel trade, Brand USA.
This year, the NTO is focusing on marketing segments such as the outdoors, luxury, culinary, and sports to the Indian market.
“We intend to work closely with Indian travel agents to promote unique experiences you can have in the US and not elsewhere. After the pandemic, people want to explore open spaces – so, promoting our outdoor activities is one of our focus areas. Sports tourism has also a lot of potential considering the popularity of sporting events, like the NBA league in India,” she added.
As per Ennis, the NTO is keen to organise a mega fam trip for Indian travel agents, but is unable to do so as outbound flights from India to the US are fully booked due to overwhelming demand.
“US carriers including American Airlines and United Airlines were looking to introduce more flights to the Indian market but the Russia-Ukraine conflict resulted in a delay of their plans,” said Ennis.
Presently, United Airlines operates seven weekly direct flights from Newark to New Delhi, while American Airlines offers seven weekly direct services from New York (JFK) to New Delhi. Meanwhile, Air India is operating 46 weekly direct flights to the US.
Another challenge for Indian outbound travellers is reports of long delays in trying to obtain visas to the US, even though the US opened its borders to international travel more than a year ago.
However, several Indian travel agents told TTG Asia that the situation has improved of late.
“(The) visa situation is much better now. For group visas, it is taking some time but for FITs and families, appointment slots are available,” said Veena Robinson, vice president India sales, Discover Destinations.
She added: “We are seeing that more and more Indian travellers want to explore destinations beyond New York, Washington, or Niagara Falls. There is demand for products like National Parks and self-drive tours now. Every third query that we are receiving is for self-drive options.”
Bali governor Wayan Koster has reacted to reports of criminal activities committed by tourists from Russia and Ukraine with a proposal to revoke the visa-on-arrival (VOA) scheme for passport holders from the two countries.
Some of the crimes on record include illegal business operations in Bali.
Koster has submitted his proposal to Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry and the Law and Human Rights Ministry.
While travel trade players support the governor’s tough stance on crime watch, they deem the VOA revocation excessive and unnecessary.
According to RUS-CIS Bali DMC Association, whose members are inbound operators specialising in the Russian and CIS markets, withdrawing VOA would not solve the problem, as most of the lawbreakers hold long stay visas like B211, which applies to visitors entering the country for official government activities, business and commercial activities, family visit, tourism etc.
In a statement, the association said the move would only hurt the economy. It noted that, for the period of November 2022 to March 2023, contribution from travellers from Russia and CIS to Bali’s economy exceeded US$15 million.
Ngurah Rai Immigration data showed that Bali welcomed 43,622 Russian visitors between January and March this year.
Jimmy Saputra, president director of Pegasus Indonesia Travel, urged the government to reconsider the proposal, stating that the number of tourists who have violated the law is not significant. He added that the crimes were limited to Bali and not the whole of Indonesia.
A check with the Bali Police found that 56 out of 171 traffic offenders so far are Russians.
Instead of revoking the VOA, Saputra urged the police and authorities to take strict and uncompromising action against lawbreakers, regardless of their nationalities.
Putu Winastra, chairman of the Association of the Indonesian Tours & Travel Agencies (ASITA) Bali Chapter, hopes that crime monitoring and prosecution would be more systematic.
He also suggested that the police force should provide English language training to its officers, so that they can better explain local laws to foreigners.
In the meantime, to maintain order, the Bali Provincial Government has formed an integrated task force to monitor and take action against disruptive foreigners in Bali.
Tjokorda Oka Artha Ardana Sukawati, deputy governor of Bali, said the task force would focus on traffic violations, illegal business activities, and residential permits. It will operate in three priority areas – Nusa Penida, Ubud and Sanur – and comprise representatives from the Bali Provincial Government, Bali Police, Bali Regional Office of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, and the Bali immigration office.
Samoa Tourism Authority has appointed Hong Kong-based Travel Focus to market the destination for Hong Kong, Macau and China.
Having been the agent for Samoa Airways a few years ago, Travel Focus will work closely with wholesalers of each city in China to push Samoa as a destination. Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese travellers will also be offered visa-free access into Samoa.
Samoa’s minister of tourism, Cedric Schuster, told TTG Asia: “The country reopened last August and we started looking at new markets. China is the biggest source out there and (as) Samoa is not known to Chinese travellers, (that’s why) we work with Travel Focus which has a wider reach.”
He explained that while Asia had always been a vital market for Samoa, accessibility was an issue as there were no direct flights. By partnering Travel Focus, he hopes Samoa will “make a better presence”.
“Having regular groups coming over from China will help lift (the) standards of our hoteliers and private sectors in Samoa,” said Schuster, adding that the destination has mainly served travellers from New Zealand and Australia so far.
Luamanuvae Albert Mariner, Samoan ambassador of China, pointed out that a lot of destinations in the world are targeting tourists from China.
“Chinese tourists have specific interests – they travel in groups (and are interested) to explore countries they (have) never been to,” he said, adding that the Chinese see Samoa as a mysterious destination, one they have not heard of before despite the “strong historical and cultural connections”.
According to Samoa Tourism Authority’s (STA) CEO, Pativaine Petaia-Tevita, the country welcomed a record-high number of 180,000 visitors in 2018, of which only 9,000 were from Asia.
She remarked that there is room to grow for the Chinese market, with efforts in place such as signages in Chinese at airports. The two-day Samoa Tourism Exchange will also return in May and enable STA to connect with buyers from all over the world, especially Chinese markets.
In addition, a weekly non-stop charter service operated by Hainan Airlines on B787 and A330 aircraft will also commence on May 1.
Currently, there is no direct air connection between Hong Kong and Samoa. Travellers will need to fly via Sydney/Melbourne, New Zealand and Fiji.
Starting from May 8, Air New Zealand will fly daily from Auckland to Hong Kong, while Fiji Airways will operate two weekly services with the possibility of adding more flights in June.
Travelport recently launched Smartpoint Cloud on Travelport+ which delivers a more intuitive and efficient way for travel agents to sell and service travel, all while increasing sales of higher-value services for suppliers.
Through Smartpoint Cloud, agents will be able to easily search, filter, find and create tailored packages to suit every customer type, including fully customisable hotel and flight search options and NDC offers.
“Travel agents are the true retailers of our industry, and launching Smartpoint Cloud on Travelport+ will help our partners to deliver more value to both their clients and suppliers,” said Tom Kershaw, chief product & technology officer at Travelport. “Like any good tech innovation, these tools are simple to use and tackle key challenges faced by the travel advisor community. Smartpoint Cloud will further personalise agent workflows, help drive more revenue, and most importantly, impress customers.”
Built with the insight that agencies need to train and onboard new agents, the graphical user interface on Travelport+ is designed to provide a more user-friendly, simpler experience that speeds up agent workflow. Agents who prefer to work in a traditional (cryptic) interface have the flexibility to do so.
Smartpoint Cloud’s retailing storefront helps agents understand offers and make more informed decisions within the robust offerings of air, hotel, car, and rail content available. It provides better criteria to allow easy comparisons from any source, including both NDC and traditional air content side by side.
It also helps provide more transparency on offers, enabling agents to have the relevant information for comparison shopping at their fingertips. Additionally, the newly expanded Trip Quote capabilities integrate both GDS and NDC offers, enabling agents to present more customised choices and better service, while offering travellers the ability to more easily compare prices.
Smartpoint Cloud also enhances exchange capabilities to automate the calculation of accurate exchange costs and reduce errors.
As Smartpoint Cloud equips agents with new tools that enable them to better understand the details of an offer, suppliers can expect to boost their sales by seamlessly showcasing their top brands and best products to their target customers.
Supplier content is organised and promoted through concise and user-friendly matrix displays that enable effortless comparison of content from various sources, such as NDC and traditional airline content. The attribute-enhanced searches, that show agents exactly what is included, help agents to become better retailers and upsell travellers with options that are most important to them. Smartpoint Cloud also makes it easier for agents to service trips and manage exchanges independently.
Sabre Corporation has teamed up with Plan3, an automated airline disruption management solution, to enable airlines to be more proactive when disruption strikes.
The new alliance will allow Plan3 to draw upon Sabre’s extensive industry reach and deep domain knowledge in airline technology to help accelerate the adoption of its service, while enabling Sabre to quickly deliver a holistic approach to passenger disruption for its airline partners.
Plan3 will link via APIs and web services to augment native irregular operations and schedule change options available through an airline’s Passenger Service System (PSS).
Plan3’s CEO and founder, Sveinn Akerlie, shared: “We’ve all seen, and many of us have experienced first-hand, increased disruption in this (post-Covid) recovery era, so it’s more important than ever that airlines have an intuitive passenger disruption management tool that can enhance customer satisfaction, maximise operational efficiencies, and reduce recovery costs.”
Plan3 is a unique solution in the disruption management space, utilising powerful automation to enable airlines to respond to thousands of unique passenger disruptions at once. Its unique ‘issues dashboard’ allows airlines to monitor and react to the disruption status of passengers at an individual level, flagging any travellers that will experience issues due to a disruption event.
Plan3 is PSS agnostic and content provider agnostic, meaning it can complement Sabre’s own ecosystems and product offerings, as well as being used by airlines on other systems. Their smart re-accommodation solution is ideal for retail-focused airlines who offer customers various ancillaries through third-party partners. Plan3 holistically looks at the customer’s entire journey to make rebooking recommendations across flight, hotel, car, and more.
Using Plan3’s ‘option creator tool’, airlines create holistic ‘option packages’ containing new flight options, as well as hotel rooms, meal vouchers, ground transportation and gift cards. Option packages are then sent to the passenger for them to make their preferred selection, directly from their personal device. The entire flow can be fully automated from templates, enabling airlines to respond to even the most complex of issues within just a few minutes.
“Speed and agility are of the utmost importance in today’s dynamic global travel marketplace, and this new relationship is another stepping stone in Sabre’s strategy to accelerate change through alliances to offer rapid innovation for our travel partners,” said Mike Barrera, vice president, product management, Sabre.
“One of the challenges of disruption recovery is to ensure that the entire traveller journey is considered – from flights, to hotels, to pre-booked ancillaries such as in-flight meals. Plan3 provides depth and breadth of inventory, as an agnostic aggregator of disruption-related content to bring greater choices to passengers.
“We look forward to working with Plan3 to offer an intelligent solution for airlines and passengers alike, while expanding our product ecosystem with an easy-to-implement, passenger-first solution.”
Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA) and the FTI Group have partnered to launch twice-weekly flights from Munich, Germany to Ras Al Khaimah International Airport in 4Q2023.
Reinforcing RAKTDA’s strategy to boost inbound tourism by enhancing global air connectivity to the Emirate, this partnership coincides with the signing of an agreement between RAKTDA and Qatar Airways that will see the Qatari flag carrier launch direct daily flights to Ras Al Khaimah International Airport, commencing November 1.
“This agreement with the FTI GROUP marks a major milestone in Ras Al Khaimah’s tourism development strategy, as we look to drive inbound traffic from Germany, which counts among our fastest-growing visitor source markets,” said Raki Phillips, CEO, RAKTDA.
A recent report published by GlobalData revealed Germany ranks among the global tourism industry’s most important outbound source markets and is projected to account for almost 118 million travellers annually by 2024.
“In 2022, we’ve experienced 81 per cent growth in German visitors to Ras Al Khaimah compared to the previous year, and the addition of twice-weekly direct flights from Munich should see this number grow substantially,” added Phillips.
The FTI Group is a major player in Germany’s tourism sector, accounting for a 15 per cent share of the market and US$4 billion turnover in FY2021/22. It has agreements with more than 10,000 partner travel agencies in Germany, making it an important strategic partner in support of RAKTDA’s visitor growth targets.
FTI Group’s CEO, Ralph Schiller, said: “With this long-term partnership, we are contributing to Ras Al Khaimah’s growth story. We look forward to the great future that lies ahead of Ras Al Khaimah and are excited to be a part of it.”
Yogendran Devarajan has been named general manager at Elysium Resort Penang, scheduled to open in April 2024 in Batu Ferringhi Penang.
He has 16 years of experience in the hospitality industry and was recently operations and business development manager of Arenaa Hotels Group.
Accor has appointed David Young as chief sustainability officer and director of ESG for Accor Pacific.
In his new role, Young will lead the implementation of Accor’s ESG and sustainability agenda across its 400 hotels, apartments and resorts in the region.
He has extensive ESG, commercial and operational experience in the travel industry in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the UK, and was previously the executive manager of sustainability and ESG at the Qantas Group.
