Continuing on the recovery path, domestic air passenger traffic crossed the 10-million mark in November for the first time since the pandemic hit the aviation industry in March last year but the coronavirus’ new variant Omicron has the potential to spoil the party, according to rating agency ICRA. After recording 1.23 crore domestic passengers in February 2020, domestic air travel demand dipped to 19.84 lakh passengers in the first month (June 2020) of the resumption of flight services on the local routes after a two-month hiatus. The recovery in domestic traffic continued till March this year when a more virulent…
Author: Prasenjit Chakraborty
Consulate General of Malaysia and Tourism Malaysia Mumbai organised a Langkawi SOP briefing session recently to select Travel Trade Associations, Educational and MICE Operators. Taking gradual, calibrated measures to reopen international borders, Malaysia will allow the entry of fully vaccinated foreign tourists in Langkawi without quarantine. The Malaysian government is implementing a pilot international tourism bubble project which will initially run for 3 months started from 15 November 2021. According to the SOPs issued by the Malaysian government, Malaysia will target fully vaccinated with the Covid-19 vaccine for the bubble projects. Travellers will also have to present a negative RT-PCR…
The Forest and Tourism departments in Tamil Nadu have jointly conducted a survey to identify more tourist spots in the Nilgiris district in the state, Tourism Minister Mathiventhan said. Speaking at a function of prize distribution of Ooty Film Festival, Mathiventhan said that the district had a lot of beautiful locations, where many films have been shot in the past. Considering the situation and also to provide more attraction, more spots including in the forest areas, the departments will create more places so that the government and the people can earn more revenue due to increased tourist activities, the Minister…
In an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19 variant Omicron, Japan adds India, Greece, Romania and four US states under strict quarantine vigilance. Japanese nationals and foreign residents travelling to Japan from India, Greece, Romania and four US states will have to undergo stringent quarantine regulations from today onwards, in order to control the spread of the Omicron variant, reported Kyodo news. While, foreign residents, as well as Japanese nationals travelling from Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota and New York to Japan, will have to mandatorily spend three days of their two-week quarantine at government-designated facilities. With emerging Omicron cases in…
For more than a decade India has remained one of the top source markets for the UAE. Taking due cognisance, Expo 2020 Dubai launched an e-learning program to facilitate Indian travel trade to curate an attractive itinerary for their clients, says Sumathi Ramanathan, Vice President, Market Strategy & Sales, Expo 2020 Dubai, in an interaction with TravelBiz Monitor. Q.1. The organisers of the Expo 2020 Dubai have launched an e-learning program for the travel trade partners in India. What is the objective of launching the e-learning program? Expo 2020 has launched a dedicated e-learning programme in India in association with…
The travel bans imposed from governments will leave the recovery of travel and tourism lagging behind, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has revealed. Furthermore, the Association published data on the recovery of air travel from October 2021, revealing that the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected the demand for air travel. . According to the report, the total demand for air travel in October was down by 49.4 per cent compared to the corresponding time in 2019. The demand for air travel is measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPK, in which revenue passenger-kilometre means that one passenger is carried…
Digital travel platform Agoda, announced the launch of Beds Network, its first foray into wholesale distribution, with the aim to help properties around the world distribute their wholesale rates more efficiently and effectively. Beds Network has launched in 20 markets across Asia, Europe and Middle East, including Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, with the view to expand globally in 2022. Commenting on this, Liyana Jamil, Associate Vice President, Beds Network, said, “Travel is incredibly volatile – particularly here in Asia Pacific where vaccine roll out has been slower.…
With the Maharashtra government on December 2 amending its air travel rules in view of global concerns over the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) cancelled its previous guidelines issued to the city airport authorities and asked them to follow the revised ones as issued by the state.The state government’s amended air travel rules mandates seven-day institutional quarantine of passengers from only three “high-risk” countries – South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, while for domestic travel, passengers will either have to be fully vaccinated, or carry negative RT-PCR test report obtained within 72 hours before boarding. Mumbai municipal…
A total of 1,27,605 tourists visited Kashmir in November this year which is more than all the figures in the month in the past seven years, according to the Jammu and Kashmir government officials. The officials are planning to organise various festivals for the Winter season in the mountain Union Territory. According to the official, 6,327 tourists had visited Kashmir in November 2020 which is way lesser than the current figure of nearly 1,27,000. Dr GN Itoo, Director, Tourism Kashmir, said, “On the direction of the LG, we conducted some of the iconic festivals like houseboat festival, the Sufi festival…
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DCGA) has announced the postponement of December 15 resumption of commercial international passenger flights due to rising cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The scheduled international flight services were to resume on December 15, and the same has been postponed, said the circular released on December 1. The DGCA circular that was released yesterday stated that the decision is taken because of the emergence of new variants of concern and that they are watching the situation closely in consultation with all stakeholders. On November 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked officials to…
