Crouching Tiger, Roaring Dragon:

German advisory: Kashmir safe +05

Britain works towards recovery before the Olympics +09

Vietnam turns attention to Indian market +13

The tiger and the dragon are in the cross-hairs of the global tour-ism industry. Nielsen India has prepared a report “Understand-ing Growth Markets – China and India”, key findings of which were presented on the sidelines of the PATA Travel Mart held recently in New Delhi.

Drivers of the outbound market- Strong GDP growth between

8 and 9.3% in both the coun-tries over the next two years

- High Consumer Confidence Index: India (126), China (105), beating global average of 95

- Rising consumerism across categories, especially travel: Chinese plan to spend 55% of their disposable income on hol-idays/vacations, while Indians plan to spend 34%, both above the global average of 34%

- Trend of Premiumisation in India, and Super-Premiumi-sation in China

- Rising influence of Social Media: India has the third larg-est Facebook community in the world, 100 million people online, and 45,000 new users joining social media every dayAll these drivers have resulted

in 50 million Chinese outbound travellers and 12.5 million Indian in 2010. While current figures are heavily weighted in favour of China, going forward, Indian outbound travellers are expected to quadruple by 2020 to 50 million, while the number of Chinese travelling overseas is expected to just about double in the same period.

HighlightsThe presentation went on to high-light other interesting and use-ful insights about the outbound Indian and Chinese travellers:

Indians are travelling over-seas at a younger age now than in 2008: While in 2008 single or

young married individuals with-out any z children accounted for 43% of the market, by 2011 this has grown to 54%. In contrast the middle-aged with dependent children segment has shrunk from 50% to 38%. Leisure travel-lers from Tier II cities are older than in Tier I cities.

The socio-economic spread of the Indian outbound travel-ler has broadened, with the Sec A2/B1/B2 segment swelling from 28% to 38%.

Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) remains the most important motivation for travelling abroad for Indians, higher in Tier II as compared to Tier I cities. In China VFR is not a major segment.

The outbound Indian trav-eller is now exploring a wider range of destinations. While Sin-gapore, Malaysia, Dubai, Thai-land, Nepal and USA remain the top destinations for Indi-ans, China, Macau, Egypt, Tur-key, South Africa, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Canada etc are catching up in popularity.

Though Hong Kong and Macau still remain the top des-tinations for Chinese outbound travellers, the share of these des-tinations has gone down from 79% in 2008 to 56% in 2010, as the Chinese seek out newer destina-tions like France, Taiwan, Aus-tralia, Japan, USA etc.

Self-organised trips still form the largest chunk at 51%, though this has come down from 58% in 2008. Customised tours have grown substantially to 15% of the total outbound market, up from 10% in 2008, while group pack-aged tours have gone from 31% to 33%. In China group packaged tours form the largest chunk at 41%, while self-organised and customised segments constitute 35% and 23% respectively.

The presentation highlighted the increasing importance of online bookings in India, which

have grown from 12% in 2008, to 28% in 2010, though brick-and-mortar travel businesses still dom-inate. In China, online business has reached critical mass, and is becoming very competitive.

The report clearly highlights the exploding potential of the Indian outbound market, which is now being wooed aggressively by a large and fast increasing number of international desti-nations, as many as 60 of whom have set up shop in India. Many more make sporadic forays and conduct roadshows across the country, in preparation for open-ing up offices.

Tourism Authority of Thai-land (TAT) was one of the early birds to have a presence in India. According to Sethaphan Bud-dhani, Director, TAT, Mumbai office, Indian tourist arrivals grew 32% in 2010, and are expected to reach 8.85 lakh (0.88 million) this year. In a bid to attract more tour-ists, TAT is targeting niche seg-ments like weddings, golf, film production and wellness.

“India is one of the top source markets for a majority of international tourism boards present in the country,” said Buddhani.

Continued on page 7...

India and China Outbound

An important take-away for the Indian inbound sector and the Ministry of Tourism from the Neilson report, is the huge potential for inbound traffic from China. Currently, India receives 0.5 million Chi-nese tourists which is just 1% or even less of the total China outbound market. The ques-tion arises that are we doing enough to tap this low-lying fruit or missing opportunities by restrictive visa policies and procedures and inadequate flight bilaterals?

by TND team

Travel Agents 02Tour Operators 05International 07India 11Monuments 16Corporate 18

Technology 19Hospitality 20Food&Beverage 23Transport 25Aviation 27Events 28

` 100 / us $5 November 2011volume I l Issue I www.travelnewsdigest.in

With destination weddings becom -ing popular, travel agents are increasingly getting involved in execution. Currently, only 37% of potential consumers avail of the services of a travel agent to plan weddings because of lack of awareness and professionalism.

Agents need to be armed with the best offers to gain a foothold in this market. They need to have adequate knowledge of the prop-erties as well as possess a good relationship with suppliers. Efforts must be made to show-case expertise at all events, uti-lise social networks, be part of like-minded groups, and update the public as to why a qualified travel agent is crucial in travel planning.

It is important to point out the differences between travel agents and wedding planners. A travel agent streamlines the entire pro-cess, starting from booking the destination, working with sup-pliers, hotels and wedding plan-ners, and makes sure everything is according to the budget and needs of the client. In a destina-tion wedding, friends and fam-ilies matter too. Agents must devise a special package or for-mat to make it a seamless oper-ation for the group.

Wedding Report says spend-ing is getting higher, and there is less “price shopping”. Brides and grooms now select more expen-sive destinations. The number of guests has also increased and

they request expanded vacation options to other areas. Honey-moons have become more exotic

and longer. In short, this is the best time for travel agents to look to new markets.

The Indian government has issued an advisory to prospec-tive workers going to Iraq to check credentials of recruit-ing travel agents before accept-ing such job offers. According to reports, 28 Indian nationals were duped by agents in recent months. In view of these inci-dents, migrant workers have been advised to exercise due dil-igence. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has also issued a statement saying that the Indian embassy in Baghdad is doing

everything possible to assist those cheated to return home.

Allegedly, a few Punjab-based travel agents misled the Indians into accepting employ-ment offers involving long working hours and poor sal-aries. The families of about 40 youths from Punjab and Himachal Pradesh alleged that their wards had virtually been made “captive” in Iraq. Three Chandigarh-based travel agents are under the scanner for luring the youths.

Travel agents in demand for destination weddings

MEA advisory on travel agents

Travellers keen to savour the delectable delights that India has to offer can now avail of a culinary tour of South India that will include cookery les-sons, river cruises and a stay at an organic farm. Dublin-

based travel agency GoHop has organised a 13-day trip that will include a visit to Asia’s largest vegetable and flower market — Koyambedu market in Chen-nai. Special attractions include excursions to spice shops and an opportunity to sam-ple authentic Indian cooking. The tour, covering Chennai, Pondicherry, Thekkady and Cochin, includes accommoda- tion, meals, taxes, internal flights and car transfers at a cost of €2,290 per person.

Spice sojourn

Financial protection is the sec-ond most important factor peo-ple consider when booking a holiday, according to a ‘Which?’ travel report. However, only 34% agencies gave “clear and accu-rate” advice. The UK-based con-sumer watchdog made 70 mys-tery calls to The Co-operative Travel, Easyjet Holidays, Expe-dia, Lastminute.com, Lowcost-holidays, Thomas Cook, Thom-son, and Travel Republic and found the information it received was often unclear, misleading and inaccurate. In 18% of the cases, the information was inac-curate while it was potentially misleading in 10% of the cases.

The ‘Which?’ report points out that the current systems of financial protection are confus-ing for both the travelling pub-lic and the travel industry itself. The report will be used to make a submission to the Air Travel Organiser Licensing (ATOL) consultation process.

Kuoni does away with online discounts

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Agents confused about financial protection

TrAveLAGeNTs

Starting November, Kuoni, which currently offers a 5% discount for bookings on its consumer website, is now doing away with the practices. This, it says, will allow agents to sell on a level playing field between in-house sales channels and third-party retailers. There will now, no longer be a difference in the prices offered through its own

website and shops and those offered by its independent agent partners. According to M.D. Derek Jones, the move will enable agents to get a chance to convert more sales. While Kuoni will continue to offer tactical discounts on selected products and selected departure dates, all offers will be ‘on system’ and available through all channels.

In a bid to attract traffic, airports are now offering incentives to travel agents and also rewarding passengers for using the airport as transit point. Airports in Hyderabad, Kochi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi are aggressively wooing passengers using this marketing strategy. Delhi airport is offering special incentives to use it as a hub for onward connectivity to various

international destinations while Kochi airport has plans to offer incentives to airlines for starting direct flights from the city to various international destinations. Hyderabad airport is offering loyalty points through a specialised company called RewardPort India. About 150 agents have registered for the loyalty point programme.

The current economic downturn in the US and Europe will probably have an adverse impact on tourism in Thailand, as revealed by Thai tourism entrepreneurs. The recent violent riots in the UK could also affect locals’ decision to travel abroad and indirectly cause a slowdown in Thai tourism. The effects of

the sluggish US and European economies will be discernible in the next two months. Tourism to Thailand increased by 35% during the first six months of this year as compared to last year. This is attributable to Asian economies, as majority of visitors were from China, Japan, South Korea, India and Russia.

Social media has now become a powerful tool for travel agents to brand themselves as experts and sell travel expe-riences. In order to leverage this resource, they must be aware of practices such as target marketing via the key-word phrase, SEO for blogs, how to post for web traffic, travel agent SWOT analy-sis, incorporating a blog into a Facebook page or Twit-ter stream. ASTA recently organised a webinar, ‘Travel Agents Attack Social Media – 100 Days of Online Market-ing’, to help travel agents step up their social media pres-ence and make their blogs more engaging.

The webinar was pre-sented by George Oberie, creator of The Travel Blog Project.

Airports offer loyalty points

Thai inbound tourism

E-commerce is poised to become the next big thing in India with

the market expected to touch US $10.27 billion by the end of

this year. Travel contributes to 80% of the e-commerce seg-ment. In April this year, online travel sites in India reached a peak of 18.5 million visitors. Online Travel Agents (OTAs) are looking to leverage the surge with MakeMyTrip focusing on the hotels and holiday book-ing business, Yatra raising `200 crore to supplement its hotels business, Hotels.com offering bookings for 2,300 hotels, and Cleartrip receiving an invest-ment of US $40 million from travel management solutions provider Concur.

The Travel Agents Associa-tion of India (TAAI) has roped in Dubai-based training pro-vider TRS Consulting to train its 2,400 members compris-ing IATA-accredited travel agencies, airlines, general sales agencies, hotels and tour

operators. As per the two-year contract, TAAI will provide 10 days’ training free of charge to members.

Courses include modules in sales, service, travel planning, communication and manage-ment development.

TAAI waives off training fee

Expedia.com has come up with a new platform, Expedia Access, for travel agents. The new portal boasts a number of facilities, such as simplified log in procedures and reporting, personalisation and rebrand-ing capabilities, activity reports that allow travel agents to reg-ularly monitor bookings and commission, news, promo-tions and incentive status.

Expedia Access

Online travel boom

Travel agents registered with the Amadeus Selling Platform can now avail visa informa-tion, thanks to a tie-up among Thomas Cook (India), Amadeus and BirdRes, a B2B distribution channel from Bird Group.

The solution enables users not just to access relevant and updated visa information,

but also download visa appli-cation forms.

In addition, the portal pro-vides detailed information about visa procedures of the country of travel, documentation and check lists, visa fees, VFS/IVS charges, holiday list, consular addresses and also the processing time of the visa.

Visa info at your fingertips

Social media for travel agents

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · November 2011 TrAveL AGeNTs 3

Iqbal Mulla has been elected President of the Travel Agents Associa-tion of India (TAAI). Mulla is the chairman of the MIM Group, which owns Trea-sure Tours and Travels and Citizen World T r a v e l s . NM Shara-

fudeen has been elected vice-president, Sunil Kumar

R has been re-elected as honorary secretary gen-

eral and NG Shankar as treasurer.

The new national managing commit-

tee of the TAAI will hold office

for two years (2011-2013).

New national managing committee for TAAI

Rail Europe has launched a new B2B online portal for travel agents in SouthEast Asia, through which they will be able

to book rail passes offered by Eurail, BritRail, Swiss Passes and France Railpass among others, as well as domestic and

international point-to-point tickets offered by Eurostar, TGV, Thalys, AVE, FrecciaRossa and other train operators. Dynasty Travel, Rail Europe’s Singapore General Sales Agent (GSA) and appointed handler for its B2B and B2C operations in Singa-pore, Brunei, Malaysia, Indone-sia and the Philippines, will pro-vide support for agents using the new online B2B services.

Besides leisure travellers, corporates will also be an impor-tant clientele for this B2B plat-form. Corporate clients are also more inclined to use rail instead of air connections in Europe as it is faster, more comfortable and saves on check-in time.

In order to speed up the pro-cess of screening large number of applications pending in var-ious passport offices, the gov-ernment has introduced a Pass-port Seva Kendra System for the benefit of citizens.

The Approved Travel Agents’ Welfare Association had filed a writ plea in the Madurai bench of Madras High Court saying that travel agents were losing their livelihood because of the new system. In response to the plea, the Tiruchi Passport Offi-cer said that the government had launched the service to stop the practice of passport forgery by some travel agents.

He also pointed out that according to fresh guidelines, travel agents recognised by IATA and members of Travel Agents Association of India can submit passport applications on behalf of applicants.

Passport Seva Kendra

SCL has come up with a new desktop based ‘click and view’ currency checker as an extension to its UltraPoS foreign currency management platform. The ser-vice will cater to travel agents, bureaux de change and finan-cial institutions offering retail foreign exchange services. SCL has developed this new auto-mated FX management system in collaboration with anti-fraud

specialists, International Ref-erence Systems (IRS). It will reduce the risk of fraud during currency exchange.

Singapore Cruise Centre is the Platinum Sponsor of the inau-gural Cruise Shipping Asia event, a tradeshow and con-ference focusing on the Asia Pacific cruise market, being held from November 16-18, this

year. Sessions on key industry topics include the state of the Asian cruise industry, sourc-ing, shipbuilding, market-ing and successfully tailoring the cruise experience for the Asian market.

Foreign currency management platform

Cruise Shipping Asia 2011

Korea Tourism Organisation, that has an office in Delhi, has opened a new representative office in Mumbai. The organi-sation plans to collaborate with

travel agents based in western India and is open for tie-ups with Indian tour operators. There are also plans to woo Indian filmmakers to shoot movies in locations in Korea. The country will be promoted as a premium tourism destina-tion to the travel trade, consum-ers, media and airlines through advertisements, joint promo-tions, trade shows, familiarisa-tion trips and food festival on a pan-India basis.

Korea Tourism enters Western India

4 TrAveL AGeNTs November 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST

The Sentosa Leisure Group has selected 12 travel agents to partner with the company and promote the destination for creating customised itin-eraries for the Indian mar-ket. The Preferred Partners from India are D’Paul’s Trav-els and Tours, Kesari Tours, SOTC, Makemytrip.com, Cox & Kings India Pvt Ltd,

Thomas Cook (India) Lim-ited, Jagadish Air Travels, Yatra Online Private Lim-ited, TUI- Select Vacation Pvt Ltd, Saltours International, JTB Travels Private Lim-ited and Mercury Travels. Mumbai, Delhi and Chen-nai are the key source mar-kets for Sentosa Island from India.

Rail Europe’s new B2B portal for South-EastAsian travel agents

Sentosa’s Preferred Partners Scheme

Technology has completely transformed the way consumers are buying travel. Travel agents have to keep up with the new world order in which people are increasingly using search engines, social networking and smart phones to research, book and comment on travel.

Agents of change

According to Forrester Research, Inc, 54% of leisure travellers use a general search engine when planning travel while 38% of leisure travellers have used their smart phones to check in, book, or research travel. Amadeus North America president and CEO Scott Gutz said at Vacation.com’s 2011 International Conference and Trade Show that travel agents themselves need to become agents of change. He advised travel agents to dive in to new technologies to capitalise on this new search, social and mobile savvy generation.

Agents of change

Enterprising Travel Agents Association (ETAA) — the sole body representing non-IATA agents in India — is planning to host its first domestic convention between September and Novem-ber, 2011.

The domestic convention will be followed with an international

one in Dubai in February, 2012. ETAA president Karl Dantas

said participants at the conven-tion will be briefed on new trends in the online segment in the travel industry, adding that it will also feature a presentation by repre-sentatives of Maharashtra Tour-ism Department.

ETAA convention

Travel Impact is an Indian tour operator that offers both g r o u p tours and tailor- m a d e holidays to India and its neighbouring countries—Nepal,Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Travel Impact pays attention to personalised holidays and offers India tour packages to capture the essence of major tourist attractions during the trip. It also renders adequate leisure time to visit places of interest in one’s own way. The aim is to offer travellers an unforgettable experience of Incredible India travel and services at par with the best Indian tour operators across the globe.

Travel Impact’s tour packages

In a bid to woo travellers, Charminar Pedestrianisation Project (CPP) was started to give its precincts a facelift. Ever since traffic diversions were introduced, the number of tourist buses dropped drastically, leading to loss for traders in Charminar- Gulzar Houz. Even tour operators who had started avoiding the monument, settled for a detour from Salar Jung Museum to Falaknuma, avoiding the stopover at Charminar.

“Previously, we used to take them on a round trip of Charminar via Gulzar Houz. Now, it is not possible as the narrow pathways take a lot of time to navigate,” said a tour operator.

The 60-foot-wide road between Madina circle and Charminar was reduced to 40 feet following the implementation of the project. About 20 feet of the road was earmarked for

pedestrians by erecting five feet high bollards. Earlier, this space was used as parking lot.

“Instead of creating a zone for pedestrians, the civic authorities have converted the huge stretch into a hawker’s zone,” said a trader, pointing out the large number of hawkers that have emerged on the road ever since. “The road is all set to close for vehicular traffic in a few days and it has turned into a hawker zone.

The hawkers have taken over the area and have blocked our shops,” says Sunil Kumar Gupta, member of Char Kaman Sarafa Association, adding that this is not the development the government had promised.

Considering that there is heavy traffic congestion around Charminar where no vehicle will be allowed is a great idea. But implemented without proper care, it can be counterproductive.

Charminar distances tourists

TouroperATors

In a move that will be a welcome shot in the arm for Jammu and Kashmir’s tourism sector, Ger-many has amended the travel advisory for its citizens visiting the Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh. It says categorically that foreigners are not a “target”.

“I would like to inform you that further to the visit of Ambas-sador Thomas Matussek to Kash-mir and his interaction with jour-nalists, the travel advisory issued by the Federal Foreign Office for German nationals travelling to the region has been revised”, said Jens Urban, spokesman at the German

Embassy in New Delhi. The significant revision in

the advisory regarding Kashmir gave an overview of the security situation in the valley and clar-ified that the situation had now calmed down considerably and said, “Foreigners are generally not direct targets of clashes.”

With this, Germany has become the first foreign coun-try to change its travel advisory on Kashmir after almost 16 years while most of the western coun-tries still continue with their adverse advisories to their cit-izens, asking them not to visit

Kashmir valley. And now, the Jammu and

Kashmir Government has made a fervent appeal to the Britain to lift travel advisory against Jammu and Kashmir claim-ing that the situation there has improved considerably. They further reminded them of Germany’s step towards J&K, which has resulted in a con-siderable boost in the Tourism industry there.

Tour operators have hailed Germany’s move saying it would go a long way in restoring confi-dence among foreign tourists.

Germany revises travel advisory, says Kashmir safe

Kuoni Travel (India) Pvt Ltd and Abacus Interna-tional, Asia’s leading pro-vider of travel solutions and services, announced a stra-tegic partnership further accelerating Abacus rise as India’s premium GDS (Global

Distribution Network). Kuoni will leverage the

full suite of Abacus solutions including Abacus Work-Space and Abacus Power-Suite as well as benefit from access to it’s business pro-cess and strategy consulting practice.

Speaking on the partner-ship Rajiv Duggal, managing director, Kuoni India said, “Abacus is in the fore front in bringing next generation products, technologies and services to the Indian agency community.

As a market leader Kuoni India focuses on new tech-nologies and products that can further propel our growth and leadership. We have been impressed by Aba-cus’ next generation point of sale system, it’s portfolio of mobile solutions, and it’s mid and back office suite.

Abacus solutions will enable Kuoni India to deliver a differentiated customer experience for our travel-lers as well as drive mate-rial increases in business productivity.”

Online travel company MakeMyTrip.com says it is exploring opportunities to acquire travel firms. “Along with picking up a 79% stake in Singapore based Luxury tours, we also acquired 19% in online travel search iXiGO.com last month,” a spokesperson was quoted saying.

Kuoni India and Abacus Internationals’ strategic partnership

MakeMy Trip-more acquisitions?

In order to grow its outbound Free Individual Traveller (FIT) and MICE business, Bangalore-based Travel Tours Group has acquired Goa-based charter and inbound tour operator Splendour Holidays along with its MICE brand, Go Avenues.

“We are keen to have a seri-ous presence in the inbound and domestic tourism business in India. The acquisition is to

develop a strong domestic prod-uct portfolio and to continue to invest and develop the MICE and FIT business into India”, said Travel Tours managing director, Shravan Gupta. “Splendour has added 6% volume to our `350 crore (US $79.8 million) business, and our aim is to double (Splen-dour’s) turnover in two years. Our target is to grow between 25-28% per annum over the next

three years,” he added.The Bangalore-based com-

pany is open to more acquisi-tions. The company now has ten brands and 14 branches across seven cities with 285 personel. Travel Air Representations, the B2B division of the group, deals with more than 6,000 travel

agents across India.According to Gupta, “In

a largely fragmented mar-ket, inorganic growth strategy will help companies to expand faster.” Overseas opportuni-ties will be looked upon once they consolidate their presence in India.

For tourists from Russia look-ing to get away for the May hol-idays now have a reason to cele-brate. The forthcoming tourist season will see chartered flights from Moscow to Thiruvanan-thapuram launched by Tour operators— Oriental Routes in collaboration with DR Tours of

Moscow. In order to ease up the process for flight registration, as a joint collaboration of the two operators, an online inventory management system has been created.

During the forthcoming tour-ist season, there will be eight to ten chartered flights from Russia

to Kerala. A Boeing 757 will fly from Moscow to Thiruvanan-thapuram carrying 180 passen-gers on its first trip and there will be ‘once-in-a- fortnight’ trips for a period of five months starting from November.

Russia-India charters take off

The High Commission of India has assured the Sri Lankan gov-ernment that necessary action would be taken to ensure the safety and security of the Sri Lankan pilgrims visiting India. The assurances came follow-ing a request made by the Sri Lankan government to provide security for all pilgrims visiting

Chennai in the wake of an attack on the Mahabodhi Society Tem-ple there. However, Sri Lankan Tour operators to India said that there was no need to panic since relevant officials from Sri Lanka and India had taken ade-quate measures to strengthen the safety and welfare of all pilgrims.

Security for Sri Lankan pilgrims

Indian travel firmeyes expansion

6 Tour operATors November 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST

A fifth of UK travellers are still running the risk of racking up medical bills when holidaying abroad by not taking travel insurance, a new study claims. The ABTA consumer trends survey shows that one in five Brits mistakenly believe the UK Government will cover their bills if something goes wrong – a figure that rises to one in four under 25s.

One in six also thinks

insurance is unnecessary for travelling in Europe if they have a European Health Insurance Card which provides access to basic state medical care, the poll indicates. And a further one in four is under the misapprehension that an EHIC card will cover their repatriation costs if they fall ill or have an accident and have to be flown back to the UK, the ABTA research shows.

The Philippine Tour Operators Association (PHILTOA) is pro-moting the country as a high-end destination by incorporating luxury tourism. PHILTOA has selected 10 luxury resorts which will be promoted at the 22nd Philippine travel expo and will be included in the packages.

The campaign is targeted

at increasing visibility of the resorts, especially the ones which are not located in traditional markets.

The 10 resorts include Shan-gri-La Mactan Resort and Spa; Shangri-La Boracay Resort and Spa; newcomer Crimson Beach Resort & Spa in Cebu; family-ori-ented Imperial Palace Waterpark

Resort & Spa in Cebu; HSAI Raintree’s Discovery Shores Boracay and Discovery Suites Tagaytay; El Nido Resorts in Palawan; Eskaya boutique resort in Bohol; Genesis Prop-erties’ Bellarocca in Marin-duque; and Misibis Bay in Cagr-aray Island, Albay.

One in five Brits still travelling uninsured, says ABTA

Philippine tour operators to promote luxury tourism

Egypt, one of the tourism boards to start marketing activities in India recently, received 1.14 lakh (0.11 million) Indian tourists in 2010, an increase of about 36.5% from the previous year, accord-ing to Adel El Masry, director, Egyptian Tourism Office, who added India had now become one of the top markets for Egypt.

Andrew McEvoy, managing director, Tourism Australia, said he was keen on getting a share of the exploding outbound market from India. He said around 150,000 Indians visited Australia last year, 11% more than the previous year. However, with escalating growth of Indian outbound market, Australia expects to receive over 320,00

Indian visitors by 2020. India has risen from 15th to 8th

place as Australia’s top source markets. It is

expected to rise to six or seven

within the next few years.Jamaica, a new kid on the

block, witnessed a significant 15.7% growth in Stop-over Arrivals by permanent residence from India in January – April 2011 as compared to the same period last year. Jamaica Tourist Board is looking at emerging markets like India, Russia, China and Brazil which comprise over half the world’s population. It is eyeing the high-end Indian traveller from India, home to 55 billionaires, the 4th highest in the world, and more than 190,000 millionaire households.

Meanwhile, as Indian travell-ers to the US increased by 17% in 2010 over 2009 to 650,000, with San Francisco among the top three destinations, San Francisco International Airport is aggressively wooing Jet Airways with incentives to start a direct service from India.

Germans are becoming more aware of the importance of stay-ing healthy and energetic. They are taking health vacations to reduce stress and stay fit.

Over the past five years, holi-days at wellness and spa resorts have risen by 30%. At 3.3 million

vacations, equivalent to 4.6% of all trips abroad, Germans are more interested in health and medical tourism abroad than their European neighbours.

Among German citizens, the most popular foreign destina-tion for health trips is Spain,

followed by Italy and Austria. The countries in Europe

chosen for health trips include Spain, Italy and Aus-tria, while Hungary, Germany and the Czech Republic are the leading destinations for medical tourism.

Germans take to medical tourism

Crouching Tiger, Roaring Dragon

Useful travel microsite

Tourism boost to Oman’s GDP

Lonely Planet and Visa have joined forces to create a travel microsite packed with expert information on destinations and for access of money abroad on www.visa.com/lonelyplanet.

Information includes ways to access cash in 12 destinations: Australia, China, Croatia, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, the UAE and Ukraine.

The World Travel and Tourism Council forecasts that travel and tourism will contribute US $1.93 billion to Oman’s total GDP this year, driven by strong

tourist arrivals.The nation’s flagship carrier,

Oman Air, reports a surge in tourism arrivals via its 2011 first-quarter flights.

Oman’s Ministry of Tourism

recently joined the International Council of Tourism Partners as an alliance member.

It is thus in a better position to globally promote upcoming tourism developments, such as the US $2.5 billion “Omagine” project.

Chinese tourism to the United States is witnessing a boom, growing by over 50% last year. According to the US Depart-ment of Commerce’s office of travel and tourism industries, 802,000 mainland Chinese res-idents visited the country in 2010, a 53% increase over levels in 2009. The visitors collectively

spent over US $5 billion (an aver-age of US $6,241 per person), a 39% increase over the previous year. Chinese tourism to the US in 2012 and 2013 is forecast to rise by 21% and 19% respectively.

New York City, Washington DC and Las Vegas are emerging as the top three US destinations for Chinese tourists. California is also hugely popular with the number of Chinese visitors to the city rising by 49% to 399,000 in 2010. US hotel chains, including Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hil-ton, and Marriott, are now intro-ducing special features for Chi-nese tourists to woo them.

Chinese tourism to US

Continued from cover page.

• According to 2009 and 2010 market profile studies by the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, shopping is the lei-sure activity that tops the list for tourists from China.

• Most individual Chinese tour-ists and families book their hotel rooms by themselves. The Internet therefore becomes the primary source of information when selecting a hotel.

• Personal recommendations and word of mouth are central to Chinese culture.

Trends

Mexico aims to lead medical tourism market

Mexico has all the conditions to be the market leader in medical tourism, said Gloria Guevara, head of the Tourism Ministry, and José Ángel Córdova, chief of the Health Ministry.

Manzo says worldwide more than 40 million people leave their country for med-ical services and in 2012 it

is expected that 1.6 million Americans will go to another nation for treatment.

The governor of Nuevo León, Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz, noted Nuevo Leon has an advan-tage of having first class medi-cal staff and nearly 9,000 inter-nationally recognised experts among other facilities.

INTerNATIoNAL

New Zealand targets Indian honeymoon marketTourism New Zealand is planning to launch a campaign in September to target the Indian honeymoon market. At present, India is the tenth-largest inbound market for New Zealand, says Kiran Nambiar, regional manager, India and South East Asia, Tourism New Zealand.

Kiwi Link India, the bi-annual travel trade workshop recently

organised by Tourism New Zealand, showcased a diverse range of products, services and destinations. This year there were 30 suppliers from New Zealand comprising regional tourism organisations, accommodation providers, and inbound tour operators who participated in the two-day workshop that was held in Mumbai.

8 INTerNATIoNAL November 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST

Tourism Australia has launched a major campaign called ‘30 days in Oz’ aimed at attracting young people in the UK and other back-packing markets around the world to holiday Down Under.

Tourism Australia manag-

ing director Andrew McE-voy explained the new advo-cacy campaign plans to promotethe Working Hol-iday Visa and encourage young people to consider Australia as a place to work or travel.

Australia launches ‘30 days in Oz’ campaign

If the Great Wall is perhaps the first image that comes to your mind when you think of China, you will be surprised by the sheer

number and variety of attrac-tions that the country has to offer. If you venture beyond the Great Wall, Beijing and Shang-hai, there are lesser known desti-nations rich in heritage, steeped in history, and unparalleled in

scenic beauty. Two such poten-tial hotspots waiting to be discov-ered are Henan and Chengdu.

A brief insight into what these cities offer:HenanRecognised as the ‘Cradle of

Chinese civilization’, Henan boasts of housing four of the eight great ancient capitals of China-Luoyang, Anyang,

Kaifeng, and Zhengzhou. It is also the birth place of Kung Fu and Taiji boxing.

Dengfeng: Known as the home to the “Centre of heaven and earth”, it is a world cultural heritage site and popular for the

spiritual centers -Buddhist mon-asteries, the renowned Shaolin temple, Pagoda forest, various Gates and historic sites.

Longmen Grottoes: Recorded as “an outstanding manifesta-tion of human artistic creativ-ity” in UNESCO World Heritage

List. These are 1,400 caves with 100,000 statues and carvings that range from 2cm to 57 feet in height.

Anyang city: This ancient city has a history of over 3,000 years and caves more than 25,000 years old. Memorial mausoleums, rel-ics of over 4000 years; the first library of inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells, the Soul Spring Temple, known as the “First Ancient Buddhist Tem-ple in Henan”, and 10,000-Bud-dha Ravine, as well as the unique Wenfeng Pagoda, Xiuding Tem-ple Pagoda and Mingfu Tem-ple Pagoda are located in here.Ancient White horse temple, Iron Pagoda are other tourist attractions.

ChengduHometown of giant pandas. It is known as “Country of Heaven”, also translated as “The Land of Abundance”. Chengdu was also the birthplace of the first widely used paper money in the world.

The Dujiangyan Irrigation System: Inscribed as cultural and natural site on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000, this 2nd century BC site, graphically illustrates the immense advances in water management and tech-nology achieved in ancient China. Even today, it controls the waters of the Min Jiang River and distributes it to the fertile farm-land of the Chengdu plains.

Mount Emei and the Leshan Giant Buddha: This is a World Heritage Site inscribed for both natural and cultural reasons. Mount Emei possesses rare spe-cies of plants, trees as old as 1000 years and exceptionally diverse vegetation. The first Buddhist temple in China was built here too.71m high, Giant Buddha of Leshan is the tallest Buddha statue in the world.

Wenshu Yuan: It’s the best preserved temple in Chengdu. Four hundred and fifty Buddha statues made with copper, metal,

wood, stone and painted ones are displayed here. The most pre-cious relics include the crown bone of the Yuanzhuang Priest from the Tang Dynasty, BeiYi Jing from India, LiujinJingtung

from Japan, paintings and pen-manship from Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Jinsha Relic Site: A significant archaeological site discovered in Feb.2001. It makes Chengdu the

centre of Bronze Age, that it was in the ancient Shu Kingdom.

Giant Panda Base: The Chengdu Giant Panda Research

and Breeding Center is a sanctu-ary for pandas of all ages where they are also bred. It also houses red pandas, black-necked cranes, golden monkeys, and flocks of wild birds.

The Thatched Cottage of Dufu-the poet, Magical Face Change in Sichuan Opera, Wuhou Memorial Temple, Wolong Nature Reserve are other destinations here.

Henan & Chengdu-Hidden feathers in China’s tourism cap

NewZealand: Flipside of medical tourism

Phuket expects record arrivals

Outbound medical tourism from New Zealand, mostly to Asia, for cosmetic surgery and dentistry, is rising. Local medical tourism agencies claim that their business is doubling year after year. Auckland-based Stunning Makeovers sends 10 people a week to Bangkok and Phuket for cosmetic surgery and dentistry, and is considering expansion into Malaysia.

However, a new report by Professor Michael Hall, a New Zealander, says the industry is growing rapidly without careful consideration for its potential economic and public health impacts.

Medical tourism was last year blamed in part for the spread of the superbug NDM-1, which was resistant to nearly every antibiotic.

It was found in a bacteria in India, Pakistan and Britain, and was alleged to be carried by patients who had travelled abroad for elective surgery.

Professor Hall’s report was published in Tourism Review and argues that profits from medical tourism go offshore, but it is local public health operators who foot the bill if anything goes wrong.

With an increase in the number of tourists in Thailand, Phuket Airport is expecting a record four million passenger arrivals this year. According to data released today in C9 Hotelworks’ Phuket Hotel Market Update, arrivals to Asia’s leading resort destination in the first half of the year increased 20% over the same period in 2010.

A US $164 million expansion plan that will increase handling to 12.5 million by 2014 will only start construction next year and tourism operators are

increasingly concerned over the mounting delays for travellers.

The report shows investment

into Phuket’s hospitality sector has strong positive business sentiment with a supply pipeline for the island. This will see an increase of 16% by the end of 2014.

Looking towards the future, Bill Barnett, managing director, C9 Hotelworks said: “The number of existing hotels will increasingly face the necessity to upgrade, rebrand or downgrade market position while transaction activity is expected to remain active.”

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · November 2011 INTerNATIoNAL 9

Greek spa industry growsThe Greek spa industry is expected to generate approx-imately US $22 million in rev-enue in the year 2011, accord-ing to the Spa Industry Report published by Intelligent Spas. The report presents an exten-sive range of business intelli-gence and financial statistics to assist businesses operating in, or interested in, the Greek spa industry. Some of the key research findings were — spa numbers increased by 38% between 2008 and 2010, reve-nue per visit increased by 6% between 2008 and 2010, mas-sages made up over half of spa revenue and hotels and resorts offering spa-facilities averaged almost 70% occupancy.

Asian demand for Australian tourist visas on the rise

Jamaica tells tourism investors the country is stable

BRIEFS

The Australian Bureau of Sta-tistics (ABS) has released the latest Overseas Arrivals and Departures figures. The fig-uresshow numbers of overall short-term visitors to the coun-try are up 3.4% in August 2011 from August 2010. The Aus-tralian Government even in the face of global economic crisis, the rise in demand for a short-

term Australian visa is largely accounted for by the Asian market.

Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson said: “These figures are a further reminder about the potential from Asia, and not just from China, but also our near neighbours in SouthEast Asia such as Indonesia, Malay-sia and Singapore. They give us reason to be optimistic about the industry’s future.”

The figures show Malay-sian applications for short-term Australian immigration are up by 34%, arrivals from Indonesia doubled and the already sub-stantial demand from China rose by 21 %.

Tourism Minister of Jamaica Edmund Bartlett is making moves to curtail fears among European investors, that the decision by PM Bruce Golding, to quit office will affect the country’s tourism. “Jamaica remains open for business,” he assured Spanish investors and potential tourism partners in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

The tourism minister,

revealed plans for an additional 2000 hotel rooms at four sites on the north-west coast. “These new rooms will help to boost the amount of quality rooms locally. Jamaica is short of some 2,000 rooms for the upcoming Winter Tourist Season, and investment of this nature is precisely what is needed to bring our room complement to the required level,”Bartlett added.

A new museum has opened in Austria that is dedicated to the life of Arnold Schwarzeneg-ger. The museum is located in the first-floor flat where Schwarzenegger spent his

childhood. The museum is home to mementoes including Schwarzenegger’s first body-building weights and the desk from his Governor’s office in Sacramento.

A partnership between Golf Tourism Scotland (GTS) and the International Association of Golf Tour Operators (IAGTO)

will assist the Scotland, in adopt-ing a more pro-active approach to bolster international aware-ness of golf in Scotland.

Starting Jan. 2012, Sri Lanka’s online visa application for vis-itors will go into operation. According to Immigration and Emigration Department control-ler general, Chulananda Perera,

the new Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) system will enable travellers to obtain online visa approval within 24 hours of submitting an application for short-term stays.

Schwarzenegger museum

Scotland strengthens golf presence

Sri Lanka:Online visa

‘Great’ recovery plan for Britain post-riots

With less than a year to go for the Olympics, the London riots had given rise to fears of the city’s tourism potential being adversely impacted. To dispel recent images of rioting and fire in London and other cities in England, Prime Minister David Cameron has kicked off a major global campaign that seeks to

put the ‘Great’ back into Britain and boost business and tourism in the country.

Launching the initiative called the ‘GREAT’ campaign in New York, Cameron said: “In 2012 there will be only one place to be. With the Olympic and Paralympic Games coming to London next summer, the greatest show on earth is about to arrive in one of the world’s greatest cities.”

The GREAT campaign will centre on 10 key areas of British excellence: technology and innovation; entrepreneurship; creativity; knowledge; green; heritage; sport; shopping; music; and countryside.

Jordan Tourism Board expects tourist inflow from India to grow by 45% this year compared to 2010. “In the first five months of 2011, 29,000 people have already visited Jordan (from India), which is a 43% rise over the first five months of 2010,” says Jordan Tourism Board managing director Nayef H Al-Fayez.

Asked about the impact of political unrest in the country on the tourism industry, he said: “The

inflow from the US and some of the European countries has gone down. However in case of India there is no major impact.”

The Jordanian tourism board has set up an office in India a couple of years back. It organises road shows annually here to strengthen its ties with travel and tour operators.

The board is also encouraging film production companies in Bollywood to shoot Indian films in Jordan.

10 INTerNATIoNAL November 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST

Air Asia to spur tourism growthAir Asia Philippines will use its network and affiliate Air Asia companies in the ASEAN to make Clark Philippines its hub in Asia and spur growth in tourist arrivals. Marianne Hontive-ros, chief executive officer of Air Asia Philippines, said the strategy would hope to achieve what neighbouring countries have accomplished: Thailand’s 15.4 million international tour-ist arrivals and Malaysia’s 24.6 million arrivals, nearly equal the size of their population.

Hontiveros said Air Asia Ber-had has daily flights from Clark Phillipines to Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu, Air Asia Thailand and Air Indonesia

will be starting flights to Clark Philippines. Air Asia will also set up a call centre and out-source ground handling and maintenance which will indi-rectly benefit industries such as retail, hotels and restaurants.

Restriction on flights over Grand CanyonMore than 4.5 million people visit the Grand Canyon National Park each year, but up to 400,000 fly over it in helicopters and small planes operated by varied tour companies.

The flights are interfering with what park officials and others consider to be the natural sound- scape of the park.

To reduce the level of

aircraft noise heard in the park by both visitors and wildlife, the National Park Service is proposing a plan that would, among other things, cap the number of daily tours over the canyon at 364 and the number of annual overflights at 65,000.

This proposal would also extend the curfew hours around sunrise and sunset.

Indian tourist arrivals increase in Jordan

Indian tourist arrivals increase in Jordan

PATA says Macau should focus on Indian market

Emirates to fly to Zimbabwe and Zambia

Indonesia set to woo Indian travellers

Single visa policy to boost EAC tourism earnings

The Macau Government Tour-ist Office (MGTO) has com-missioned a study by a team of experts, from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), to provide insights to help formu-late its tourism growth strategies. Initial findings by the experts sug-gest that Macau could play a big-ger role in the Indian market. Last year, Macau registered a boom in Indian visitors. Around 169,000 Indians visited Macau in 2010, showing an increase of 60%.

Andrew Drysdale, the head of the PATA team has urged Macau to play big on the Indian market. He said: “If you can open

up direct flight services between Macau and India it will be very advantageous for you.” Mean-while, Macau’s International Air-port Company has been trying to lure airlines to operate flights

between the two countries. The experts also suggested that, Macau should look at investing in family-oriented facilities to become a global tourism and lei-sure destination.

Emirates’ extensive African net-work is to be boosted, with the launch of two new destinations – Lusaka, the capital of Zam-bia, and Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. Zambia and Zim-babwe will now be linked with a five-times weekly flight from Dubai, starting from 1st Febru-ary, 2012.

The chairman and chief executive officer, Emirates Air-line & Group, His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, said: “Emirates has

long understood the enormous potential of Africa. It is today one of the fastest-expanding eco-nomic regions of the world, ben-efitting from a combined market of over one billion people, rising consumer demand and an abun-dance of natural resources.”

Passengers flying Emirates from Lusaka and Harare will be able to connect seamlessly to points across the Far and the Middle East, Indian sub-conti-nent, Europe and Australasia via the airline’s hub in Dubai.

Indonesia is projecting itself as premium tourist spot to Indian travellers. At the PATA Travel Mart in Delhi, Sapta Nirwan-dar, director general of Indo-nesia’s Ministry of Culture & Tourism, said the country had many beautiful places spread over the many islands and regions, apart from Bali. Nir-wandar added that if the pro-posed direct flights from India to Indonesia commence oper-ations, the connectivity will boost traffic to the country.

Kenya’s Minister for Tourism Najib Balala has proposed a sin-gle tourist visa that will enable the East African region to attract more tourists and boost the earn-ings from the sector and contrib-ute to economic growth. He said this tourism would be boosted because the East Africa Com-munity (EAC) competitors per-forming and the region’s tourism product was unique.

Tourists’ arrivals in South Africa are estimated at eight million a year while all the five East African countries together receive about three million tour-ists a year. This is because domes-tic tourism is too expensive and the general failure to market EAC as a single tourism destination.

Growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40%, the inflow of medical tourists in India is likely to cross 32 lakhs by 2015 from the current level of 8.5 lakhs. This will not just earn foreign exchange but will also provide a push to the health sec-tor across the country, says the Associated Chambers of Com-merce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

India enjoys strategic advan-tages of essential resources like world-class medical technology, infrastructure and skilled medical workforce according to its study on ‘Emerging Trends In Domes-tic Medical Tourism Sector.’

According to ASSOCHAM, Indian medical tourism indus-try is at present poised to get rev-enues of around ̀ 4,500 crore and

is likely to be worth ̀ 10,800 crore by 2015.

Top notch healthcare facil-ities in sectors like cardiology, joint replacement, orthopaedic

surgery, ophthalmology, trans-plants and urology at a low price are key factors making India a favoured destination for medi-cal tourism, says the study.

The Indian Medical Travel Association (IMTA) has asked the government to modify med-ical visa (M-Visa) norms to fur-ther boost growth of medical tourism.

The majority of foreign-ers coming to India for medi-cal treatment apply for a tour-ist visa and do not opt for an M-Visa, because Medical Visa norms make it mandatory for

them to register with For-eigner Regional Registra-

tion Office (FRRO) within 14 days of arrival in India.

This is an avoid-able inconve-nience imposed by M-Visa, particularly in view of the fact that the patients may not be able to leave the hos-pital once their treatment starts.

“IMTA has apprised the rel-evant ministries

of the Indian Gov-ernment of the issues

with medical visa and has requested them to modify the

process to make it an enabler for the growth of medical value travel to India.

An early action to address the issues with the medical visa would surely enhance the vol-ume of international patients coming to India. It will also help to track the numbers of med-ical tourists arriving to India more accurately,” said Pradeep Thukral of the IMTA.

IMTA urges M-Visa modification

Growth in India’s medical tourism industry

INDIA

During the month of September, over 4 lakh tourists visited India, a jump of 8.7% during the same period last year. In its latest fig-ures released recently, the Tour-ism Ministry said foreign tourist arrivals during September were 4.01 lakh as compared to 3.69 lakh in 2010.

There has been a growth in FTAs of 8.7% in Septem-ber 2011 over September 2010, as compared to a growth of 11.6% registered in September 2010 over September 2009.

Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEE) during the month of Sep-tember 2011 were `5,748 crore as compared to ̀ 4,678 crore in Sep-tember 2010 and `3,798 crore in September 2009.

Thanks to niche travel agencies and a change in mindsets, gay travellers are increasingly tour-ing India, according to an IANS report. Over five travel agen-cies in India have an offer, cust-omised packages including sur-rogacy tours, spiritual camps, weddings and honeymoon pack-ages and a promise of an experi-ence without incidents.

The staff at hotels and resorts where gay visitors stay, the driv-ers ferrying them around and the tourist guides undergo spe-cific training to ensure they extend courtesy to the visitors. There is no specific data on the actual numbers of gay overseas tourists. However, even if 1% of all tourists were from the gay community, the numbers would be huge. In 2010, India received

5.58 million foreign tourists, up by 9.3% over 2009.

John Tanzella, president, International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA), a UN-accredited body, which looks after the travel trade indus-try of this niche segment, said, “As the world becomes smaller, more accessible to global trav-ellers, every business is looking at ways to create new itineraries and generate that buzz.”

Surveys for Tanakpur-Bagesh-war and Rishikesh-Kar-naprayag new lines have been completed. The Tanakpur-Bageshwar new line project has not yet been sanctioned. Its survey report is currently under the examination of the Ministry. For the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag new line,

however, construction work will commence after comple-tion of the preliminary activi-ties and when the detailed esti-mate gets sanctioned.

The Rishikesh-Karnaprayag new line project has been included in Railway Budget 2010-11 at an anticipated cost of `4295.30 crore.

India witnesses increase in gay travellers

New rail line projects for Uttarakhand

Foreign tourist arrivals up in September

Goa to become first state with tourist security force

AMET Cruises is picking up the cruise options from where Louis Cruise had left due to high berth charges. The AMET group has already started arrangements to operate the cruise by the first week of October.

The MV AMET Majesty will initially set sail from Kochi to Maldives, Lakshwadeep and also undertake a cruise on the high sea. Every week, the MV AMET Majesty would sail from Kochi to Maldives (four nights), Kochi-Lakshadweep (two nights) and also operate one high-sea trip during the night for those who want to try out something new for holidaying, said AMET Ship-ping India Private Ltd managing

director and chief executive offi-cer P Bharathi.

AMET cruise had introduced a new format of holiday, recre-ation and entertainment in the country. The lowest price would be around `5,000 per person for a night and port charges. In case of advance bookings, spe-cial packages would be offered. The cruise will have dance floor, disco casinos, show lounges bars, swimming pool, bar-beque, conference room and kids’ zone. It also has an event floor for business meets, sem-inars, trade shows, anniversa-ries and social gatherings along with luxurious state rooms, suites and stag cabins.

Uttarakhand is working on improving its ranking in inbound tourism. The hilly state is con-sidering new stretches for river

rafting to promote adventure tourism and is looking at devel-opment and management of infrastructure projects through

public private partnerships to make unexplored destinations tourist-friendly.

Uttarakhand is India’s sev-enth most preferred tourist state, attracting 4.1% of domestic tourists, according to Business Standard report. The Uttara-khand Tourism Development Board (UTDB) is keen to see the state among the country’s top five places by turning it into a preferred destination for both domestic and foreign tourists. “We are promoting adventure sports, traditional yatra routes, eco-tourism, and leisure tour-ism to achieve the goal,” said Rakesh Sharma, chief executive officer, UTDB and principal sec-retary tourism, Government of Uttarakhand.

The state tourism board is looking at participating in trade fairs across the globe to attract both foreign and domestic tour-ists. Estimates show that Uttara-khand received around 31 million domestic tourists in 2010, a rise of 34% from 23.1 million in the pre-vious year. Foreign tourists to the state increased marginally to 0.13 million from 0.11 million.

The Haryana government pro-posal to revive an over 75 kilo-metre long course of the Sara-swati river has been held up because Oil and Natural Gas Commission Limited (ONGC) has not cleared its request to dig two deep bore wells for supplying fresh water to the river channel.

“The project is almost defunct for all practical reasons,” says Darshan Lal Jain who has been pursuing the project for sev-eral years through an NGO (Non-government Organisa-tion) called Saraswati River Research Organisation. Jain, who looked at the project as a panacea for providing drink-ing water and tourism, today sounds a dispirited man.

The ONGC entered into an agreement with Haryana gov-ernment about half a decade ago to explore the course of the river

which finds a mention in Vedas, Mahabharata and several other Hindu scriptures.

Subsequently, the state gov-ernment convinced farmers on a 52 kilometre-long stretch to vacate their lands for flow of fresh water and launched the project near Pipli, a town on National highway-I near Kurukshetra.

Archaeologist Rajesh Puro-hit, who did extensive work on Saraswati, asked the detrac-tors to have a look at the pleth-ora of evidence available with the Archaeological Survey of India, Geological Survey of India, ONGC, Indian Space Research Organisation and other research groups, claiming that besides providing water for drinking and irrigation, the revival of the river could save Kurukshetra from floods dur-ing the rains.

Forgotten and forsaken

Uttarakhand plans to improve inbound

Goa will be the first Indian state to have a full-fledged tourist security force (TSF) of 476 men under 25 years of age in two categories report-ing directly to the tourism department by early next year.

The TSF’s task will include: patrolling Goan tourist hotspots, preventing crime and generally aiding tourists.

According to a report in the Times Of India, the tour-ism department, already, has an informal tourist security force of about 35 ex-service-men working on contract basis. Now, it has advertised for 246 posts of tourist war-dens and 230 posts of assis-tant tourist wardens.

Cruise tourismback in KochiCruise tourismback in Kochi

12 INDIA November 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST

The Meghalaya government wants to have interaction with neighbouring countries like Bhutan, Bangla-desh and Thailand, besides participating in the tourism festi-vals organised in European countries. Shillong will likely be the next venue of the India-Swit-zerland tourism meet next year. Chief Min-ister Mukul Sangma, who visited Switzer-land along with two tourism department officials to attend the festival held on August 5 and 6, said a proposal was submitted to select Shillong as the next venue.

During a workshop held in Switzerland as part of the

tourism meet, Sangma pre-sented the tourism potential of Meghalaya to the audience. After the presentation Swiss officials told the Meghalaya delegation that the landscape and waterfalls which were similar to Switzerland, fasci-nated them.

Shillong to host India-Swiss tourism meet next year

“India intends to expand coop-eration with Azerbaijan in the areas of tourism and agricul-ture, and to strengthen the legal base”, said Debnath Shaw, the Indian Ambassador to Azer-baijan in an interview on the eve of the national Indepen-dence Day.

According to Shaw, there are certain changes in bilateral

relations — particularly in the political, economic, and humani-tarian spheres. “Political cooper-ation between the two countries is at a very good level. There is mutual understanding between the governments and citizens of both countries. These relations will be further strengthened in the near future,” the diplomat said.

Shaw added that ministerial consultations are planned to be held at the level of deputy foreign ministers to discuss the pros-pects for political cooperation in Baku in the nearest future. The representatives of Indian tour-ism have been participating in tourism exhibitions in Azerbai-jan for two years.

India to expand cooperation with Azerbaijan in tourism, agriculture

Tour packages incorporating wildlife reserves are common, but very few operators are offering complete wildlife experiences. Creative Travel’s JungleSutra team is approaching wildlife tourism differently, developing experiences and journeys that go beyond basic park visits. JungleSutra will showcase the flora and fauna that is yet to be explored by the Indian travel industry. A JungleSutra tour is aimed at the discerning traveller who is looking to explore the exotic world of animals in luxury and style. Every JungleSutra itinerary is a complete, customised package that takes care of each travellers’ needs. Trips are designed to capture the

uniqueness of each region, its wildlife, flora and fauna. Each safari experience has its own identity, feel and character.

Accommodation, activities, cuisines and services are detailed to meet the preferences and budgets of travellers.

Creative Travel launches Junglesutra

Goa tourism is keen on estab-lishing links with Spain in a bid to promote cross-regional tourism. One doesn’t need to look far to spot a windmill in the gusty regions of Navarra in Spain. The same could be the case with Goa.

The department of tourism

plans to collaborate with Span-ish town Navarra, situated at the northernmost tip of Spain to promote eco-friendly tour-ism initiatives. Navarra which is the birth place of St Fran-cis Xavier, has shown keen interest in Goa due to its emo-tional ties with the tourist

destination. “We are keen on developing a Goa-Navarra cir-cuit. A large number of peo-ple travel to Goa and Navarra every year on pilgrimages. We are keen on building a stronger relationship with the region,” said Swapnil Naik,tourism director of Goa.

Goa tourism joins hands with Spain

Goa tourism joins hands with Spain

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · November 2011 INDIA 13

India is included in Viet-nam’s potential visitor gen-erators for the first time as its local tourism authorities carry out promotional activ-ities to woo visitors. Viet-nam National Administra-tion of Tourism (VNAT) will conduct its market-survey in India by the end of next year for market proliferation.

Although the number of Indian tourists to Vietnam is scanty, primarily from the MICE segment, there is definitely a large poten-tial market which should be approached, feels Hoang Thi Diep, deputy director general, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).

Vietnam turns attention to Indian market

Safe tourism

The Government says it plans to ensure international standards of safe tourism practices. For, starters’ five “most vulnerable” places for tourist exploitation are to be selected for spreading awareness among service pro-viders including guides, tour operators, hoteliers, auto and taxi drivers.

Paharganj in Delhi and certain areas in Goa, Ker-ala and North-East are likely

to be identified in the first phase for a focussed aware-ness campaign involving ser-vice providers. The Tourism Ministry has also finalised a mandatory code of conduct for safe tourism to check prostitution, sex tourism and involuntary drug use along-with other malpractices. This code of conduct will be appli-cable to all employees of the travel and tour sector.

Vivanta by Taj Dal-view Srina-gar now begins operations of its first hotel in the valley. Perched on a hilltop, the five-star hotel is spread over six acres and has

48 rooms each giving a breath-taking view of the Dal Lake.

The hotel also has meeting facilities at Tango, 510-square metre hall, along with fitness

centre and well equipped business centre and retail spaces. Eighty two more guest rooms will be added in the near future.

14 INDIA November 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST

‘Hunar Se Rozgaar’, a pilot proj-ect aiming to provide training to unemployed youth in tourism and hospitality industry has been launched by the Minister of Tourism, Subodh Kant Sahai. The project has been designed jointly by the Indian Tourism Development Corporation and

the IL&FS Education and Tech-nology Services.

Vikash Kumar, regional head of IL&FS Education and Technology Services Limited said the project was launched on a pilot basis from Jharkhand. Prospective par-ticipants will have two courses

to select from including a six-week food and beverage course mainly related to services and the second, an eight –week long for food production course related to the kitchen. “On completion of the course, we will provide them employ-ment in hotels,” Kumar said.

Tourism Minister launches Hunar Se Rozgaar

Following the first Formula One race being held in India, the Tourism Ministry has decided to showcase the lesser known destinations. Starting October 28, the three-day gala motor event expected to draw about 1.5 lakh crowd, including 50,000 international visitors.

The Ministry has designed a blueprint to utilise the Formula One route to promote more than 50 destinations under its ‘Incredible India’ campaign. ‘Know your City’, a new media campaign for F1enthusiasts, will

also be launched. “We are utilising the Formula

One event to promote our lesser known destinations including beaches, monuments, moun-tains, sand dunes, festivals and cuisine in a big way,” a senior Tourism Ministry official, said.

“Though some of our well known destinations like Taj Mahal, Qutab Minar and other tourist spots in Kerala and Goa will feature in the campaign, our focus will be on to highlight the lesser-known attractions during the event,” he added.

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd, IRCTC, a PSU of Indian Rail-ways, initiated major steps in collaboration with state govern-ment to boost up the tourism sector of the North-East region. Kaushik Banerjee, regional manager, IRCTC revealed that budget hotels on ‘Build Oper-ate and Transfer model’ (BOT), special train services and tour-ism facilitation centre would come up shortly.

In a bid to attract more peo-ple to the region, IRCTC has decided to expand its facilities. The organisation would set up 50 tourism facilitation-cum-information centres (TFC) in

the major cities of North-East where tourists would avail ticket booking and other ser-vices. Discussions were held on using government-run resorts and lodges for promoting rail tour and holiday packages.

IRCTC had a meeting with the state tourism department officials on providing land for the budget hotels and has sought land from the state gov-ernment at Betkuchi, Kama-khya, Kaziranga and Sivsa-gar. The corporation would also sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Assam government to provide better accommodations to domestic and foreign tourists.

Grand Prix: A boost to tourism industry

IRCTC offers budget hotels for North-East

Delhi in run for UNESCO World Heritage status

A new Taj in Jammu and Kashmir

A new Taj in Jammu and Kashmir

subodh Kant sahay, Union Minister for Tourism

Delhi will now be in the run to become one of the first Indian cities to get the status of World Heritage. At present, UNESCO has 226 cities on its list of World Heritage Cities list but none from India. The Archaeological Sur-vey of India (ASI) has prepared the final draft of the nomination dos-sier. Though the nomination is for Delhi as a World Heritage City, four areas have been

shortlisted for the heritage tag — Shahjahanabad, Nizamud-din, Mehrauli and Lutyens’ Bungalow Zone.

India’s largest online travel com-pany, MakeMyTrip, is offering ‘Charter flights-based holidays to Andaman’, following its suc-cess of charter-inclusive pack-ages to Ladakh. The all-inclu-sive package will be operational from October 2011, starting at `25,999.

The focus of Make My Trip has always been on innovation and designing holiday packages that offer maximum value to the customers. While announc-ing June quarter results, the

company said they are optimis-tic about long-term growth pros-pects as the travel industry con-tinues to increase the capacity to accommodate the demands for travel by fast-growing mid-dle-class and internet popula-tion in India.

Make My Trip’s innovative holiday offering

Karnataka tourism is offering initiatives to promote adven-ture sports and other activities in the state. As part of the drive,

the tourism board has

d e c i d e d to host a H o t - a i r

B a l l o o n -ing Festival

from Decem-ber 29, 2011 to

January 1, 2012.

The tourism board also launched a Heli-tourism from September. It will connect Hampi, Badami, Aihol, Pattat-akkal, and Bijapur in the circuit.

The board will also intro-duce night safaris at Ban-nerghatta National Park. For-malities related to the bidding process have been fin-alised and the gov-ernment plans to embark on the project soon.

Karnataka set to welcome tourists with hot-air ballooning festival

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · November 2011 INDIA 15

China remains a crucial mar-ket for India, as it is for the rest of the world, by being one of the largest outbound tourist market. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, by 2020 China is projected to pro-duce 100 million outbound trips going to every corner of the globe, probably making it the fourth largest producer of tourists in the world.

As for China, India was

highlighted as the most impor-tant source market in the China National Tourism Marketing Conference held last month.

To trigger the industry’s dynamics further, China is high-lighting all its cultural, historical and modern facets. This year has been designated as China-India Exchange Year.

In 2010, over 5.73 lakh Indi-ans visited mainland China in 2010. Tourism foreign exchange

earnings reached US $45.8 billion, with increase of 15.5%. The num-ber of outbound tourists reached 57.39 million, with an increase of 20.4%.

In the first half of this year (January to July 2011), 3.52 lakh Indians have already visited mainland China. The figure has increased by 11.8% over the same period last year.

The number of mainland Chi-nese visits to India increased by 17.8% over the same period last year, and reached 0.64 lakh.

At present, every week, over 40 direct flights shuttle between Chinese and Indian cities. How-ever, there’s a demand for more flight connectivity.

1. Choosing Destination: Reviews on social net-working sites are largely influencing online travel-lers. According to PhoCus-Wright’s ‘The Emerging Online Travel Marketplace in China’ report, 9% of trav-ellers in China looked for online reviews while plan-ning travel.

2. Pre-Trip Mode Of Commu-nication: More than 61% do online research before their trips, and about 48% make adjustments to their trips based on information they receive from online travel bulletins, according to a report by New York-based market research company AC Nielson. About 12% to 15% of tickets and rooms

are booked online in China. Approximately 70% to 80% of transactions are done through third-party inter-mediaries versus supplier direct. (HOTELMARKET-ING, May 2011)

3. Accommodation Require-ments: Online figures by Chinese hotel and des-tination review website Daodao.com show that around 34% of Chinese travellers choose budget hotels, 26% prefer four-star hotels and 16% of them choose five-star hotels. (Excerpt from peopledaily.com.cn)

4. Tour Groups: Prefer less than 30 people in one group.

India-China tourism exchangeWhat Indian Tourism Business Needs To Know About Chinese Tourists:

The 42nd International Film Festival of India to be held between November 23-Decem-ber 3, will partner with the ministry of tourism’s initiative

Incredible India. The event, jointly organised by the Minis-try of Information and Broad-casting and the Goa government, will work with a diversified

focus of merging films with des-tination marketing, for tour-ism promotion. The festival also aims for large-scale public participation.

IFFI and Tourism Ministry partner

Ambika soni, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting

Rumours about the three historic monuments of Hyderabad — Qutub Shahi tombs, Charminar and Golconda Fort — to be inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage sites this year, have proven to be baseless.

“The Qutub Shahi monuments of Hyderabad were never in the race for this year’s world heritage tag,” says Gautam Sengupta, director general, Archeological Survey of India (ASI).

The three sites have, however, been nominated in the 2013 list. A delegation from UNESCO is to visit Hyderabad in September 2012.

This was confirmed by Janwhij Sharma, director, Conservation and World Heritage.

The financial year 2010-11 has been good for the business of government-owned monuments in India. The data from Archae-ological Survey of India (ASI) revealed that revenues from tick-ets at monuments increased by 12%, earning ̀ 87 crore.

On top of the list is the Taj Mahal that grossed around 23% of the total earning at about `20 crore, followed by Agra Fort,

the earnings of which, however, have declined by 5.5% in April-March 2011.

Delhi circuits’ Qutub Minar, Humayun’s Tomb and Red Fort succeeded Agra on third, fourth and fifth top revenue gen-erating ASI monuments. Of the total revenue, 70% came from

Delhi and Agra. Other profit generating his-

toric sites are Mammalapuram in Chennai with `2.76 crore, Khajuraho in Bhopal with `2.6 crore, Sun temple, Konark, in Bhubaneshwar at `2.26 crore, Ajanta and Ellora caves in Aurangabad around `2 crore, Hampi in Bangalore with `1.34 crore and Elephanta Caves in Mumbai around ̀ 0.9 crore.

Although Rajasthan, receives numerous visitors, it is not

included in the ASI list.

Lahore Fort and Shalimar Gar-dens, Pakistan’s two heritage sites, have come under the media glare, but for the wrong reasons. The heritage sites are being considered as ‘flawed’ restoration projects.

There are 21 monuments within the Lahore Fort com-plex which have marble pal-aces and mosques ornamented with mosaic and gilt. Shalimar Gardens, located near the fort, has pavilions, ponds and water-falls. Both sites were inscribed as UNESCO’s World Heri-tage sites in danger in 2000 and needed immediate repair. How-ever, the cosmetology destroyed the authenticity of the Mughal monuments.

At a recent seminar organised by Punjab University’s Depart-ment of Archaeology, entitled ‘Heritage Preservation in Paki-stan — International Principles and Practices’, the preservation methods were questioned.

Professor Rafique Mughal, an expert in preservation and management of monuments at the Archaeology and Heritage Management, Boston Univer-sity, US, pointed out “ignorant” restoration practices would end only when thorough research is conducted before beginning res-toration work.

“Restoration requires that rel-evant institutions introduce laws and rules to govern the preserva-tion of built heritage, its regular inspection and proper funding,” Mughal said. He stressed upon creating awareness about the importance of these sites among the people, whose support may help restoration efforts.

Nip and tuck woes

Countries that have spent more than a decade in turbu-lence are now fighting back. Former guerilla camps are now vacation hotspots.

Rwanda, for instance, has had a large number of civil wars, genocides, and massacres. The government is now transform-ing its economy through tour-ism. Although the wildlife safa-ris and national parks have remained tourist attractions, the most popular tourist destination is Kigali Memorial Centre where 250,000 people remain buried. It is a memorial for victims of the genocide of 1994. Rwanda also applied for member-ship for the Common-wealth of

Nations in 2007 and 2009 as safe areas for tourists.

El Salvador and Bosnia, which were not considered to be the best tourist places after World War II, have become ideal natural retreats with forest trails, countryside walks, lakes and a lively nightlife. But their muse-ums and war memorials are still tourist favourites.

Macedonia, which has a rich heritage of almost 3,000 years of history and culture, offers churches, monasteries and for-

tresses including Marko’s, Skopje’s and Samuel’s

that draw a number of visitors.

Tourism therapy Monument revenues show good growth

No UNESCO Heritage status

moNumeNTs

Weighed down by hefty electricity bills, the Archaeolo-gical Survey of India (ASI) has decided to go green. It has installed solar energy lamps to illuminate monuments at night. Its better late than never. The solar lights were to be implemented in time for the Commonwealth Games.

“Serious efforts are being undertaken in this regard,” ASI Delhi superintending archaeologist, K K Muhammed said.

He added green lighting saves energy and controls pollution. The first installation will be at Qutub Minar in Mehrauli, New Delhi.

Islamic architecture of India has just been immortalised in a film.

Art historian and filmmaker Benoy K Behl has attempted this in his new documentary ‘A World of Beauty and Grace — Islamic Architecture of India’.

The 31-minute film covers every structure — mosque, tomb, madarsa, palace and fortress in India that bears Islamic architecture and its imprints. The first mosque built in India at Kodungalur in Kerala in 629 AD, Gol Gumbaz in Bijapur, Bidar Fort of the 14th and 15th centuries, Mughal masterpieces like Humayun’s Tomb, Fatehpur

Sikri, to the 15th century world heritage site of Champaner in Gujarat, Nakhoda Masjid, dargahs in Hajo, Gedu Mia Ki Masjid and other places in the east have all been covered and spoken about in the film. The filmmaker has a place in the Limca Book of Records for having travelled to all corners of India.

The Himachal Pradesh gov-ernment has opened a heritage museum for the public in Shimla. It will display rare and ancient pic-tures of various heritage buildings and structures of the city. It will also offer a glimpse into the his-torical facts of the building and monuments. The photographs in the museum have been taken from the Coffee Table Book, ‘Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai’, a project by the state tourism department.

“This will help the economy,”

Arun Sharma, director of tour-ism, says.

“Our objective is to make tour-ists stay here longer. After look-ing at the photographs of the her-itage buildings in the museum, they will take a visit to the orig-inal buildings,” chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal says.

Restoring the impressive Municipal Corporation Build-ing is also an agenda for which around `190 million is being allocated.

Monuments in solar light

A film on Indian Islamic architecture

Heritage museum opens in Shimla

The first half of the year is look-ing bright for archaeologists and world heritage lovers with signif-icant discoveries being made to open doors for an insight into world history.

Two major monuments were recently unearthed at Karnak Temple in Luxor. The first, a wall that once enclosed the New King-dom temple of the god Ptah. The second is a gate from the reign of 25th dynasty King Shabaka (712-698 BC). Ptolemaic mud brick walls and several engraved blocks were also uncovered from the Ptah temple.

The discovery traces the blocks back to the reign of King Tuthmosis III (1479-1425 BC). The construction of this tem-ple was assumed to be of Ptole-maic dynasty, but archaeolo-gists now believe that it started

in Egyptian reign.Another significant dis-

covery has been the tomb of St Philip, one of the 12 apostles and first followers of Jesus Christ. It was unearthed in southwest-ern Turkey at the World Heri-tage Site of Pamukkale.

It was believed that the tomb of St Philip, dating back to 80 AD, was on Martyrs’ hill, but no traces could ever be found there. After intensive exca-vation, the tomb emerged 40 meters away from the Martyrs’ hill on a fifth century church of the Byzantine era. Experts believe that the grave was moved by the people.

Another riveting discovery has been that of the 14th century ancient caravansary and graves in Azerbaijan.

The archeological excavations

in Sheykh Babi Yagub sepulcher in Babi village cemetery of Fuzuli region have raised questions on previous theories.

In the excavations car-ried out recently six stone box graves dating back to the 14th century were found. These graves were built with special bricks, stones and glazed tiles. They are mainly the graves of warriors. A headless skeleton was found in one and arrow heads and a skeleton were found in another.

Soviet historians had stud-ied these historical monuments earlier and declared it as bath-house. The remains of the mon-ument are being called Sheykh Babi Khanegahi.

The research process is a new step in the direction of under-standing world heritage.

A year of discoveries and rectifica-tion of facts

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · November 2011 moNumeNTs 17

In the running for nomination for the next Heritage City- Hydera-bad monuments will finally get a facelift.

The Union ministry of tour-ism sanctioned an amount of Rs 8 crore for restoration of Charmi-nar and seven other historic monuments in the Old City. They include the Shahi Jilu Khana Darwaza, Diwan Devdi Kaman, Chatta Bazar Kaman, Dabeer-pura Darwaza, Maqbara Kalyani

Nawab, Purana Pul Darwaza and the Moghulpura Tombs.

Renovation will start from the first week of December.

Other historic structures like the State Central Library and High Court will be ‘illuminated’ and revamped to emerge as new tourist attractions. The two- cen-tury old Charminar police sta-tion, will be restored.

“The state had sought Rs 12 crore from the central

government for the renovation”, a conservation architect working on the project said, “As the funds approved are less than that, we had to exclude some privately-owned properties from the list.” They include the Iqbal-ud-dowla Devdi, Syed Shah Raju Qattal Tomb, Osmania General Hospi-tal and City College.

“We have sent the revised proposal (to fit the budget) to the Centre. Once the funds are sanc-tioned we will start all the work,” the heritage consultant said.

The state tourism department also launched two new heritage walks to mark the World Tour-ism Day. These are the Charmi-nar and Purani Haveli (via Mir Alam Mandi) and Afzalgunj and River Front.

Hyderabad heritage restoration gets grant

Thailand is all set to organise the World Philatelic Exhibi-tion in Bangkok in 2013 for the fifth time. It has signed an agree-ment with Federation Interna-tionale de Philatelie (FIP) and a cooperation agreement with the Thailand Convention & Exhibi-tion Bureau (TCEB). The event is expected to generate revenue of more than two billion Baht in addition to boosting Thailand’s MICE industry and tourism.

TCEB president Akapol Sora-suchart says the event will help the country prove its mettle as a potential MICE destination and in getting its ‘Believe in Thai-land’ campaign going. He added that up to 100,000 visitors and around 10,000 overseas partici-pants are expected at the event. It will also showcase Thailand as a destination ready to hold such events, he said.

The World Philatelic Exhibi-tion Thailand 2013 will take place from August 2 – 14 at the Siam

Paragon, Bangkok, on the 130th anniversary of the launch of Thailand’s postal service and of the issuance of its very first post-age stamp. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn will be the patron of the event, presiding over the

inaugural ceremony. The event will attract

stamp collectors and lovers from all over the world. The personal collection of Her Royal Highness will also be put on display along with other rare collections from across the world.

The exhibition is open for all stamp collectors and non-col-lectors who can participate in the contests and competitions at the fair.

Thailand to host FIP World Philatelic Exhibition The rise in demand of

corporate meetings has given an impetus to group booking rates in the US hotels. Group requests surged up to 20% at Omni Hotels and Resorts, 15% in the quarter bookings of Hyatt Hotels Corp and 35% in the corporate group business of Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

Greg Malark, chief operat-ing officer of site-selection firm HelmsBriscoe, says there has been a return of demand in the bookings in the fourth quarter of 2010 and has been growing since. A BTN March-May sur-vey of 127 corporate travel buy-ers shows that around 63% of the buyers predicted a higher spend-ing on meetings than before.

Analysts say hotels are now in a better position to increase their rate of negotiation. As a result, companies planning such meetings should also expect higher costs.

Many hotels have short

term availability as the booked meetings are not scheduled till late 2011. Still, HelmsBriscoe is of the view that short term availability will soon be getting over with the new bookings turning into

actual occupancy. He observes the hotels have now become less flexible in view of the slow but steady rise in meetings. They are booking on an average of US $25 less per room compared to the year 2008.

This growth in demand and rates are not limited to the US. Ian Quartermaine, CEO of online site-selection firm Meet-ingsIn, feels that the meetings demand in Asia Pacific is cha-otic and that the demand in this region is mainly due to Main-land China and India. Rates will increase but not on a high scale.

He observes North America shows greater steadiness and constancy than Europe, and spe-cifically the UK.

US, Apac hotels in better negotiable position

Global Business Travel Asso-ciation Foundation (GBTA) and Executive Travel Magazine have released their new find-ings based on a survey carried out between Executive Travel-lers (president, vice presidents, owners and partners) and Staff Travellers (managers and super-visors) to know the importance of cost savings and travel satis-faction to business travellers.

Cost saving (93%) and travel satisfaction(94%) showed almost equal importance for the busi-ness travellers, while 55% of the companies still do not have stra-tegic travel management.

The survey came out with many opportunities to man-age travel programmes from the point of view of executive travellers. About 48% feel that travel management is impor-tant while 54% are still unsure about the total money saved through travel management policies.

At least 70% reported the travel management policies are

conveyed to t h e m quite explicitly, a b o u t 90% said they complied with the policies, 52% felt that the poli-cies in their organisation had remained the same for the last 12 years and 44% felt that they had become even more austere.

“Companies will be better positioned for success, utilising all the knowledge and best prac-tices available, such as imple-menting a travel management programme,” says Joe Bates, director of research, GBTA Foundation.

Janet Libert, editor in chief of Executive Travel Magazine, says the findings have given ample opportunities to the companies to meet and exceed these goals.

If your job demands frequent travel, don’t worry! You are actu-ally doing your health a favour. Recent studies say those who undertake six nights of busi-ness travel a month show better health conditions compared to those who do not travel at all or

who travel too frequently.Studies suggest some tips

like brisk walking, going to the gym and sticking to a routine even while on a business trip is all it takes to main-tain good health during short trips.

Staying fit during business travel

The Philadelphia based com-pany, Star Cite Inc. (the leading provider to web-based solutions for managing corporate meetings and events), is all set to launch a StarCite Mobile Attendee, a new attendee management and

communication tool for Smart-phones in the autumn of 2011.

The device is designed to speedily deliver updated infor-mation to mobile phones of meeting attendees that will include necessities like agen-das, maps, logistics, news alerts and the likes.

Connor Gray, senior vice president, technol-ogy, StarCite says

this initiative will provide huge bene-

fits to the at t e n d-ees as it will save time and

resources along with easing strenuous tasks. This will ulti-mately result in a better produc-tivity for planners and compa-nies, he adds.

With the use of Starci-te’s online market place, meet-ing buyers can connect to over 83,000 hotels, venues, suppliers and the likes from all over the world. It is also compatible with all the minute deliberations of the meeting planning process like planning, budgeting, result-measuring, attendance, pay-ments and so on.

The brand new device is also compatible with iPhone, Black-berry and Android phones.

Take your meetings in your hand

corporATe

New findings for corporate travel programme management

Air Passenger Association of India (APAI) has tied up with Essentia, a US-based service provider, to design the for-mer’s new website and moder-ate it. The website will publish

updated air travel policies after collating information from air-lines, airports and aviation reg-ulatory bodies from all over the world. Passengers will also be able to post feedback on

the website.“Small things such as baggage

rules of different airlines and passenger compensation policies in different countries are often a grey area for passengers. They can bank on us for such informa-tion,” Sudhakar Reddy, national president, APAI, said.

APAI to update policies

The Institute of Travel and Meet-ings (ITM) conducted research that claims most of the busi-ness travel buyers do not have any control over the technology their travellers use. The num-ber of travel buyers having any real input in the mobile technol-ogy sphere is less than 10%. This is in contradiction to the fact

that more and more travel-lers use smart-phones these days. However, 77% of the buyers claimed that their company policy limited the use of technology.

This disparity leads

to the limited choice that the trav-ellers have as regards to technol-

ogy and applications. How-ever, “With so much

growth expected in mobile solutions, there is a real opportunity here for those man-aging travel to engage with IT departments and create stronger links with their trav-ellers’ needs,” Paul

Tilstone, chief exec-utive officerITM

says.

Following agreements

with gov-ernment bodies and institutions, Amadeus announced the devel-opment of projects that pro-mote growth through tourism and technology. This Technol-ogy Transfer Project is divided between ‘Small Hotels Distribu-tion’ and ‘Global PC Bank’.

While the former aims at helping small, emerging entre-preneurs in adopting business methods that increase their commercial reach, the latter concen-trates on providing used computers for training programmes

concentrating on travel and tour-ism. An estimated 4,000 hotels

are said to benefit from this pro-gramme. In

a year, around 1,500 students are expected to benefit from this.

Amadeus also has an Educa-tion Programme that provides professional courses in travel management to mostly young people with a lack of financial resources.

Amadeus has expanded this programme to seven countries, including Kenya, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Croatia, Nicara-gua, Venezuela and Colombia, within this year.

Amadeus’ extended corporate responsibility

Sabre Travel Network, has surged its game by announcing the launch of the graphical view with enhanced capabilities in Sabre Red Workspace. The graphical view works 20% faster with a 30% reduction in keystrokes. It makes the entire process of shopping and booking simpler resulting in increased productivity.

“In the past year, we’ve

provided a collection of technol-ogy that helps agents transform the way they work and serve their customers,” Chris Kroeger, senior vice president of market-ing for Sabre Travel Network, said. “From the introduction of Sabre Red and the upgrading of 145,000 agents to the Red Work-space to the launch of graphi-cal view, we’re equipping agents

with powerful new tools to help them stay ahead in a competitive industry,” he added.

Popular features amongst the beta customers were calen-dar shopping, map-based shop-ping for hotels and email during shopping. Although graphical view is available in a number of languages, activation will con-tinue well into 2012.

Sabre’s graphical view activated

Fifteen thousand mobile users over 14 countries

were surveyed by InMobi, a global mobile advertising

network, on their shop-ping habits. The survey revealed a sharp increase in online shopping via mobile opposed to laptop or per-sonal computers. Sales vol-ume using mobile shopping is estimated to increase from US $2.4 billion in 2010 to US $9 billion in 2011.

Mobile shopping on the rise

Delhi NCR has launched a portal that con-nects cab seekers and opera-tors, where people can com-pare multiple operators and book them accordingly. The portal called Cabyatra.com

is the brainchild of first-time entrepreneur, Gaurav Kumar, chief executive officer and co-founder, whose personal strug-gle in finding the best cab fares in the city led to the develop-ment of this site.

At present available in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida, the service will soon expand to other metros.

Cab solutions for Delhi NCR

• SITA, an a i r p o r t t r a n s -port com-mu n i c a-tions and IT solu-tions pro-vider, is in talks with airlines and agencies to enable trav-ellers to get boarding passes via mail. With this, passen-gers can download passes on mobiles by visiting a secure link e-mailed to them after booking a flight. Whether the airports security accepts it as a valid document is another question!

• Annual IT and Tourism con-ference, ENTER 2012 will be held from 24th to 27th Jan-uary, 2012 in Helsingborg,

Sweden. Expected to be one of the biggest tourism events of the year, the conference will be organized by IFITT and will focus on the present and future services and appli-cations of e-Tourism.

• Signature Travel Net-work announced an inno-vative mobile travel app-“Pocket Travel Consultant” at its Owners’ Meeting held at Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes Orlando. This appli-cation is to be simultane-ously released in Apple and Android application formats in November. The applica-tion will be available to Sig-nature member agencies’ clients for use during both the planning stages and while traveling.

IN BRIEF

More tech involvement from buyers

TechNoLoGy

Hilton Worldwide expandsHilton Worldwide announced expansion plans for South Amer-ica at the South America Hotel & Tourism Investment Con-ference hosted by HVS Argen-tina in Santiago, Chile. “Hilton

Worldwide has a strategic com-mitment to expand globally, and Latin America is a high priority target for our expansion,” Bill Fortier, senior vice president, Hilton Worldwide was quoted

saying. The Group currently has 45 hotels and resorts through-out Latin America. By the end of 2013, the company’s presence in Latin America is expected to sur-pass 60 hotels.

Hilton Worldwide is all set to re-establish the Hilton brand in India. The hotel chain will be adding up to 50 properties to its portfolio in the next five years. Luxury brands —Waldorf Asto-ria and Conrad, upscale brand Doubletree and the mid-market brand, Hampton, will be intro-duced for the first time in the Indian market. Hilton and Hil-ton Garden Inn have already been launched in the country while six more hotels will be opened in the next nine months under the Hilton and Double-tree brands in Gurgaon, Banga-lore, Gujarat and in the Mumbai

region. Lenny Menezes, country manager - India, Hilton Interna-tional Hotels, believes mid-scale brands Hampton Hotels and

Hilton Garden Inn will drive the company’s growth in the country as they are well-suited to expand in secondary and tertiary cities.

Marriott International announced the opening of three-hotel Doha City Cen-tre complex including the Renaissance Doha City Cen-tre Hotel, Courtyard by Mar-riott Doha City Centre and Marriott Executive Apart-ments. The Renaissance Doha City Centre Hotel, has 257 rooms and suites, The Courtyard by Marriott Doha City Center has 204 guest rooms and The Mar-riott Executive Apartments

Doha City Center, offers 123 serviced apartments. The opening marks the debut of the three brands in Qatar. Ideally located in West Bay across Qatar Financial Cen-tre in two modern 48-storey towers, on the doorstep of the new business district of Doha and 15 minutes from the Doha International Airport, the hotel complex reinforces Doha’s futuristic vision and growing potential of tourism in Qatar.

The ITC Group has acquired a 26% stake in a 275-room, five-star luxury hotel property being developed by Noida-based Logix Group in Noida’s Sector 105. The company plans to invest close to `100 crore in the project and will also manage it under the top-end ITC hotels brand. The total project cost of the hotel, which is part of a larger seven-acre commercial and retail

development called Riviera 105, is `440 crore. The construc-tion of the hotel is expected to finish in 36 months. Logix

is constructing an 800,000 sq ft of commercial office space, 500,000 sq ft of retail space and a budget hotel as well in Sec-tor 105, which is just ahead of Unitech’s Grande project on the Noida-Greater Noida express-way. It has already inked pact with global food retail chain Spar International for a hyper-market and is also planning an 11-screen multiplex.

Hilton expansion in India

ITC acquires stake

Global downturn and Indian hospitality

The recent global market shock has not spared the Indian tourism industry as the inbound tourist trade braces itself for a slowdown. During 2009, foreign tourist arrivals in India plummeted as

Americans and Europeans who patronise India’s luxury resorts, slashed luxury spending. The number of foreign tourists vis-iting India fell from 5.4 million to 5.2 million from 2008 to 2009,

before recovering last year to 5.5 million, according to a report in the Financial Times.

According to PRS Oberoi, chairman and chief execu-tive officer, Oberoi Hotels and Resorts, global economies and the economic environment are volatile. On the foreign direct investment (FDI) front too, Oberoi was bearish, saying infla-tion, escalating interest rates and corruption scandals had tar-nished India’s reputation as a chosen destination for FDIs. But tourism within India is flour-ishing. The number of domes-tic tourists has grown steadily to around 700 million annually. In some parts of India, domes-tic travellers are spending more than foreign visitors. Tourism minister Subodh Kant Sahai said

recently domestic tourism had witnessed an annual growth of over 10% over the previous year. Sahai added that domestic tour-ism was likely to grow at the rate of 12% in the next five years. This

creates tremendous opportuni-ties for budget and mid-market hotels. Little wonder, a number of international hotel chains have announced ambitious expansion plans in India.

Marriott debuts properties in Doha

hospITALITy

The new Hotel Finder service from Google, launched during the end of July as an experiment, is a handy tool when it comes to researching and booking hotels, but the product reportedly has some major flaws. Hotel Finder allows users to enter a location, check-in (and check-out) date as well as specify the hotel by price and hotel class and rating. An integration with Google Maps also allows travellers to draw a ‘shape’ in which they want their hotel to be located over a city. Some of the shortcomings

reported by users are that the hotel lists lack transparency as they show the base rate and not total price. Rates from hotel websites are often missing. The shape feature is also difficult to manipulate. Hotel photos are promotional and rarely show people. Moreover, the feature is only available at present for hotels in the US. Dennis Schaal of USA Today concludes that Kayak is a more comprehen-sive hotel metasearch tool and provides more booking options and features.

Hotel prices could rise between 30% and 50% during the Olympic Games in London 2012, accord-ing to Hotels.com. The com-pany said that in the build-up to the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa, its hotel price index showed an average increase of 12% in hotel rooms in Johannes-burg, while the rise in Cape Town

was 54% compared with the pre-vious year. Hotels.com said when Delhi hosted the Commonwealth Games in October 2010, room prices in the Indian city rose by an average 12%. When the Euro 2008 football championship was held in Switzerland and Austria, prices in Switzerland rose by an average of 22%. Alison Couper,

from Hotels.com, said that it is expected that more than 12,000 additional hotel rooms will be available in London in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, yet despite this, the increase in demand from across the globe looks set to increase the price of hotel rooms in the lead-up to the event.

Wynn Resorts Limited’s casino resort in Macau has bought a rare set of four ormolu-mounted Chinese porcelain baluster vases from an auction for over

US $12.7 million. The only other known similar example of vases is held by the British Royal Fam-ily. The purchase of the historic artefacts is reportedly a part of Wynn’s efforts to bring Chinese

art back to China. The pieces will go on display in

the compa-ny’s Cotai resort that is sched-

uled to open in 2015.

Of late, M a c a u hotels and c a s i n o s have been doing very well. Main

drivers are strong vis-

i t a t i o n n u m b e r s from China

and Hong Kong with a total

increase of 14.5% in the first half of 2011 and a gam-

ing revenue increase of 21% over the same period.

Macau casinos reaping profits

Google Hotel Finder

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · November 2011 hospITALITy 21

The first convention of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Northern India (HRANI) will be held at the Leela Palace, Amrit-sar, from September 23-25, 2011. The theme for the convention this year is “Hospitality Industry-Vision 2020”. There will be ses-sions to discuss like tips on mak-ing your property eco-friendly, tapping franchising opportuni-ties with global chains, training

staff and new management man-tras. Major impediments to the growth of small hotels and chains — sensitivity to business cycles, adverse political and social events (including terrorist attacks) — will be discussed and analysed during the convention. Human Resource issues, responsible tourism, marketing practices and security issues will also be covered at the convention.

Hospitality Industry-Vision 2020

Toshali Resorts looks at guest houses

The Orissa-based Toshali Resorts has successfully bid for four Odisha Tourism-owned guest houses for man-agement under Lease Develop-ment Agreement (LDA). The state tourism department had floated tenders for leasing out 33 hotel properties spread across the state from private hospital-ity investors recently. Accord-ing to Harihar Patra, director, (marketing), Toshali Group, the company has successfully bid for properties located in

Pathrajpur, Ratnagiri, Udai-giri and Lalitgiri, all falling in the Buddhist circuit. Since all these places are part of the Buddhist circuit, we will have a clear advantage to cater to this pilgrim segment in future, he said. Toshali Resorts, which currently owns three proper-ties, two in Orrisa, and one in Shimla, will now focus on lease/management contracts for their brand expansion. The company has already taken on lease a beach property in Goa.

London hotels set for Olympic price hike

Marriott International and Granite Broadway Devel-opment have signed an agreement to create the tall-est hotel in New York. The hotel, to come up at 1717 Broadway at 54th Street, will be a joint-venture between Marriott’s Court-yard and Residence Inn brands. The over-752 feet high hotel is set to open in late 2013. The Courtyard by Marriott hotel will have 378 rooms located on floors from 6th to 32nd while the 261-room Residence Inn will offer suites on floors from 36th to 64th.

New York’s tallest hotelNew York’s tallest hotel

22 hospITALITy November 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST

In a bid to improve guest expe-rience, the hospitality industry is now spending more on Infor-mation Technology. Hoteliers are investing in mobile technol-ogy in a big way to equip their workforces, improve opera-tional efficiencies and enhance the customer experience in a better way.

Hospitality companies are also investing in new technology

and wireless networks to han-dle data volumes and increas-ing demands for high-speed access from the customer and mobile workforce, according to the Motorola Solutions 2011 Hos-pitality Market Barometer. The research also points out that smartphones, tablets and mobile applications are the new trends moving into 2012 in the hospital-ity industry. Spa trends and performance

Hotels investing in IT

Spas operating in hotels and resorts don’t necessarily ride the same performance wave as their hosting properties. Varying fac-tors, such as the economic cli-mate and travel demand, impact both spa and hotel/resort perfor-mance independently. Accord-ing to an independent research company Intelligent Spas cov-ering spas operating in the Asia- Pacific region, in 2009 revenue

per visit was up by 8% whilst the hotels and resorts they were located in reported an 11% drop in average daily rate. The report also states that only half (49%) of hotel and resort spa visits are from people staying at the accom-modation property.

Other key findings of the report are:• Between 2008 and 2010, the

average revenue per available treatment hour fell by 18%.

• The majority of hotel and resort spas within the Asia- Pacific region have less than 10 treatment rooms.

• Spa revenue per employee dropped by 5% between 2008 and 2010, and the number of employees per spa decreased by 9% during the same period.

The Leela Group is set to sell its property, Leela Resorts Kovala-min Kerala, to NRI industrialist Ravi Pillai for ̀ 500 crore to ease its debt burden, the Economic Times said citing the group’s chairman CP Krishnan Nair. Leela will subsequently enter into a management contract with Pillai to manage the property for 30 years. Leela Venture, a listed company, had accumulated debts of ̀ 3,830 crore at the end of FY11

owing to capital expenditure of over `4,000 crore, which is cur-rently underway. The company has been looking to sell proper-ties across the country to cut its debt. The Nairs are also believed to be contemplating selling their soon-to-launch The Leela Palace Kempinski hotel in Chennai to the same buyer. In March again, the company announced plans to sell an IT park in Chennai for `950 crore.

Hotel Leelato sell

Kerala property

Hotel Leelato sell

Kerala property

IHCL’s Gateway Hotels expands footprint in Gujarat

Gateway Hotels and Resorts, a part of Taj Group of Hotel , has launched its new hotel at Gir, popularly known as a home to Asiatic lions and one of the major tourist destinations in Gujarat. The Gateway Hotel Gir Forest, with 28 rooms, is the fourth hotel by the company in the state. “With this opening, we endeavour to pioneer new and

unique destinations. While Gir Forest needs no introduction, we feel that there is great scope to develop tourism and hospi-tality here. We are happy to have received support and encourage-ment from the state government and hope to grow and expand in the state,” said P K Mohanku-mar, chief operating officer, the Gateway Hotels & Resorts.

Wyndham Hotel Group signs agreements with 3 hotels in India

Wyndham Hotel Group, LLC, the world’s largest hotel com-pany based on number of hotels and part of Wyndham Worldwide Corporation today announced its expansion in India with the signing of agree-ments to franchise three hotels under its Wyndham Hotels and Resorts and Ramada brands: a luxurious, 154-room Wyndham Grand property in Agra, and two new-construc-tion Ramada properties in Alleppey and Ghaziabad. Set to strengthen the company’s presence in India, these prop-erties add to Wyndham Hotel Group’s 14 hotels already in operation and the 15 properties that are currently under devel-opment in the country. Join-ing the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts brand’s distinguished Wyndham Grand Collection is the 154-room Wyndham Grand Agra, scheduled to open by the end of 2011. The hotel is owned by Shekhar Resorts Limited, which is exploring additional hotel opportunities in India’s Northern area.

Hoteliers are now increasingly employing non-traditional distribution channels such as maximising online bookings through websites to push up their revenues.

Kenneth Gatchalian, Waterfront Philippines Inc president, says the hotel’s toll-free reservation line delivered

significant results and has become a principal source of revenue generating its own steady stream of sales for the company.

Bookings from the website have also registered an increase from 3,261 room nights in 2009 to 3,701 in 2010 and a noted 20% revenue increase. Gatchalian

said efforts will be made to send representatives to trade shows, develop key linkages and increase promotion efforts.

Non-traditional solutions push hotel revenues up

After India and China, the great-est fans of American fast food are in Russia. There is a soaring demand for Subway’s barbecue pork sandwiches, Burger King’s Whoppers, Cinnabon’s Classic Rolls and Sbarro, Domino’s and Papa John’s Pizza.

The first player to enter the Russian market was McDonald’s, which opened its first restaurant in 1990. It now has 280.

Starbucks entered the Rus-sian market in 2007 and now has 47 outlets. The Subway sand-wich chain has opened about 200 franchises in Russia. Yum Brands, which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, operates a co-branded chicken restaurant

chain in Russia, called Ros-tik’s-KFC, and Il Patio in the Italian food segment. Yum now has about 350 places in Russia. Wendy’s has opened two eater-ies including a flagship in Mos-cow. It aims to take the num-ber to 180 throughout Russia by 2020. Burger King has opened 22 restaurants in two years.

Christopher Wynes, who owns the franchise for Papa John’s Pizza chain in Russia, says: “There is so much opportunity here, I could have done good busi-ness even if I slept through it.” He recently opened his 25th Papa John’s outlet in Russia which is the third largest takeaway pizza company in the city.

American fast food in Russia

Qatar prepares to be F&B hub

Qatar as the host for 2022 World Cup has predictably opened new doors for F&B industry players.

F&B in Qatar has grown immensely in the past few years as it is a growing international destination for business and lei-sure. Being the World Cup host in 2011 has just made the process faster and given more reasons for interna-tional F&B giants to come to its shores.

According to figures from Qatar Central Bank, the contribution made by Qatar’s trade, hotel and restau-rant industries last year has more than doubled in a four-year period. It

forecasts that the F&B sector will grow by 19.97% in 2011.

Initially, it was the fran-chised fast food and casual din-ing brands that had taken over the market. But after the open-ing of the Pearl Qatar, an artifi-

cial island in Doha, needs of the market based on

quality and high stan-dard were seen. Taking the lead, F&B brands like Megu, Tse Yang, Pampano, Mango Tree and Burj Al Hamam jumped in.

Qatar’s F&B indus-try remains a com-

petitive but heav-ily profitable and growing market.

Taco Bell reinvents

To counter the disappointing sales in Q3 of Taco Bell, Yum! Brands Inc. is gearing up with a simple yet powerful new strategy. It’s called “Reinvent the Taco”!

The aim is to re-energize Taco Bell, that was the company’s largest and most profitable chain in the United States by the end of the first quarter next year.

Taco Bell’s new product - Doritos Locos Taco - is an inno-vative shell made from nacho cheese-flavored Doritos.

The product test has been rolled out to 33 units in Toledo, 58 units in Bakersfield and 24 locations in Fresno. It is being speculated if Doritos is part of the “reinvent-ion”.

Water is a luxury in Greece

The Greek government has decided to raise the value added tax (VAT) on bottled water and juice to 23%. Earlier, the VAT was 13%. This was the second tax raise this year.

The VAT was previ-ously fixed at 9% for bottled water and juices. When the first VAT raise was imple-mented, around 20% drop was observed in the sale of bottled water.

The new tax raise is expected to affect the prices and sales of bottled water, fruit and vegetable juices, cof-fee, tea and soft drinks.

The sales tax increase will be applied from September this year.

FooD&beverAGe

Starbucks on CEO huntAfter China, Starbucks, the US-based coffee retail chain, is plan-ning to come to India. It is on the lookout for a CEO to handle the Indian operations.

Starbucks management is at an advanced stage of discussion to select Tata Coffee for manu-facturing of their retail sales. All coffee meant for retail sales will be produced and packaged by Tata. What’s not clear is that if the Indian brand will also pro-duce for the international retail sales of Starbucks.

Tata Coffee has already worked with some Russian and Japanese private label coffee brands for packaging and man-ufacturing. Currently the com-pany’s production capacity is 6,000 tonnes. They are expand-ing it to over 8,000 tonnes and will take it up to 12,000 tonnes within this.

Starbucks is looking for an overseas executive with interna-tional experience with an expo-sure to Asian markets in Malay-sia, Thailand, Middle East and other Asian regions, counting on candidates who could loca-lise the brand and design region-oriented strategies.

Rumour had it that Santosh

Unni, CEO of Costa Coffee, will be selected for the designation.

Tata Coffee is also looking to set up a few packaging units in the international market namely Europe and Russia.

In an interview, MD Kumar, executive director - finance, Tata Coffee, explained: “It’s an

approach to put in place a more successful and sustainable busi-ness model without getting into branding ourselves.

The idea is to be the brand behind the brands…and ensure continuous supply of cof-fee to established and leading brands globally”.

24 FooD & beverAGe November 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST

Mother Dairy’s peach jamUnder the banner of Safal, Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegeta-ble, is launching a peach jam without preservatives.

Currently, the compa-ny’s jam segment comprises apple, mixed fruit, pineapple and orange marmalade..

The product will be intro-duced at 100 Safal outlets of Delhi NCR in the first phase. It will be available in a 480 gm jar that will contain fruit pieces too, and will be priced at `125 per bottle.

Japanese craft distillery launches First Whisky

The name is “Ichiro’s Malt Chichibu The First”, and it’s the first whisky from Jap-anese craft distillery Chi-chibu.This whiskey has been launched in Paris, Stockholm and the UK.

Chichibu The First is lim-ited to 7,400 bottles.Half of the stock will remain in Japan. UK-based, Number One Drinks Company will

be the second distributor. It will retail at £89.95/€115/ ¥10,000.

Chichibu The First is three years old and it is aged in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels. The whisky has 61.8% alcohol content and is not chill-filtered.

The distiller behind Chi-chibu Ichiro Akuto said he is planning a heavily peated Chichibu for August 2012.

Food safety rules

The Ireland Food Safety Author-ity has ord\ered eight food prem-ises to close down.

Majority of these are Chi-nese and Indian takeaways and restaurants. Bombay Spice, South Circular Rd, Dublin; the Happy Chan, McCurtain St,

Fermoy, Cork; Bella Bia, Dublin Road, Ballinagh, Co Cavan; and Ruby King Chinese restaurant and takeaway, Circular Road, Roscommon, were closed for being suspected to be, “a grave and immediate danger to pub-lic health”.

Others were served closure orders for general non-compli-ance with food legislation. These included Alis, Enniscrone, Sligo; the Punjab Balti, Ranelagh, Dub-lin; China Buffet King, Dun-drum, Dublin; and Treacy’s Indi-ana, Kilkelly, Mayo.

The growth of car sales in China has taken an unprecedented downturn after officials with-drew stimulus policies and insti-tuted measures to curtail traffic congestion. But corporate ana-lysts and industry insiders say the auto rental market could become China’s next big hope. At present, China has about 5,000 registered auto rental companies.

“Emerging car rental

businesses will become the best propellant for the entire auto industry.The prospects are enormous,” said Zhang Xiaolin, chairman of Haina International Auto Leasing, a Sino-Japanese joint venture in the eastern Zhe-jiang province.

By 2015, China’s car rental market is expected to hit 400,000 vehicles and produce US $2.8 billion in annual revenue,

according to the China Taxi-cab and Livery Association. In this growing, fragile and loosely regulated sector of auto rent-als, companies are fighting for market control.

The biggest winner in this scenario appears to be Beijing-based China Auto Rental, Oper-ating in 58 cities, it boasts of a fleet of 22,000 and aims to dou-ble the figure by year-end.

About 120 km southwest of the Trinity atomic bomb test site where the US ushered in the nuclear age 66 years ago, Space-port America, the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport is being built. It is set to become the official home of Virgin Galactic, billionaire Rich-ard Branson’s venture that pro-poses to take tourists into subor-bital space.

Virgin Galactic has a 20-year lease with Spaceport America that starts once the facility is completed. But the four-year-old project has already cost the poor state of New Mexico US

$249.7 million in public money. It’s at least nine months behind schedule and its director says it won’t generate as many jobs as backers once claimed.

“You have to think in decades” to comprehend the benefits of spaceport development, says Derek Webber, director of Spaceport Associates, a consult-ing firm. Webber, a former satel-lite and launch vehicle engineer for aerospace companies, is a self-described advocate of space tourism. While the New Mexico project is “a first bold attempt”, he says, any return on its investment may be several years away.

Future of space travel faces skepticism

Chinese car rentals, a lucrative alternative

Costa Cruises announced that it has placed a new

order with San Giorgio del Porto shipyard in Genoa for major restyling operations on the ship Costa Roman-

tica. The restyling is set to be carried out from

the end of O c t o -ber 2011. After ren-ovation,

the Costa Romantica will become the “Costa neoRomantica”.

Tillberg Design, a Swedish design company and Syntax, a London-based company, have been commissioned to develop the interior design. Once restyling has been com-pleted, at the end of February 2012, the Costa neoRomantica will sail 11-day cruises to the Canary Islands, with depar-ture from Savona.

Norwegian Cruise Line (“Norwegian”) will be the host of its first ever Tweetup at sea dubbed the S e a T w e e t u p Cruise coordinated by members of the South Florida social media community. The social-savvy sailing, which starts

from US $271 per person, will allow social media enthusi-asts to interact on

an exciting voyage where they can par-

ticipate in an exclu-sive networking events

including social media market-ing panels and discussions.

Norwegian hosts first ever Tweetup cruise

TrANsporT

To restyle CostaRomantica

Carnival Cruise Lines is plan-ning to invest over US $500 million across its fleet to trans-form its on-board guest expe-rience. As part of the overhaul, Carnival announced partner-ships with entertainer George Lopez, Food Network star Guy Fieri, and leading video game manufacturer EA SPORTS. Fourteen ships are scheduled to receive many of the Fun Ship 2.0 enhancements through 2015. Carnival will also create Hasbro, The Game Show, a new series of larger-than-life productions and entertainment activities, besides enhancing its nightclub experience.

Mumbai’s commuters will now have to pay `50 as one-time security deposit for the purchase of Automated Ticket Vending Machines (ATVM). Though the railway board has finalised the decision, the date of implementation is yet to be announced as changes are

still being made in the ticket-ing software. As the ATVM card has been a hit with Mum-bai’s 7 million commuters, its use has been extended further to mainline electric trains and diesel multiple unit shuttle trains that run along the city’s periphery.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has introduced the Virtual Reser-vation Message (VRM) system so that people are no longer required to take printouts of e-tickets. Pas-sengers can now reproduce the

booking in electronic mode such as a mobile, laptop or iPad to undertake the journey. One only needs to produce valid photo ID for it to be treated as an instru-ment on par with the Electronic Reservation Slip (ERS).

Railway smart card price hiked

Virtual railway tickets

Carnival Cruise Lines invests

This year Indian Railways seems to have become particular about discipline. About 2,600 Railway officials have faced departmen-tal action during the first five months of this year for alleged irregularities in discharging their work.

The department has carried out 10,389 preventive checks between January and May this

year and found that 87 gazetted and 2,561 non-gazetted officers

were allegedly involved in vari-ous illegal practices.

The Vigilance Wing of the Railways had also made recovery of over ̀ 13 crore from the preven-tive checks carried out in differ-ent railways zones.”We carried out these checks to ensure that the railways employees do not indulge in corrupt practices. The drive will be intensified in future,” a Railway Ministry official said.

In spite of the economic crisis, US transportation secretary Ray LaHood has announced that California, Illinois, Iowa, Mich-igan and Missouri will receive US $336.2 million to purchase next-generation trains. “This announcement is all about jobs,” explained LaHood.

California and Illinois reached cooperative agreements with the Federal Railroad Admin-istration to begin a multi-state procurement of equipment for passenger rail corridors in Cal-ifornia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon and

Washington State. Building a nationwide rail

network is critical to Ameri-ca’s long-term economic suc-cess. “More people are choos-ing to take the train and this year Amtrak is projected to set an all-time record by topping 30 million annual riders,” said federal railroad administrator Joseph Szabo.

Trains will be designed to travel more than 110 mph along intercity passenger corridors, and meet standards developed by the state-led Next Generation Equipment Committee.

The Carnival UK-owned Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Cruises will offer free domestic flights, coach travel or valet car parking along with 20% discounts in a three-month push on early bookings

for 2012-13. Sister line Cunard is offering

a similar incentive, with free flights to join its ship Queen Elizabeth in the Mediterranean and free parking at 13 UK airports for fly-cruises.

US confirms rail spending in states

With the introduction of the Changi Experience Agents (CEA) initiative, service at Changi Airport Singapore is set to be further enhanced. Cus-tomer service officers are now deployed to help visitors and

passengers. Locating missing luggage, facilitating passengers with check-in needs and assist-ing transit or transfer passen-gers with their onward con-nections also form part of the CEAs’ duties.

The high speed passenger service, Eurostar linking the UK and mainland Europe, has opened ticket sales for its direct ski services. Ski ser-vices will be from St Pan-cras International and Ash-ford International to the heart of the French Alps. The direct seasonal ski train to the Alps will run from Sat-urday, December 17 (day ser-vices) and Friday, December 23 (night services) until Saturday April 14, 2012.

The Maharajas’ Express, India’s most luxurious train, is intro-ducing a new 8-day and 7-night journey this October.The Royal Sojourn departing New Delhi will include destinations previously inaccessible by a luxury train. New highlights will include the

historical city of Kota, with visits to the 13th century Garh Palace, a boat cruise on the Chambal river, breeding ground of the Gharial (crocodiles) and a Royal dinner at the Umed Bhawan Palace, with its stunning blend of Rajput and Victorian architecture.

From September 2011 onwards over 60 Europcar locations across the UK will remain open seven days a week, allowing users to pick-up and return hire vehi-cles on the day that suits them. The new opening times included 22 airports and 38 city centre branches, as well as 24-hour opening at six major airports. The new policy will be rolled out in response to customer demand.

Cincinnati-based Over the Rhine will do three private con-certs and two public concerts on the Roots on the Rails Septem-ber excursion in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. This will be their third such trip. Last year they were aboard a train between Los Angeles and Albuquerque, via the Grand Canyon, that stopped for a series of off-train concerts.

The S.S. Lane Victory, 455-foot WWII cargo ship will go to sea on day cruises. The ship’s WWII-themed ‘Victory at Sea’ cruise includes a continental breakfast, a large catered buffet lunch, live 1940s’ music and a mock attack by an aircraft painted to look like World War II era planes. Visitors will also be invited to help hunt down a “Nazi spy” hiding some-where in the ship.The Hertz Corporation has

launched a new customer loyalty programme, Gold Plus Rewards. Gold Plus Rewards provides customers with a wide range of flexible reward options includ-ing points that never expire, ‘AnyDay’ reward options that have no blackout periods, easy online redemption on hertz.com, international point accrual, and a wide variety of car rewards

including cars from Hertz’s new Adrenaline Collection.

CEA ensures better service at Changi

Eurostar ski services ticket sale opens

The Royal Sojourn launches

24x7 car hire in UK

Over the Rhine to perform again on train

Cruising on World War II ship

Hertz launches new loyalty programme

Carnival Corporation said that it has reached an agree-ment with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri for the construc-tion of three new cruise ships – one 132,500-tonne vessel for its Costa Cruises brand and two 125,000-tonne ships for its AIDA Cruises brand. The ships will be the largest ever constructed for these two cruise lines. A contract has been signed for the construc-tion of a 3,700-passenger ship for Costa that is scheduled for delivery in October 2014.

Carnival and Fincantieri to build new ships

‘Podcar takeover’ at Heathrow

Ultra Personal rapid tran-sits (PRT), also called podcars,

are currently jetting passen-gers around Heathrow airport without any supervision at a 25 mph clip. Breakdowns are also extremely rare and the system has a 95% reliability rate. After diesel buses were taken off at that time, and these popular Ultra PRTs have been transport-ing people with their four-seat configurations since then.

26 TrANsporT November 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST

Early bird offerings at P&O Cruises and Cunard

Early bird offerings at P&O Cruises and Cunard

Rail employees in India face the music

Productivity, Connectivity and Efficiency is what Spice-Jet with its latest acquisition of the Bombardier turboprops Q400, says it will get from the 15 aircraft ordered.

While the first service started on the regional sector in India from SpiceJet’s Hyderabad base to Tirupathi on Sept 21, all 15 Q400s will be delivered by May 2012.

Significant opportunities for 60-149 Seat Aircraft Segment exist in India to connect second-ary and tertiary markets as 40% of domestic demand is anticipated from 2nd and 3rd tier cities.

SpiceJet has opened bookings for the first phase of its opera-tions from Hyderabad to seven Tier II and Tier III destinations — Aurangabad, Bhopal, Indore, Mangalore, Rajahmundry, Tiru-pati and Vijayawada.

The all-inclusive inaugural fare on these routes begins from Rs 1999. The Q400 NextGen tur-boprop aircraft accommodates 78 passengers.

Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) had been chosen as the first

base for the regional operations. The south-central location of Hyderabad reduces flying time to any of the cities in the region making it the most suitable loca-tion to connect other cities espe-cially in the South.

SpiceJet will also be adding routes within its existing desti-nations using the Q400 aircraft and will operate direct flights from Hyderabad to Goa, Madu-rai, Nagpur and Pune and Ban-galore to Vizag. SpiceJet will also be flying on three currently unconnected routes Hyderabad-Mangalore, Hyderabad-Aurang-abad and Vizag-Tirupati.

“We decided to strategically

focus on improving air con-nectivity in Tier-II and Tier-III towns as we believe there is a large market in India which is yet to be touched by the benefits of the aviation revolution. With the launch of our Q-400 turbo-prop operations, Mr Maran’s vision to offer extensive domes-tic coverage to SpiceJet passen-gers in Tier II and Tier III cities is now being realised. “We are very happy to be entering this new phase of growth, which we believe holds the future of the aviation industry in the coun-try,” said Neil Mills, CEO.

With 14% market share, Spice-Jet operates 202 flights daily to 21 Indian cities. It flies to Kath-mandu and Colombo on the international sector. It has a fleet of 29 Boeing 737-800 / 737-900.

SpiceJet’s Q400 - optimised short haul Solutionby Neelam mathews/Toronto

spicejet chairman Kalanithi Maran with Mrs Maran, CEO Neil Mills, and COO Nat-arajan (left to right)

The announcement made by Vijay Mallya, Chairman King-fisher Airlines to pull out of bud-get operations following the Annual General Meeting in Ban-galore, hardly comes as a sur-prise. Suffice to say competitors must be smiling as they wait to fill the space vacated by the carrier.

At a time when the blood bath in fares moves across borders of the full service carriers and bud-get alike with both battling to get a share of the same pie, Mallya might just end up facing the same warriors –this time with a blunt sword (of higher overheads)!.

At a time when yields are at their lowest, being the market honcho does not make any sense. This is something that Capt Gopi-nath of Air Deccan had learnt and acknowledged publicly when he became market leader with pathetic low yields.

Mallya has clearly indi-cated that he has no interest in

expanding internationally. Quite rightly so as five A-330s can’t take the carrier too far- given that one A-330 recently was on ground.

There might be some method to the madness. Cutting domes-tic fleet will also mean a reduc-tion in KFAs already diminutive international operations. DGCA stipulates the percentage of inter-national flights needs to have a certain balance with domes-tic flights. However, with KFA joining the OneWorld Alliance, it may not be long before the car-rier uses its international part-ners like AA, FinnAir and BA on international routes and con-nects their passengers to domes-tic and South Asian routes like Male and Dacca.

“High value passengers do not want to fly on a budget carrier especially when their full fare on the sector is for the front end. By KFA turning full service, this will fill the void,” says an official.

Kingfisher doesn’t want Red anymore

AvIATIoN

As Indian travellers to the US increased by 17% in 2010 over 2009 to 650,000, with San Fran-cisco among the top three destina-tions, San Francisco International Airport is aggressively wooing Jet Airways with incentives to start a direct service from India.

SFO has a huge United Air-lines presence at the airport and Jet’s codeshare with UA will help Indian passengers con-nect to over 200 destinations on the west coast without going through customs.

SFO presently has a pro-gramme for any new service. It waives off landing fees for the first year, that saves the carrier around US $400,000. It also develops along with the incoming carrier a marketing programme to help develop the destination for which a budget of US $150,000 is allotted. “This shows our commitment and support,” says Kandace Bender, deputy airport director, San Francisco International Airport at the US travel road show held in New Delhi.

SFO gets 758 passengers flying to it each way a day from India.

Direct flights to SFO make sense as there is justification in front of the plane…besides there is a big student and IT business to the Silicon Valley, “What is equally important is that premium travelers head to

SFO,” Bender said.Does the airport have slots?

“They are available tomorrow,” says Bender.

Jet’s starting the service would however depend on whether its B-777 could make the range and the availability of long range aircraft.

Jet Airways had started daily services on its new 777-300ER aircraft from Mumbai to San Francisco via Shanghai in June 2008, but withdrew six months later. The flight became the air-line’s fourth daily departure from India to North America, following launch of its services to New York’s JFK and Newark airports, and Toronto Pearson International Airport.

Kingfisher Airlines announce-ment of the first direct inter-national flight from Bangalore to San Francisco from Aug 27, 2008, never took off. “We had also planned to meet Kingfisher, but due to their unavailability, we will be meeting them at the Routes forum in Berlin,” said Bender.

Interestingly, Kingfisher had already started building its first class lounge in SFO in 2008 and when it withdrew, it was taken over by Emirates.

Presently carriers such as Emirates, Cathay and Lufthansa primarily carry Indians to the west coast.

As IndiGo started its fourth inter-national destination- four times a week- from Mumbai to Muscat on Oct 10, the carrier has added the 50th aircraft to its fleet, Aditya Ghosh, President and CEO of IndiGo told TND.

The airline will have 230 planes in the next 14 years. Ghosh acknowledged that airports

offering sops to airline did play and would play a definite role in its decision to start newer interna-tional destinations. Pilot shortage is going to cause increasing heart-burn in future as airlines increase their fleet sizes. IndiGo is presently running three programs to train and recruit pilots, Ghosh added.

“There is a need for experienced

expat training captains and examin-ers. “We will be ready for the DGCA deadline to have all-Indian pilots by 2013,” Ghosh said. In the next 14 months, IndiGo will hire 150 pilots.

IndiGo will start flights from Mumbai-Jeddah and Kolkata-Dacca in the winter schedule. Services will also start to three South Indian cit-ies in December, Ghosh said.

IndiGo gets 50th aircraft

SpiceJet Q400 route to India

The first of the 15 Q400s ordered by SpiceJet delivered followed a four-day journey to India.

The Q400s journey started in Toronto, onward to Goose Bay, Rejkavik, Bournemouth - Malta - Luxor - Muscat - Delhi.The last part of the route was the longest.

On an empty load, the Q400 can fly around five hours, says an official .

San Francisco International Airport woos Jet Airwaysby Neelam mathews

by Neelam mathews/muscat

Bengaluru-based Regional Air-port-Holdings International (RAHI) is firming its busi-ness plan for an air taxi oper-ation and a regional airline, to be announced by the end of the month, Umesh Kumar Baveja, founder-chairman, says.

The company has also started construction of two regional airports at Shimoga and Gul-barga in Karnataka, scheduled for completion in mid 2012. “Regional airports is our first name. We are looking at serv-ing hinterlands rather than the metros,” he adds.

The plan, according to

Baveja, is not ambitious given that the Ministry of Civil Avi-ation has plans to set up 500 airports by 2020. “This would mean one airport in every dis-trict. Our plan is in line with that of the central government…Besides, the Karnataka govern-ment has been very supportive and a facilitator.”

Gulbarga holds potential for regional operations with rich limestone deposits in the region and 11 cement plants planned. Shimoga has a `3000 crore infrastructure investment in the offing.

The size of the runways will

be 1910m in Shimoga and 1900m in Gulbarga in keeping with the DGCA directive to accommodate an ATR-72 on full load capacity in the worst climatic conditions.

RAHI is a joint venture between IL&FS Transportation Networks Limited (ITNL) and Comet Infra-Developments Private Ltd., an infrastructure development group.

The JV is currently developing airports in Shimoga and Gulbarga in Karnataka, under the Public-Private Partnership model.

The concession period for both projects is 30 years, extendable by an additional 30 years.

RAHI to invest `490 crore in Karnataka airports

TTF fuels demand for Diwali and winter vacations in lucrative Western India marketsThe back-to-back series of TTF Ahmedabad, Surat and Mumbai in August-September showed impressive growth with house-full shows in all the three cities. The series provided a lucrative platform for over 500 national and international travel

organisations from 30 states and 10 countries to tap the Diwali and winter vacation season in the lucrative and high-potential Western India markets which is arguably the biggest in the country. TTF Ahmedabad w it n e s s e d a n i mp r e s s ive

growth of 30% in the number of exhibitors, while Surat, limited by the space available in the venue, had 10% more participants. The first TTF Mumbai Diwali edition was sold out much before the e v e n t , e s t a b l i s h i n g t h e

importance of the second s e a s o n , a n d r e i n f o r c i n g Mumbai as the countr y’s premier travel market.

TTF Ahmedabad and Surat witnessed an average 20% increase in the number of visitors. TTF Mumbai, which

was expected to be largely a consumer event, focused on retailing for the forthcoming v a c a t i o n s , r e c e iv e d a n overwhelming response from the travel trade visitors, who constituted over 50% of the turnout.

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India was treated to a delecta-ble fare of Czech cuisine with the first Czech food festival held at the Lalit New Delhi from October 11-16. Award winning chefs from the national team of the Czech Chefs Association were flown to New Delhi to prepare traditional Czech dishes. The team included Chef Jan Horký, from the Golden Prague Restaurant in the Hotel InterContinental, and Chef Marek Svoboda from Gastro Studio.

People savoured a taste of the famous Czech Beer as the festival presented brands like Budweiser, Pilsner Urquell and Staropramen, Czech wines and other typical products from pastries, cheeses and many others. Earlier, the Czech Design and Fashion Show organised in India in May 2011 was a great success. These initiatives are part of the Czech Republic’s

endeavours to showcase its cul-tural heritage, cuisine, fashion and lifestyle to the Indian people. The event was complemented by a spe-cial performance of the Czech folk-lore music. There were also attrac-tive prizes on offer with SOTC, a partner organisation of the festi-val, awarding a trip to the Czech Republic’s capital, Prague.

“I would like Indians to know how diverse Czech cuisine is, just like the country itself. Czech Republic is very well known for its cultural heritage and Prague of course is one of the most vis-ited place in our country. But we would like to show as well new modern aspects such as cuisine, fashion and lifestyle to Indian public and to make them aware of the variety our country can offer.” said Radka Neumannova, Direc-tor of the CzechTourism in India.

First Czech food festival in India