Voyager's World August 2015

Vol XII

Issue X

Pages 48

August 2015

Rs 60

relaxed and ready to take off

28, 29, 30 August 2015

03, 04, 05 September 2015

04, 05, 06 March 2016

4>>

‘Presence’ of many minds for larger representation of views...

A

s the industry gears up for two major association-centred conventions - the annual convention of the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Travel Mart this year, the themes and activities planned during such events have a much deeper underlying purpose, often chosen to reflect upon the prevalent trends and decide new course of action. Activities during an industry convention not just help improve membership, but also makes representations to the governments easier through the knowledge gained from a national participation.

The learning during such conferences and meetings is tremendous and hence, it is important for the organisers of the convention to ensure the best utiisation of resources to bring the knowledge and experience of peers together for a positive outcome for all the event attendees.

In this issue, we have looked at the scope of airport lounges, adventure products in India and upcoming industry events.

Happy Reading...

Warm Regards

PRIYAMVADHA BALARAM

priyamvadha@voyagersworld.in

Managing Editor

Associate Editor

Chief Designer

Web Developer

Advertising & Marketing

Online Advertising

Rohit Hangal rohit@voyagersworld.in

EDIT

ORIA

L

Priyamvadha Balaram priyamvadha@voyagersworld.in

Shyam Vishnot shyam@voyagersworld.in

06 34

Industry Buzz

14

Cover story Airport lounges - Scope and trends

Irene Susan Eapen irene@voyagersworld.in

Rohith Pinto info@voyagersworld.in

Kaustuv Das General Manager Business Development Mobile +91-9916129116 kaustuv@voyagersworld.in advertising@voyagersworld.in

ADVERTISING & CIRCU LATIO N

Assistant Editor

Mobile +91-9844092150 advertising@voyagersworld.in

Operations Executive

Published By

Surinder Hakhu sanjay@voyagersworld.in & Rohit Hangal rohit@voyagersworld.in

Selvarajramaswamy operations@voyagersworld.in

Hospitality Colonial properties, reputation management

28

Adventure

37 45

MICE Point Sri Lankan Convention Bureau, IATO

Top Appointments

New adventure trends and products in India

Printed by Pentaplus Printers Pvt. Ltd. #20/1, 5th Cross, 4th Main Raod, Industrial Town, Rajajinagar, Bangalore - 560044. Ph: +91 98440 87068

Editorial & Advertising office # 245, Amar Jyothi Layout, Domlur, Bangalore - 560 071, India Ph: +91 - 80 - 4083 4103, Fax: + 91 - 80 - 4083 4101 | info@spheretravelmedia.com, www.spheretravelmedia.com All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2014. No part of this magazine may be reproducted without the prior written permission from Voyagers’s World

Industry Buzz

6>> Indians to get visa-free entry in Indonesia

Rail Europe offers free SIM cards on Eurail passes

W

ith Indonesia registering a growth of 16.23% in Indian visits in 2014, the country is set to include India in the visa-free list. “India will soon be included in Indonesia’s visa-free list.

The process to facilitate the same is ongoing,” said Saut Siringoringo, Consul General, the Republic of Indonesia, at the recent Indonesia Sales Mission in Mumbai. The number of inbound Indian travellers is increasing, especially for incentive trips.

R

ail Europe, along with Eurail, is offering free SIM cards to its customers, allowing them to receive and make calls, send text messages, take advantage of Wi-Fi hotspots and get 3G data throughout their Europe trip.

Travellers who book their Eurail Global Pass from 03 August to 30 September 2015 included, will be eligible for the free SIM card.

The promotional offer is limited to 3,500 SIM cards and they will be available on a first-come-first- served basis. The roaming SIM card will be available as regular, micro or nano, with a UK (+44) and US (+1) phone number that includes a prepaid credit of €18.00. The roaming SIM Card offered during this promotion will be pre-activated and travellers will be able to use it immediately.

Blue Square Consultants to represent Best Value Tourism

B

luesquare Consultants will represent Best Value Tourism, a Dubai-based DMC in India. The DMC is approved by the Department of Tourism Commerce & Marketing, Dubai (DTCM) for providing all kind of travel related services under one roof, comprising leisure groups and individual travels.

'TravelHQ.com' b2b portal launched for travel marketers

T Newcomer Trujet aims to tap under-served markets

T

rujet, a new entrant to the Indian aviation space, commenced its flights from 12 July, 2015 and will offer services to Hyderabad, Chennai, Rajahmundry and Tirupati. As part of its inaugural offer, Trujet announced fares from as low as Rs. 1499. It offers discounts for senior citizens (above 60 years) and students. The airline seeks to address the huge under-served and un-served markets in India. It will add Aurangabad, the nearest airport to Shirdi, to its network from 26 July. It will also launch ChennaiTuticorin and Chennai-Salem services soon.

he Integrated Digital Agency launched a B2B portal, TravHQ. com catering to travel marketers from India and South-East Asia. The content on the website provides latest insights on SMTB (Social, Mobile, Technology and Digital) trends.

The website is an outcome of six months of industry research, conversations and development work. On the occasion, Daksh Sharma, Founding Partner, TravHQ.com remarked: “We felt that there was a growing need to provide strategic insights to travel marketers on how should they use the whole digital platform to engage with their consumers. This is where the idea of TravHQ was born.”

AIH&TM to offer hospitality course

A

shok Institute of Hospitality and Tourism Management (AIH&TM), a hospitality training institute under the HRD Division of India Tourism Development Corporation Ltd. (ITDC), formalized collaboration with the National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology (NCHMCT), under the Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India, to offer a three-year Bachelors of Science (B.Sc.) course in Hospitality and Hotel Administration. The first intake of students for the program was hosted on 21 July in an induction session organised by the institute at the Ashok Hotel, New Delhi. Industry projects will be an important component of the programme and students will complete an internship in hospitality and related service industry.

PATA announces winners of Grand and Gold Awards 2015

T

he Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has announced the winners of the 2015 PATA Grand and Gold Awards.

Supported and sponsored by the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) for the last 20 years, this year’s awards recognise the achievements of 25 separate organisations and individuals. PATA will present 29 Grand and Gold Awards to organisations. The awards luncheon and presentation will take place at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) on 8 Septembe during the PATA Travel Mart 2015. The PATA Grand Awards are presented to outstanding entries in marketing, education and training; environment and heritage & culture.

Voyager’s World > August 2015

Picture courtesy : Naka Islanda Luxury Collection Resort & Spa, Phuket A land of beauty and of culture, of cuisine and of kindness, Thailand is a country where the warmth of the greeting is as warm as the climate itself. Few places on Tourism Authority Of Thailand Mumbai Ofď€ ce earth can boast such a blessing of natural wonders and perfect hideaways.

Tourism Authority Of Thailand New Delhi Ofď€ ce Come and Explore Luxurious Destination Amazing Thailand.

Industry Buzz

8>> India Tourism to sponsor WTM Buyers' Club

UFTAA questions legitimacy of Lufthansa's decision

T

he United Federation of Travel Agents’ Associations (UFTAA) retaied its stand against Lufthansa Airlines recent decision to levy extra amount on tickets booked on Global Distribution System (GDS).

Questioning the legitimacy of the practice, UFTAA pointed out that a ticket is an agreement between the passenger and the airline while a reservation or cancellation fee is a matter between the airline and the travel agents. It termed the practice to be violating the IATA BSP norms and not in conformity with agreed industry practices.

I

ndia Tourism will be the sponsor of the World Travel Market (WTM) Buyers’ Club as the latter looks to promote India to the global travel industry as a safe and year-round luxury destination.

India has an array of new products to promote to the world’s leading buyers at WTM London 2015; which will see Royal Caribbean include Indian ports in its itineraries from October. Other leading global cruise companies operating from India include Oceania Cruise and AIDA Cruise. India will look to sign deals at WTM 2015 with UK tour operators that will see the number of Indian visitors to one million in 2016.

Sheraton Hyderabad Hotel opens up

T

he Sheraton Hyderabad Hotel opened with 272 rooms and 950 sq m of meeting and event space. The launch of the newly renovated property owned by SAMHI Hotels (Ahmedabad) saw a prolific soiree with tennis legends Sania Mirza and Martina Navratilova as guests as part of the WTA Future Stars Hyderabad Clinic and Masterclass.

All the meeting venues are equipped with audiovisual technology and are backed by an outstanding events team.

Lavasa International Convention Centre to tap wedding market

India Tourism Delhi curbs touts

M

ercure Lavasa and Lavasa International Convention Centre (LICC) aim to host more of ‘floating weddings’ (on a deck over water) and are promoting the concept of ‘meetings out of water’ as of now. The venue designs a deck (depending on the capacity of the event) over water. It can also enable landing of a helicopter. ‘Meetings out of water’ is another novel concept that LICC is promoting as of now.

Vistara offers mobile boarding pass at MIAL's T2

ETAA North India Chapter names heads of 3 sub-committees

T G

VK MIAL (Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd.) and Vistara launched a mobile phone boarding pass facility today for Vistara’s customers travelling out of Mumbai’s T2 terminal to New Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Goa. The facility seeks to save time for passengers and reduce the usage of paper boarding passes.Vistara’s customersgoing from Mumbai T2 will need to choose ‘Get Mobile boarding pass/ Collect by SMS’ option when checking-in online or on our mobile app. The SMS from Vistara will contain the booking details and the link to access the mobile boarding pass. Customers must take a screenshot of the pass, which is readable by the machines installed by Mumbai T2’s domestic departure level. Although paper boarding passes are not required, customers would need to carry authorised photo ID proof.

Voyager’s World > August 2015

he North India Chapter of Enterprising Travel Agents Association (ETAA) has inducted trade persons as heads for three of its sub-committees, namely Liasioning Committee, Membership Committee, and Events Committee. This was announced by Pankaj Nagpal, National Board Director & Chairman – Northern India Region, ETAA, at the recent Quarterly Member’s Meet in New Delhi.

The event was held along with Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB).

The Liasioning Committee, which looks after and develops relations with government departments, tourist organisations, etc., will be headed by P P Khanna (Diplomatic Travels). The Membership Committee, which addresses members issues and increasing member base in North India, will be headed

by Ashish Sehgal (Hora Tourism). The Sports & Events Committee, which facilitates off-business participation by members and enhances networking, will be headed by Manmeet Singh Arora (Manmeet Travels).

I

n a major initiative, India Tourism Delhi office associated with Delhi Police, Indian Railways, Delhi Metro to curb the incidence of cheating foreign tourists in the national capital. It has installed informative signages in New Delhi Railway Station, Hazrat Nizzamuddin, Old Delhi, Safdarjung, Sarai Rohilla, Rajiv Chowk, Janpath, Mandi House and Barakhamba Road to help tourists locate its office and prevent them from being duped by touts who pose as officials from India Tourism Delhi or its approved agencies and charge exorbitant rates for tour packages for unsuspecting foreign tourists.

Cruise service connecting Kochi-Colombo-Maldives to start from October

A

cruise ship linking Kochi with Colombo and Maldives is expected to commence from October 2015. This information was given by G Kamala Vardhana Rao, Secretary –Tourism, Government of Kerala. A Sri Lankan company has come forward to launch a cruise service with a capacity of 500 pax connecting the three ports. The company held discussions with Cochin Port Trust to work out modalities and concessions recently. A lot of Chinese and Japanese tourists who visit Sri Lanka and Maldives generally skip India. This cruise product might help Kerala to lure these tourists to their shores for couple of nights.

Domestic Tourism Story

10>>

domestic tourism.. on a growth trajectory

From the 65th rank in 2013, India has climbed to the 52nd rank this year as per Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report. How important is boosting domestic tourism, particularly the south region?

VW BUREAU

T

he Ministry of Tourism (MoT) is presently in the midst of formulating a National Tourism Policy 2015 with the aim of positioning India as a ‘Must Experience’ and ‘Must Revisit’ destination for global travellers, encouraging Indians to explore their own country and realizing the potential of tourism as a major engine for economic growth, employment generation and poverty alleviation in a responsible framework.

Tamil Nadu accounted for maximum Foreign Tourist visits of 4.66 million in 2014. During 2014, the number of domestic tourist visits to states/ Union Territories (UTs) registered a growth of 11.93% over 2013 as compared to growth of 9.59% in 2013 over 2012.

The top 10 states in terms of number of domestic tourist visits (in millions), during 2014, were Tamil Nadu (327.6), Uttar Pradesh (182.8), Karnataka (118.3), Maharashtra (94.1), Andhra Pradesh (93.3), Telengana (72.4), Madhya Pradesh (63.6), West Bengal (49.0) Jharkhand (33.4) and Rajasthan (33.1).

During 2014, the number of domestic tourist visits to States/UTs registered a growth of 11.93% over 2013

Voyager’s World > August 2015

as compared to growth of 9.59% in 2013 over 2012.

When the Incredible India campaign was launched in 2002, the drive won kudos from all quarters for its high touchstones in terms of the visual appeal, the content and the reach. The growth in the number of foreign tourist arrivals as well as that of domestic tourists has been optimistic. The growth could be attributed to the rising numbers of people travelling across the country for pilgrimage, wildlife, sightseeing, photography and adventure sports holidays.

Other reasons would be better economic growth of the country, rising disposable incomes, etc. Domestic tourism has also registered a decent growth figure thanks to increased marketing and promotional activities through various media, tour operators and agents.

Domestic tourism is where the states have better scope to display their offerings, vying for their share of the leisure segment from across the country, primarily because the VFR segment offers negligible possibility for them to lure travellers.

In an attempt to delve into what the

country has, what has been already tapped and what are the hidden gems waiting to be discovered, here is an breakdown of the potential of tourism in the southern part of the country from various angles; not just the metros and the main tourist spots but also the lesser known destinations that offer tremendous opportunities for the players in the travel industry. This article seeks to explore what the Indian traveller can see and experience down south; this includes any traveller from across the length and breadth of the country.

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013 ranked India 52nd out of 141 countries overall. According to the report, travel and tourism already accounts for 5% of India’s employment and its huge potential for further growth is made visible by comparing the country’s 7 million international visitors to China’s 55 million. India’s natural resources (17th) are vast and diverse and its cultural resources (10th) include a unique intangible heritage (8th), sports events and a large entertainment offer. India’s relevance as business travel destination is increasing along with its economic growth, it remains a price-competitive destination (8th) and recent changes in its

visa regime: not yet reflected in the data rankings — have the potential to boost international arrivals. There are still many countries like Poland or the UK that need simplification in the visa processes.

The study also says that longstanding infrastructure gaps remain, especially in tourism-specific infrastructure (109th) and the quality of roads. Despite some uneven progress, India also lags on health and hygiene (106th) and ICT readiness (114th). The safety and security situation is unsettling, with a perceived increase in the impact of crime and violence (97th), and India ranks only 139th for environmental sustainability.

According to the World Tourism Organization, by the year 2020, it is expected that India will become the leader in the tourism industry in South Asia, with about 8.9 million arrivals.

While a lot is being speculated about the strength of the rupee, the emerging Indian middle class and the rising interest in international travel, a three-four day holiday or an extended weekend is now considered for an overseas trip. This extended weekend or festive season holiday is

www.raileurope.hk

SWISS TRAVEL PASS FREE DAYS

ÉQUIVALENCE PANTONE

TYPOGRAPHIE TRIANGLE BASELINE

DÉGRADÉ CYAN + MAGENTA + JAUNE PANTONE Process Cyan C

www.raileurope.jp

FÉVRIER 2007

FROM 204 EUR

Discover Switzerland by train, bus and boat with the Swiss Travel Pass !

Buy your Consecutive Swiss Travel Pass from 1st September to 30th September 2015 and get free days for travel between 12th September and 30th November 2015.

Get 4 days + 1 day free from only 204 € or 8 days + 2 days free from only 292 €.

Log on to http://agents.raileurope.co.in for more information and bookings or contact your Rail Europe GSA: Amigo Travels, Cox & Kings (I) Ltd, Kesari Tours, Kuoni / SOTC, Make My Trip, Ottila International, Swisstours, Thomas Cook, Travel Tours, TUI

Domestic Tourism Story

one area that travel agents and tour operators can work on to design packages, what with the increasing air travel in the country.

A few hours flight from Mumbai and Delhi is what it takes to maneuver prospective travellers from the North and West part of India. Well, the North-East is not being mentioned elaborately here because the region is taking baby steps onto the tourism front itself. So, focusing on the core markets in the country should do at the moment.

Developing the South Circuit There are many pluses and value for money for a short holiday in the southern part of the country. Board a quick flight to any of the southern metros- Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Trivandrum and you are at the gateway of a plethora of travelling options. The infrastructure is quite developed in these states thanks to steady and regular development of hotels, roads, tourist spots, transport, etc.

Now, South India is not merely restricted to these four metros and their states; Lakshadweep, Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands do deserve a fair mention in this story as well as in your conversations with your clients. Other popular options airports are Kozhikode Airport, Cochi Airport, Trichy Airport, Mangalore Airport and Coimbatore Airport.

The places in the south boast of a fairly stable climatic condition, unique to its geographical condition, barring a few places that ex-

Voyager’s World > August 2015

perience extreme heat during summer. Yet, the summer is not a bad time to plan a visit. There has also been a proliferation of reliable and exhaustive road transport options inter-connecting states, districts and the smallest units of township, quite round–the-clock.

A three-day itinerary from the capital or a principal town in a state will thus allow you to visit a minimum of eight to 10 places, with ample rest time in between. In this respect, the quintessential image that the southern region has of being a traditional region abounding with places of religious importance is what tour operators and travel agents must work on. As a matter of fact, even a three-day inter-state tour is possible in order to ‘provide the best of both worlds’ package to the discerning traveller. An overnight train to Bellary or a flight to Hubli from Bangalore throws open the roads to Hampi, the renowned historical site by road from Bellary in a few hours or a pilgrimage to Mantralayam in Andhra Pradesh, again a few hours on road from Bellary. If you can spare more time, you can even stop at the Chitradurga Fort, two hours from Bellary. Likewise, from Madurai one can head to Kodaikanal on road in a couple of hours’ time or deviate towards Kerala and go to Thekkady, known for its wildlife sanctuary.

As the northern part of the country does not have a coastline except for Gujarat and West Bengal, tour operators can bet on the long coastlines of all the four southern states. Alternately, as mentioned earlier, Anda-

12>>

man & Nicobar Islands can also be marketed aggressively. However, an itinerary to that island would probably require a little more than three days in order to get the best value for the money spent.

Way of working Hence, travel agents and tour operators, especially the ones in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in the country must come up with some kind of an inter-linked network with their counterparts in the southern region. This way, a tour operator in Kashmir or Delhi can help book a package for a customer seeking to visit Kanyakumari, without having to worry about lack of first-hand experience of the destination themselves. The kind of location that customer would finally book depends on their interest level, your conviction in selling them and the facilities available in the locations to meet the interest.

First, they need to work on the best pricing strategies for supportive services of tourism in the South, based on the source of request, itinerary, budget and season. Then the agents should gauge the best promotional strategies that could be implemented to attract a demographic segment to give a new dimension to their perception of visiting the south. It will take a while to assess the benefits accumulated from tourism in these states for them, based on the spreading of awareness, the revenue generation, much before the break-even stage.

A weighty area of tourism that the south lays claim to would be medical tourism. There are several world-

class healthcare facilities here for people to consult, undergo treatment and convalesce. Kerala’s Ayurveda needs no mention. However, this field requires a marketing strategy of a different nature altogether, it being a niche segment.

Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhbitions (MICE) This four-letter acronym is the new and emerging sector in the Indian tourism industry. As of now, in the south the most prominent meetings venues comprise the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), the Chennai Trade Centre and the Bangalore International Exhibitions Centre. However, the last few years have witnessed new, international hotel brands making a foray into the country. In south, Bangalore had three hotels of the Marriott brand and one Ritz Carlton opening in 2013. Gateway opened a property in Hubli, Crowne Plaza opened in Kochi, Four Points by Sheraton in Vishakapatnam while the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) will soon open InterContinental Chennai Mahabalipuram Resort.

So, corporate travel planners in the rest of the country can recommend these options that are not only costeffective but serve as an opportunity for them to contribute to domestic tourist inflow in the southern region.

This just looks at the prospects of developing the existing and discovering possibilites in one region.

There will be an insight into how an Indian state’s revenue rose ‘because of tourism’ as against ‘from tourism’ in our upcoming issue.

60

DID YOU KNOW?

SECONDS

1

ABOUT

MORE THAN 1.1 MILLION meetings take place at WTM

®

2

51,500 ATTENDEES

from 186 countries at WTM

World Travel Market, Senior Director, Simon Press previews WTM 2015.

Tell us about WTM London WTM London 2015 will be the best yet.

Total participants for the event grew to 51,500 in 2014 and we expect even more people to be coming through the doors of ExCeL – London between Monday 2 and Thursday 5 November 2015.

• WTM London 2015 will see the WTM Festivals return after a successful debut to celebrate WTM’s 35th event last year • Furthermore, the Wellness programme – introduced at WTM 2014 – has been expanded to include The Wellness Lounge on the Wednesday and Thursday of the event • The WTM Bloggers’ Speed Networking will also be expanded following a successful debut last year, and • A Taste of ILTM at WTM will be expanded for WTM 2015 to include international buyers.

How much business can exhibitors expect to conduct?

WTM London 2014 saw more than 1.1 million on-stand meetings facilitate more than £2.5 billion in industry deals.

This year we expect even more business will be conducted, thanks to the number of new initiatives I’ve outlined. One of the best ways for exhibitors to meet new buyers and sign deals is to attend WTM London’s Speed Networking sessions, which take place on Monday and Thursday mornings.

What will the event programme look like at WTM 2015?

There will be more than 100 sessions taking place at WTM this year across a comprehensive range of subjects including Aviation, Hotels, Responsible Tourism and Women in Travel. For the first time there will be a gastronomy programme. The hugely popular WTM Leaders’ Lunch, WTM Ministers’ Summit and World Responsible Tourism Day will also return.

Which exhibitors should we look out for?

World Travel Market London always has the biggest brands in the travel industry exhibiting and WTM London 2015 will be no exception. Major airlines at the event include Etihad Airways, Kuwait Airways and Thai Airways International.

Major hotels chains exhibiting include Rotana and Jumeirah Hotels.

Furthermore, I’m delighted to be able to announce Mexico as WTM London’s Premier Partner for 2015 as part of the Year of Mexico in the UK and the UK in Mexico.

Where can buyers and visitors register for WTM 2015?

Visit www.wtmlondon.com/register

Discover the world 2 - 5 November 2015 / ExCeL London

Register now wtmlondon.com

Official Media Partner

Official Premier Partner

LIVE IT TO BELIEVE IT

3

£2.5 BILLION of new business is generated at WTM You can meet

4 5,000 EXHIBITORS

from across the world at WTM

5 6 7 8 9

10

There are more than

9,100 WTM Buyers’ Club members in attendance

MORE THAN 38 travel industry sectors are represented at WTM

MORE THAN 17,000 attendance at WTM’s conference programme Including more than

8,000 UNIQUE VISITORS The Travel Tech Show at WTM is the UK's

LARGEST TECHNOLOGY EVENT WTM’s visitor audience has grown by

MORE THAN 20% over the last five years

®

Hospitality

14>>

Daiwik gets a foothold on the Pilgrim Trail!

IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

Debashis Ghosal, Managing Director, Daiwik Hotels says Daiwik Hotels are focusing on pilgrim destinations where there is a big gap between quality standard products and the demand in the market. waste management, proper roads and last mile connectivity, reliable electricity and disaster management systems and squads. In the recent years we have seen large scale disasters arising either of natural causes or manmade which need a quick appropriate response and preventive measures to be adopted in such out of way places.

Growth in the 1st quarter 2015 The government’s vision to focus on pilgrimage travel is totally in sync with Daiwik Hotels. We need more support on the ground in terms of better infrastructure from local bodies like water, sewage disposal &

In the 1st Quarter, we have managed to grow by almost 50% compared to the same quarter in the last financial year in both Rameswaram and Shirdi. We hope to grow by around 60% in sales in both the properties for 2015-16.

Average occupancy We have done over 50% cumulatively in both the properties for the

1st quarter.

Kind of travelers We have witnessed a wide variety of travellers in Rameswaram like pilgrim travellers, leisure travellers, Corporate offsite meets and business travellers are very common their duration of stay vary from 1 -3 days. We have had some company meetings and conferences which span for over 3-5 days. We have Daiwik Club and RCI members staying for a week. We have had spiritual organizations doing Ram Katha’s or celebrating their Guruji’s Birthdays who stay for a long period of 6-9 days. There are weddings organized in the property where they take rooms for 2-3 days. Now that we have provided an international standard hotel at Rameswaram for

the first time the foreign in bound groups have started providing business to the hotel. So we are getting about 15-20% of inbound traffic as well.

In Shirdi, the primary travellers are pilgrims who stay at the hotel for 1-2 days. Some corporates are also using us for their conferences in Shirdi.

Expansion plans for 2015 We are planning to launch the property in Dwarka, Gujarat which is an important Dham and Jyotirlingam and another property in Tirupati which is one of the most popular shrines across the world. We are in talks for branding and management of some hotels in other pilgrimage destinations.

briar tea bungalows: colonial experience on a platter!

AANCHAL SALECHA

“Our properties see 30% growth annually,” says Tharani Tharan, Senior Hospitality Manager of Briar Tea Bungalows, as he elaborates on the anti-gadget, nature-friendly practices followed in these palatial, colonial residences.

T

he British attempted to transform India into their second home but nationalistic fervour thwarted their attempts. Yet, traces of British India are still alive today in their primitive forms, the most magnificent ones

Voyager’s World > August 2015

being their residences. Briar Tea Bungalows, located in Megamalai and Valparai in Tamil Nadu and Munnar in Kerala are few of those inherited colonial bungalows that were originally owned by British planters. “We started our services in 2006 with three bungalows. Our agenda was to provide an environment that restores the erstwhile life of a British cultivator. In 2012, these tea bungalows were branded as Briar Hotels. We added five bungalows and by 2014, the properties were completely renovated. Amongst all our properties, the one in Valparai is the most popular,” says Tharani Tharan.

USP in comparison with a hotel The biggest advantage of our bungalows is the luxury of space and personalised or ‘butler’ service, as

Briar Monica Bungalow, Valparai

labelled by the British. Adhering to our tea planter’s culture, we offer a complimentary trek and visits to the plantations and tea factory. “We do not want to incorporate modern luxury as we want guests to experience nature as it is. It may seem oldfashioned but we are against TV and electronic equipments, to protect the natural habitat in the vicinity.

Promotional strategies “In course of time, our bungalows

have established a remarkable number of ‘repeat customers’ from varied yet specific segments as corporate, adventurers, photographers, honeymooners, families, reunion groups and foreigners. Albeit our strength is direct business via word-of-mouth and referrals, we are active on Facebook and TripAdvisor. One of our promotional strategies is to direct travellers from Munnar to Valparai as both take almost the same time to reach from Chennai,” concludes Tharani.

Hospitality

15>>

reputation management helps hotel in proactive guest satisfaction PRIYAMVADHA BALARAM

Deepak Mavinkurve, Founder CEO of RepuFact, a Bangalore-based start-up, talks about how hotels must treat and respond proactively to guest feedback and intelligence.

The last thing that customers look at before making a booking is the previous guest’s experience and that is a decision point.

Hotels need to be more proactive. When it comes to experiential or high-valued products, we seek opinion from previous users.

So, it is important to create profound customer content.

“

RepuFact is the first such technology platform developed in India to help hotels track and respond to online customer reviews, feedback and data analytics for the benefit of revenue managers,” says RepuFact’s Founder & CEO Deepak Mavinkurve.

He goes on to explain all that goes into a reputation makeover. “Let us suppose we are in Windsor Manor, Bangalore. Its restaurant Bukhara is important for F&B and revenue for the ITC Group. The group wants to see Bukhara’s competence as against a local standalone restaurant in the vicinity. Here, we can employ RepuFact to track and assess its stance.”

RepuFact follows data on real-time basis every day. When the review manager opens the file every morning, he will have the latest data on customer reviews.

How can reputation management help in preventing loss?

If a hotel is currently renovating its lobby, chances are that customers may not like the inconvenience and negative reviews can happen.

In such situations, Deepak says, an effective reputation management expert can help the hotel take anticipatory steps like giving guests discounts on the hotel’s spa treatments or some other complimentary value-additions. Bodhgaya - buddhist tourists from China, Japan..

Indian hotels dont know how to pick them up - NLP, AI How does RepuFact work?

RepuFact has built-in solutions to track guest reviews from nearly 120 websites in 25 languages from across the world, including figures

from TripAdvisor, HolidayIQ, Booking.com, Justdial, MouthShut.com, blogs and other rating sites. Its guest analytics tool makes use of semantic analyses to understand the sentiment behind the review. “If you pull out the data for the last one year of a hotel and use the semantic tool, you can find out why the reviews are improving or otherwise, scope for improvement, reasons for decline, etc.,” says Deepak.

RepuFact goes up to four layers deep into pinpointing the hotels’ strengths and weaknesses right from feedback about a waiter or the chefs, the air conditioning in the rooms, décor, food and the like.

The organisation also provides cutting edge work in implementing best-in-class Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to provide precise inputs to any customer related concerns.

Odds of overwhelming data from many sources RepuFact not only collects and analyses customer reviews across voice, video and text, but also summarizes the data under different review categories to provide hotels and properties a distinct ‘RepuFact’ score.

“We are pulling out data and giving them back to the hotel. RepuFact is primarily B2B and suggest them ways to get better after giving them a score which is based on many parameters. One of them is verified reviews against non-verified reviews as feedback can be written by anyone. Booking.com, for that reason, allows people to review only when they have made a booking.”

There are three products under the umbrella of RepuFact. One product converts data from 25 languages into English. When it accumulates all the reviews and data analytics around it, it brings interesting eye opener stories. The second product is Datafact for which RepuFact works with a Swedish company called Qlik. Datafact converts customer sentiments into simple dashboards that are both pre-formatted and customizable.

The third product is Feedfact which helps pick up feedback and give it to hotels, while encouraging them to have their own in-house review systems. An in-house review system helps when a guest has still not checked out and there is scope to resolve or make up for a problem that the guest has faced.

Search engine results can change at any time based on recent news, social media, algorithm changes or a number of other factors.

How much can this possibly control what people view about them online?

Admitting that there are certain websites that have constant changes, Deepak says that there are static ones too that can be managed as they may update feedback once in two days or so. On the other hand, TripAdvisor is very dynamic. If somebody has written poorly about the hotel, I need to see if I can get it to my customer in the next half hour.

We are barely a month old and in the days tom come, we would like to keep pace with such sites.”

Within the scope of RepuFact, we have a huge analytic data bank from

which we can churn multiple facts and hotels can use our analytics independently, in addition to their private data derived from their ARRs, contacts,etc. and industry data like Phocuswright surveys.”

Challenges In times of crisis or negative situations, hotels need to be competent to handle vulnerable areas that can breed negative reviews. According to Deepak, the industry has still not matured to handle such crisis. “Consumers can voice their opinions across platforms. But, technically, it is not about rendering an apology. Hotels need a sensitivity to do a good job. When we began building on RepuFact, I went through 2500 reviews line by line and after I finished the 300th review, I observed that the problem began repeating itself. Typical problems include Wi-Fi, breakfast and washrooms.”

RepuFact did a case study on a hotel in Bangalore which was found to have achieved 400% growth in a month after managing its customer intelligence and review data.

Clientele RepuFact caters to all categories of hotels because every hotel is wary of poor reputation, regardless of its inventory. It offers the same range of services to all its clients; the difference lies in comparing a hotel’s performance with that of its competitor.

RepuFact is domain agnostic and can be used for any industry. “Once we gain traction we can look at expanding our services to car rental, healthcare, restaurant, OTAs, etc.”

Deepak concludes.

www.voyagersworld.in

Hospitality

16>>

price dynamics remain top concern at hotel distribution summit VW BUREAU

Dynamic pricing strategies, against the backdrop of competitor pricing and customer purchase decisions, were debated upon at RezNext’s Hotel Distribution Summit held in July at IITM Bangalore 2015.

R

ezNext, in association with the India International Travel Mart (IITM), organized the Hotel Distribution Summit, a power packed interactive session at the 2015 IITM edition in Bangalore on 11 July at the Karnataka Trade Promotion Organisation in Whitefield. The summit looked at the growing need for hoteliers and demand generators to adopt a customer centric distribution strategy for improved profitability. With increased internet and mobile penetration in India, consumer purchasing dynamics have changed considerably. This change is not just restricted to metros. Tier two cities will infact start yielding better and will become a significant contributor to online booking revenue for hotels.

Online bookings will also not be restricted to the younger generation, it will be increasingly adopted by all age groups. Also with customers demanding instant gratification, both

hoteliers and demand generators will need to work on a nimble strategy that is continuously influenced by dynamic pricing, reputation and customer purchase patterns. While being responsive to customer demand is required, hoteliers need to also balance the act ensuring their profitability is not affected. Real-time date intelligence becomes critical here.

The summit brought together hospitality leaders to discuss how hoteliers can connect better with the well informed and demanding consumer.

It also looked utilizing next gen business processes and technology tools that can help hoteliers shift the focus from driving revenues to improving profitability. Topics discussed were ‘Adopting a customer-centric distribution model’, corporate travel trends, mobile technology for hoteliers, improving guest payment experience, redefining travel search

and the impact of online reviews on hotel reservations. Dhiraj Trivedi, President – Revenue Management Services, RezNext Global Solutions was the moderator while the speakers included Mukut Chakravarti, Director of Sales, Vivanta By Taj (MG

NAGPUR VISHAKAPATANAM COIMBATORE

Voyager’s World > August 2015

Road), Prakash Mahato, Head Revenue & Account Management, RoomsTonite, Amit Kapoor, Co-Founder at Airpay Payment Services Pvt. Ltd., Arijit Mukherjee, Founder at Carrots LLC, Deepak Mavinkurve, Founder & CEO at GoodHotel Network Pvt. Ltd.

: 09, 10, 11 October 2015 : 06, 07, 08, November 2015 : 22, 23, 24 January 2016

Hospitality

17>>

Preferred Hotels & Resorts bets big on independent hotel space VW BUREAU

Saurabh Rai- Area Managing Director of South Asia and Middle East, Preferred Hotels & Resorts, talks about what the company does in the space of independent hoteliering. brand reputation management and cost savings. We have nearly 650 hotels in 85 countries, 36 sales offices, about 60 sales directors who do

sales and business contracting with corporates, tour operators, meeting planners, etc. on behalf of our hotels.” The brand looks for pedigree

operating capability, long-term intent, desire to create a legacy, while aiming to become one of the top five consumer hotel brands in the world.

Launching the biggest B2B platform in the

P

referred Hotels & Resorts is a representation platform for independent hotels which could be singular hotel companies like the Imperial Hotel New Delhi or the Avasa in Hyderabad or the Raintree in Chennai or a small regional hotel brand like the Leela Palace & Resorts, ITC Hotels, Zuri Hotels, etc. “We are relevant for any hotel or hotel company that could approve very tangible and distinct advantages by being part of a global umbrella, an umbrella or platform that provides the infrastructure of an international scale for sales, marketing, quality assurance and electronic distribution,” says Saurabh Rai. “India is a great market for us to be, but at the same time, it has the limitations in terms of the size.”

He says that out of the total inventory that is available in the Indian market, the majority actually belongs to the branded supplier – which means it is out on management contract on the global web page of brands. “I am only talking about four and five star hotels here. In this space, internationally if you take a city like Dubai, all this evolution and explosion of supply in the three, four and five star space, largely skewed towards four and five, over 70% of the inventory is independent.

Only 30% is with the global brands.

The independent space is the opportunity space for us. We are a solution for the independent hotels to compete with the brands. We deliver the same services internationally as the brands.”

Opportunities to the hotels There are five major pivots of its partnership. “The services are global sales, international marketing, edistribution, quality assurance and

Middle East for outbound travel Where global sellers will meet premium buyers on a one-of-its-kind platform....

KUWAIT, QATAR , UAE

April 2016

First Ever Multi-destination Roadshow Your gateway to the Middle East Outbound Travel Market

www.voyagersworld.in

India Outbound

18>>

tourism Malaysia strengthens base in Tier 2 & 3 cities AANCHAL SALECHA

780,000 Indian arrivals to Malaysia in 2014 have encouraged Tourism Malaysia to extensively promote itself across India including in Tier 2 & 3 cities, says its South India Director, Noor Azam Samsudin. from Visakhapatnam, launched on 7 May, flies thrice a week to Kualalampur.

M

alaysia’s growing popularity among Indian travellers is evident from the 12% rise in arrivals in recorded in Q1 this year. Airline partners like AirAsia are increasing flights and serving even Tier 2 cities like Tiruchirapalli; a new service

Acknowledging the need to address the lack of information among the travel trade in smaller cities about the country, Noor Azam Samsudin, Director South India, Tourism Malaysia, said that the tourism board had decided to escalate promotional programmes in these cities. “Tier 2 and 3 cities have purchasing power but are not informed. During a product presentation session in Puducherry, I realised that the travel and tour operators were still looking for information and had nothing to enquire on.”

To consolidate its base in India fur-

ther, Tourism Malaysia will take part in travel exhibitions and promotional events. “We will participate in the forthcoming PATA Travel Mart in Bangalore and India International Travel Mart (IITM) in Hyderabad. Besides, we are presenting products across Puducherry, Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam and Kochi this year.”

New places to look out for 2015 being the ‘Year of Festivals’, a programme is being organised every month, focusing on the ethnicity and culture of Malaysia. Upcoming festivals are Rain Forest Music Festival in Sarawat, Malaysia International Mass Festival in Kuala Lumpur, all of which are expected to gather people from around 40 countries,” informed

Noor. The Legoland theme park is a new highlight. Likewise, USA’s 20th Century Fox Studio is expected to open by June 2017 in Genting.

Penang, noted for its cuisine and trains that go through hills, will be promoted and also Langkawi, Cameron Highland and Kota Kinabalu. It is even exploring cruise and sports tourism. Currently, cruises are operating from Port Klang, Penang and Kharabi. Malaysia is actively promoting Formula 1 and Moto GP races.

Indian tourist preferences Noor said: “Indians like to spend more and usually travel in groups.

They like theme parks, Genting and they do not miss shopping in places like Patali and China Street.”

visitSweden draws plan to target Indian outbound IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

Lotta Thiringer, Regional Director, Growth & Development, VisitSweden says Sweden offers unique travel experience and sights for travelers. We have witnessed Indians travelling to Sweden and India is a growing market for Sweden. ing destinations to explore, after they have seen the big tourist destinations in Central Europe. Sweden can offer a new and unique travel experience, sights that are yet to be seen for many travelers. We are currently doing market research and starting to build networks within the travel trade and media to learn more about India as a travel market. In the fall we will set our strategy going forward next year.

Indian market Tourism from India to Sweden has grown in the last few years and we are looking at how we can tap the market going forward .The growing Indian middle-class with frequent travel habits are looking for new and excit-

Voyager’s World > August 2015

We have witnessed Indians travelling to Sweden and India is a growing market for Sweden. Both business and leisure travel has increased in the last few years. In 2014 we had 1, 55, 203 bed nights spent by Indian travelers, which was an increase of 22% from the preceding year.

Marketing plans We are currently in the process of fi-

nalizing our first market research and will set a relevant strategy once we have concluded the results. We are looking at a combination of PR, social media and travel trade activities for 2016. We have a partnership with VisitNorway and VisitDenmark for our marketing efforts in India to create better impact, as we know that the Indian traveller likes to do round-trips and the three Scandinavian countries are a perfect combination. We will be organizing a Scandinavian Roadshow in October this year to meet with the travel trade in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.

Average stay Most trips to Scandinavia and Sweden last for 10-15 days.

Segments Sweden has a lot to offer: from the

vibrant capital of Stockholm – modern in its workings, yet with fascinating historical attractions, to un spoilt nature and adventure in the winter wonderlands of Swedish Lapland and along the pristine West coast of Sweden, added to that the rolling landscapes of Skåne, which has already been discovered for its beauty by the Indian film industry.

Air connectivity The air connectivity is good and has improved over the last two years, there are many one-stop flights from India to Sweden, and the trip takes about the same time as to the rest of Europe. We are however working long-term with other organizations in Sweden such as Swedavia and Stockholm Business Region on getting a direct connection from India to Sweden.

India Outbound

19>>

DTCM’s cruise mantra for India!

Eyes growing market share!

IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

Jamal Humaid Al Falasi, Director, Cruise Tourism- Dubai’s DTCM says the Indian market is ranking number 2 over all tourism for Dubai and hopes India to be ranking number 2 in cruise visits.

C

ruise business is really booming now with 4000 to 5000 passengers like families and friends. India in general is ranked number 2 for Dubai Tourism. India is a good market and we want India to be ranked at least top 4 in cruise tourism.

The cruise industry is now booming based on our past experience we expect to increase the number of passengers as the cruise companies

have started now focusing on our region with a lot of marketing activities for the passengers to come over to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Oman .We are jointly working with the cruise lines like MSC Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, Costa Cruises to promote the region to increase the number of passengers and the number of cruise ship. The companies have understood the region is booming so they have started putting big ship for high capacity passengers. We will be increasing in the number of passengers with 15% every year. For the cruise line we are looking for new markets to be based in Dubai which will also increase the numbers. We have organized this roadshow in India to create awareness among travel agents and the industry about cruising in Dubai.

Expected Growth The number of passengers is expect-

ed to be 450,000 in 2016 and with the new cruise lines joining us the number is likely to increase in 2017.

Segments We are promoting Dubai as a destination itself with the cruise lines.

Cruises are promoting segments like wedding tourism, MICE and groups for entertainment and we are also helping them provide information to the passenger or the travel agent.

We have witnessed good number of passengers coming from South America. We have four source markets - South America, India, China and South Africa. We are trying to do more roadshows and attend a lot of exhibitions to promote the region. We organized the cruise tourism roadshow in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi last year; as this is our second event in India, we have noticed the travel agents are interested to sell the packages to

Dubai through cruises and plan to visit the cruise lines themselves. We are planning to organize roadshows in other cities to promote cruises.

We do online promotions with cruise lines not only for certain cruise lines but also for all cruise lines who are promoting Dubai. For this year we are planning to increase the number of ships promoting Dubai.

Indian Market The Indian market is ranking number 2 over all tourism for Dubai but India needs to be also number 2 in cruise visits. We are expecting good numbers from India for 2015.

Types of Travellers We have seen good number of families, couples, honeymooners and MICE in Dubai. We are focusing on all parts of India who are interested in using cruising for singles and groups as well.

www.thegrandgoa.com www.theglitzgoa.com www.neelamscountryside.com Reservation: +91 (0) 832 2281800-04 +91 9011086402 https://www.facebook.com/NeelamsTheGrand

https://twitter.com/NeelamsTheGrand

https.//www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8arA_mWzFc

+91 9011086409

www.voyagersworld.in

Incredible India

20>>

karnataka’s new tourism policy embraces ample investment options VW BUREAU

The new tourism policy also aims to set a road map to accelerate and facilitate private investments and promoting entrepreneurship in the tourism sector.

T

he Department of Tourism, Government of Karnataka launched the Karnataka Tourism Policy 201520 on 16th July 2015 at ITC Gardenia, Bangalore. The tourism policy highlights to develop Karnataka as the favoured tourism destination by increasing domestic and international visitations. The new tourism policy also aims to set a road map to accelerate and facilitate private investments and promoting entrepreneurship in the tourism sector.

The ceremony was inaugurated by Siddaramaiah, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Govt. of Karnataka and presided by R.V. Deshpande, Minister for Higher Education & Tourism, Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Karnataka Tourism Vision Group, S.A. Hussain, Chairman, KSTDC, Asagodu Jayasimha, Chairman, JLR, Pradeep Singh Kharola, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Tourism Department and G. Sathyavathi, IAS, Director, Department Of Tourism (DoT), Govt. of Karnataka, other ministers, MLAs, MLCs, corporates, travel trade media, consulates, senior government officers and other eminent personalities from the state.

On the occasion, Siddaramaiah, said: “Karnataka can be a tourist destination for all and the number 1 destination in the world.”

Under the Tourism Policy 2015-20, about 18 innovative tourism products, including homestays have been identified as compared to previous policy which recognized very few products. These include hotels and resorts, caravan parks, museums, eco tourism project, rural tourism project, cruise, adventure, amusement, way side amenity, Yatri Nivas, dormitories/youth hostel, wellness centres, tourist information centres, vocational training institutes,etc.

These products focus on the holistic development of tourism including connectivity and information infrastructure. Apart from this, soft activities of skill development, film induced tourism is also covered under the new policy.

Voyager’s World > August 2015

R.V. Deshpande said: “Karnataka offers all kinds of tourism and has taken the lead for security with the Tourist Mitra concept a constable or a friend for tourists. This policy is officially launched all along the government notifications with concessions and incentives. Bangalore has to be developed as the hub of tourism and the coastal states for relaxation tourism will boast in coastal Karnataka.”

The policy has been structured to be extremely investor-friendly and detailed operative guidelines are being framed with the policy to streamline the process of availing incentives and concessions from the government. The talukas have been classified in various categories based on their location as described in the Dr. Nanjundappa Committee Report 2002. The projects have also been categorized as mega projects, ultra mega projects and super mega projects based on the levels of investment in fixed assets ranging between Rs. 100 Crore and upto Rs. 1000 crore and above.

Incentives and concessions include stamp duty exemption, reimbursement of land conversion fee, exemption on entry tax, reimbursement of entertainment tax, exemption on luxury tax and motor vehicle.

Four rating agencies have been empanelled with the DoT to rate tourism products and facilities, streamline the process of disbursement of subsidy and improve the quality standards of the products. These agencies will rate the products based on pre-defined parameters.

Pradeep Singh Kharola said: “This unique investors policy will make Karnataka the most favoured destination in India. The policy is stressed on information technology mainly to position Karnataka as a preferred destination. We are the first state to launch the rating strategies and Tourist Mitra to create a friendly atmosphere for tourists. The main aim of the tourism policy is involving corporates and other stakeholders.”

Concessions and investment subsidies under the policy will be available to all new and additional investments made during the policy period for eligible tourism projects and expansion projects mentioned in it. The government has also introduced the Karnataka Tourism &Trade Industry Facilitation Act 2015 to streamline the implementation of policy.

The highlight of the ceremony was the exchange of six MoUs with corporates for the adoption of tourist destinations in Karnataka. These MoUs were exchanged between DoT and Nodal departments like Horticultures, State Archaeology, Forest Department & Corporates like BCIC for Lal Bagh, Jindal Foundation for Bangalore Museum, Sandur Manganese and Iron Ores Pvt Ltd for Ranganathittu, Tasveer Foundation for Venkatappa Art Gallery, West Coast Paper Mills Ltd for Kavala Caves, M/S Coffee Day Enterprises for Belur and Halebidu.

Through DoT’s “Adopt a Tourism Destination” scheme, corporates can finance the activities, operations and maintain the facilities at the tourist destinations as a part of their CSR activities on their own rather than transferring the funds to any Government body/department.

Corporates willing to adopt such tourist destination will also ensure adequate funding is provided to improve and maintain the facilities for a minimum period of five years.

Department has initially identified 46 destinations for providing such facilities by the Corporate Sector.

Proper facilities as basic amenities, signages, interpretation centres, tourist friendly vehicles, proper guides etc., are required at tourist destinations.

Followed by the handing over of management properties to private stakeholders, DoT also handed over management letters selected through a tender process to private stakeholders for managing tourist properties that were not operational on Renovate, Operate, Maintain and Transfer basis (ROMT); they are Yatri Nivas and Lakeside Facility at Shantisagar of Davanagere District, Yatri Nivas near Madhyaranga Temple of Chamarajanagar District, Yatri Nivas at Lakkundi of Gadag District, Hotel Mayura Malaprabha of Belgaum City, Wayside Facility at Telgi of Bijapur District, Mayura Yatri Nivas at Aihole of Bagalkote District, Wayside Facility at Ganagapura of Gulbrga District.

V.G. Siddhartha, Chairman, Coffee Day Holdings says, “It is a great privilege for the corporates and a great moment for us. We can make Karnataka a great destination by working together.”

Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Karnataka Tourism Vision Group said, “This tourism policy is the best which brings in the public and private participation, maintain tourism aspects, infrastructure is build, urban tourism is very important. We want to make tourism the most exciting industry and Karnataka the tourism map of India.”

Incredible India

21>>

Telangana Tourism board upbeat on growth prospects IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

B. Acharya, Principal Secretary of Tourism & Culture, TSTDC says Telangana Tourism is all set to promote the new tourism products Tribal Circuit in Warangal and Yadgirigutta as a spiritual tourism destination.

Sanctuaries at Srisailam- Nagarjuna Sagar, Amarabad Wildlife Sanctuary, Kawal and Kinnersani for the nature enthusiasts.

T

elangana offers a lot of heritage sites like the Kakatiya Fort, Rammappa Temple and the thousand pillar temple at Warangal for the spiritually inclined, Lord Sri Ram Temple at Bhadrachalam, Jogulamba Temple, Kolunpaka Jain temple, Mecca Masjid and the Medak Church. Telangana Tourism is also promoting the ecotourism destinations in the Wild Life

Telangana is emerging as an Investment destination due to its proactive investor friendly policies. Being a new state the challenge for the Tourism department is to link the brand Hyderabad with Telangana. Even though Telangana is a new state in India, all the tourism attractions have been marketed for decades. Hyderabad is a well-established destination with a good brand recall. The market has recognized Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation as a professional entity that provides a bouquet of services at affordable cost.

Besides all this the Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation are on for development of the new

tourism products viz., Tribal Circuit at Warangal and Yadgirigutta as a spiritual tourism destination.

Infrastructure The Corporation owns the most modern transport fleet comprising of 67 Volvo and Mercedes Benz buses and offers various package tours to different destinations within and outside the state. Additionally, there is one air-conditioned customer oriented CARAVAN vehicle as well. TSTDC also undertakes customized tours for its clients and runs packages which have been popular among the public through its modern fleet. The fleet is operated through a wide network of information and reservation offices located in important cities and through the tour promotion scheme and authorized booking agents.

Marketing plans Our focus is to create a separate identity and brand of Telangana Tourism and make the new logo more familiar to public. We are concentrating to promote unexplored destinations like Tiger Reserves at Kawal, Jannaram, Tadavai and Mannanur in Adilabad which are being developed for adventure and eco-tourism.

Segments We have taken the responsibility to focus and promote the tourism products, destinations of not only Hyderabad but also of entire Telangana State on a sustainable basis.

Expected growth for 2015 Telangana Tourism is expected to grow in line with the national trend i.e. about 10% per annum.

AP Tourism taps unexplored places post bifurcation AANCHAL SALECHA

The state is keen to explore tourism, post bifurcation, with a special emphasis on adventure products and heritage attractions.

I

n a roadshow held at the India International Travel Mart (IITM) Bangalore, the Department of Tourism, Government of Andhra Pradesh, highlighted the unexplored destinations of Andhra Pradesh after the historical bifurcation of the state on 10 July at the KTPO, Whitefield.

Addressing the gathering, R.P Khajuria, Commissioner, Department of Tourism, Andhra Pradesh presented the key tourism destinations in the state which included various pilgrimage destinations such as Simhachalan Temple and Lepakshi Temple and Buddhist heritage sites such as stupas in Amravathi and Undawalli caves near Vijaywada. “After the bifurcation we have lost many major sites, but Andhra

Pradesh is very rich in culture and religion. Another key aspect that I would like to enforce on is adventure tourism�, said the Tourism Commissioner. The presentation laid emphasis on trekking, rock climbing and water sports at scenic spots like Mypadu and Bhumipatna beaches.

The other scenic spots in the promotional list are Borra caves, Ananthgiri hills and Gandikota Canyon. Another important highlight of the presentation was large scale promotion of Vishakapatnam.

R.P Khajuria invited the visitors to invest in developing tourism infrastructure in the state. In a presentation made by trade operators from Andhra Pradesh, adventure tourism packages offered were introduced besides other tourism offers.

www.voyagersworld.in

Travel Events

22>>

dot jammu promotes patnitop tourism in key punjab cities VW BUREAU

The Department of Tourism, Jammu, sought to draw the attention of neighbouring Punjab to visit Patnitop and nearby areas throughout the year through roadshows in Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana.

T

he Department of Tourism, Jammu organised a series of roadshows across Punjab in June in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar, following a successful one in Chandigarh, to promote the Patnitiop Circuit of Jammu and Kashmir as an independent tourist destination.

The roadshow in Ludhiana was held on 19 June, followed by events in Jalandhar on 20 June and Amritsar on 27 June.

Voyager’s World > August 2015

A delegation of tour and travel operators and other stakeholders from Patnitop, Katra, Bhaderwah and Jammu was led by the Director Tourism, Jammu, R.K. Varma. In Jammu, heritage monuments like Dogra Art Gallery, Amar Mahal, Mubarak Mandi, Bagh-e-Bahu, Raghunath temple, Golf course in Sidhra, etc. were presented to the attendees. The delegates had interactive sessions with the travel agents and operators of Punjab in the three cities.

R.K Varma said: “We get a lot of tourists from Punjab because of the state’s proximity with Jammu and Kashmir. Last year, due floods, the number of tourists dropped by approximately 45 laksh. So, the roadshow is a way to woo them back.”

The Tourism Deparment of Jammu and Kashmir also announced perks and incentives to promote the destination. Varma added: “We want more tourists to visit Patnitop cir-

cuit this year, which we are promoting as a round-the-year destination.

From Patnitop, tourists can also visit Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Katra.

The Hoteliers Association has announced heavy discounts to tourists upon producing bills of hotel stay in Patnitop for booking a stay in Katra and vice versa.” The Department is offering pick up and drop facilities, safety and complaint registration, rock climbing, paragliding and accommodation for all budgets.

India Outbound

23>>

Sri Lanka beckons Bangalore travellers

The delegates met the travel trade and media of Bangalore to showcase the island nation’s latest products, laying special emphasis on the Ramayana Trail, beaches and MICE among others.

PRIYAMVADHA BALARAM

T

he Sri Lanka Deputy High Commission and the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (Ministry of Tourism & Sports) organised a roadshow for the travel trade fraternity and the media in Bangalore on 8 July, 2015 to showcase the various tourism aspects of the island nation.

The delegation was led by His Excellency, M.K. Pathmanaathan, Deputy Chief of Mission from Sri Lanka Deputy High Commission and Indrajith De Silva, Director/Destination Social Responsibility, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau.

Manimegalai, Area Manager – Karnataka, Sri Lankan Airlines, was also present at the event, along with members from the Sri Lankan travel trade. The tourism board was keen to tap the Indian market, with special emphasis on exploring the potential of Bangalore travellers.

The Ramayana Trail was particularly highlighted during the presentation, in addition to talking about the country’s beaches, heritage, hill country, MICE, adventure, wildlife, etc. The Ramayana Trail has 25 sites with physical evidences.

H.E M.K. Pathmanaathan said: “Bangalore has been a favourite among Sri Lankans, particularly the student community. There is a sizeable number of students studying in Karnataka, especially in Bangalore and Mangalore. Bangalore and Karnataka is not a new market for tourism. There have been many tourism events in the past and you can see many tourists from India in Sri Lanka.” However, he opined that the potential was still not fully explored, and mostly, the high-end travellers.

Indian visitors to Sri Lanka have increased by 30% in June 2015 and India remains the top source market for the country. This growth has been attributed to the improved infrastructure facilities in the country in the past year.

There are a number of international hotel brands slated to open in Sri Lanka, making it a prospective destination for the MICE segment. Hyatt is nearing completion in Colombo, while Shangri-La, Marriott and Sheraton will soon follow suit. Sri Lankan Airlines recently launched a Kolkata – Colombo service and one from Vishakapatnam is also expected in the near future.

Market The tourism strategy for 2011 – 2016 is to create an environment conducive for tourism promotion.

The emerging markets for Sri Lanka are India, Russia, China, Middle East, Japan and Korea. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) estimated that India was the largest outbound tourism destination after China and proximity and air connectivity to the island country make India a sought-after source market for the country.

“I am glad that the Sri Lankan Tourism Promotion Bureau is willing to assist travel professionals in Karnataka to gain first-hand experience in Sri Lanka. It may be pertinent for both the Indian and the Sri Lankan governments to link and develop joint packages and promote the Ramayana Circuit in both the countries,” said Pathmanaathan.

Indrajith De Silva, said: “Our value

proposition to tap the markets is Áuthenticity, Compactness and Diversity. We would like to invite travellers to have ‘8 wonderful experiences in 8 wonderful days’. Beaches and heritage are the main products

for India, besides whale watching, adventure, wellness and wildlife.”

The presentation was followed by a roadshow, well-attended by travel agents and operators of Bangalore.

The Travel Agency Accounting Software

Switch Your Manual Accounting to

Travel Soft Faster I Easier I Accurate Enquiry and Feedback Reminder System Invoicing and Package Tour Vouchers Cash and Bank Entries Service Tax and TDS Calculations Credit Notes for Cancellations Exhaustive MIS Reports

For Free Demo and Purchase Call: Pushkar - 09371021669 E mail: enquiry@travelsoft.in

www.voyagersworld.in

Travel Events

24>>

iitm bangalore & chennai 2015 strike

The 81st and 82nd IITM Bangalore and Chennai editions saw a grand opening with travel auctions for exciting VW BUREAU

T

he 81st edition of the India International Travel Mart (IITM) concluded in Bangalore on an impressive note with several highlights to its credit. IITM Bangalore 2015 was held from 10 – 12 July, 2015 at the Karnataka Trade Promotion Organization (KTPO) in Whitefield, witnessing more than 11200 visitors from the public and a notable 1460 visitors from the travel trade industry, not only from Bangalore but from neighbouring cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, Mysore and Coimbatore also, over the three days. This year’s edition attracted over 150 participants from Tourism Authority of Thailand and delegation, Sri Lanka Tourism & delegation, Tourism Malaysia, Tourism Council of Bhutan, Sharjah, Nepal among others, in addition to participants from several Indian states such as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, etc. Karnataka was the host state and Adarsh Palm Meadows was the ‘Partner Hotel’.

Voyager’s World > August 2015

During the event, Andhra Pradesh Tourism organized a presentation at the venue on 10 July, to talk about the destination’s tourist appeal. There was also a Hotel Distribution Summit organized by RezNext on 11 July, at the venue, which witnessed a series of panel discussions and presentations by key industry speakers on the latest trends in the hotel industry, with emphasis on revenue management, pricing, distribution models, etc. Sri Lanka Tourism took the opportunity to enlighten visitors about the newly launched special Ramayana Circuits in Sri Lanka targeting the Indian market.

Another highlight of IITM Bangalore 2015 was the travel auctions held in this city for the first time. Exciting holiday and hotel stay packages were up for bidding, inviting the public to bid from as low as Rs. 0 to Rs. 30,000 for stay vouchers in properties across Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. Nearly Rs. 12 lakh worth vouchers were sold during the auctions.

Travel Events

25>>

gold with record footfalls

holiday packages being the highlight of the events.

chennai public shows avid interest at iitm 2015

T

he 82nd edition of ‘India International Travel Mart’, organized from 17 – 19 July, 2015 in Chennai at the Chennai Trade Centre, Nandambakkam, tasted tremendous success this year too, as part of its objective to bring together various stakeholders and key players on the Indian travel front on one platform in a one-of-its-kind travel exhibition.

The visitor arrival figures have been quite encouraging this year also what with its continual success in attracting the participation of a number of countries such as Sri Lanka, Maldives, Dubai, Thailand, Malaysia, Nepal, etc. in addition to the participation of several Indian states including Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh,

Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal.

Organized by ‘Sphere Travelmedia& Exhibitions’, this year’s event drew more than 9700 general visitors and 840 Indian trade visitors in Chennai. The highlight of the event was a unique travel auction that was conducted along the sidelines of the event wherein interested bidders could bid exciting hotel vouchers from as low as Rs. 0 to Rs. 30,000.

The auctions recorded Rs. 12 lakh worth of sales during the three days. IITM Chennai also showcased a variety of destinations from various spheres ranging from pilgrimages, adventures, beaches, hills, culture and heritage and so on.

www.voyagersworld.in

MPTM Special

26>>

bhopal, sanchi & indore emerge top destinations for m.i.c.e in mp VW BUREAU

Key industry stakeholders share their views on bringing MICE business into Madhya Pradesh, against the backdrop of the forthcoming Madhya Pradesh Travel Mart 2015.

Bhanu Pratap Singh Hada, Jehan Numa Palace Madhya Pradesh, as a whole, has a lot of scope to boost tourism. At present I think Sanchi and Bhopal can be developed as sought-after MICE destinations.

T

he second edition of Madhya Pradesh Travel Mart (MPTM) is scheduled to be held from 16 - 18 October, 2015 at the Lake View Ashok Hotel in Bhopal. Poised to be Central India’s biggest travel trade exhibition, MPTM 2015 is all set to take on the scene on a grander note.

This year, the event returns with 250 registered Buyers and Media from over 10 countries exploring business opportunities for discerning travel and tourism products, will make the event one of the most sought after travel events in the country.

The three-day mart will be followed by post-event Fam trips to showcase the various tourism facets of Madhya Pradesh to the delegates.

MPTM recognises the importance of networking for the travel industry and offers several opportunities for buyers and exhibitors to network outside the pre-scheduled appointment programme.

The event will be strongly supported by major travel – trade and hospitality association in India such as ‘Association of Domestic Tour Operators Association of India (ADTOI), Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI), Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO), Travel Agents

Voyager’s World > August 2015

Association of India (TAAI), Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Association of India (FHRAI), etc.

The exclusive pavilion of Madhya Pradesh shall showcase the different facets of Madhya Pradesh such as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, festivals of Madhya Pradesh, Heritage Hotels, Buddhist Trails in Madhya Pradesh, Wildlife Resorts and National Parks, Medical Tourism, Destination Management Companies, Travel Agents and Tour Operators, Religious Tourism, Handicrafts, Cultural Vistas, etc. In view of the forthcoming event, Voyager’s World spoke to two promiinent hotels - Sayaji Hotels and Jehan Numa about how such events can boost MICE traffic to the state.

Vishal Kumar, Sayaji Hotels Ltd With Madhya Pradesh Department of Tourism focusing on making 2015 -16 as the ‘Year of Tourism’ in the state, I think MP Travel Mart will help the domestic tour operator understand the place well and sell it better. tre of 18000 sq ft pillerless ballroom named as Amber Garden.

According to him, meetings are extremely important for the local economy. “Big meetings and conventions surely give many opportunity for the hotels and it increase the local economy also. Tier 2 cities are getting popular for the big conventions and conferences as prices are lesser for the hotels and the facilities are good. Indore has seen many medical conventions happening. Sayaji Hotels has hosted huge events for Pedicon/ISGCON and is gearing up for the 31st Annual Convention of the Indian Association of Tour Operators.”

Vishal Kumar, Group Head Sales & Marketing for Sayaji Hotels Ltd. says that the Sayaji Indore, along with their other brand Effotel, hosts 400 room inventory in the city, is the highest inventory in town. “As far as the meeting and conference facility is concerned, Sayaji can accommodate 20 pax to 5000 pax conference.

When asked about how an event like MP Travel Mart will boost the state’s tourism with emphasis on benefits to hospitality industry, he said: “With MP tourism focusing on making 2015 -16 as Tourism Year in the state and stepping up efforts to make it a destination for both domestic and inbound travel, I think the MP travel mart help the domestic tour operator understand the place well and able to sell it in better manner.”

“In a few months time, we are ready with our another convention - a cen-

Some of the places, in his opinion, having scope for improvement as a

MICE destination, include Indore, which is improving in a big way. Yet, he feels that there is a need for more room inventory and venues to pitch for bigger conventions.

Sharing a similar opinion as Vishal, Bhanu Pratap Singh Hada, General Manager, Jehan Numa Palace, says that big meetings like MPTM or IATO Conventions are very important for Tier 2 cities which have a huge potential for both leisure and MICE businesses. “Jehan Numa Palace is an eminent address in Bhopal. Our USP is the combination of professional and efficient services with sophisticated facilities and the choice of exciting venues at the palace,” says Bhanu Pratap.

He added: “ The MP travel Mart as an event is trying hard to get buyers and sellers on one platform.

However, It will be while before our state can fully gear up to showcase our products in tourism. The existing government policy has to be simplified. Connectivity and infrastructure have to be improved with emphasis on benefits to hospitality industry.

According to him, the entire state of Madhya Pradesh has scope to tap the MICE segment. Right now, he bets big on Bhopal and Sanchi.

Adventure

28>>

India Adventure Product gains strength!

Adventure travel is growing day by day with lot of Indians travelling on adventure vacations to explore new places and is an upcoming segment in the market.

Aquaterra Adventures

IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

Adventure Tourism The adventure segment is growing these days especially with the great interest among the people in India for indulging in new activities like white water rafting, hiking, cycling, rock climbing and abseiling. The trekking, cycling and photography is prominent in India. Some of the adventure locations in India are white water rafting in Rishikesh or hiking in Ladakh, trekking in the Himalayan regions of Ladakh and Spiti, rafting in Himachal, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal. The Indian market is now experiencing a positive growth in terms of adventure travel.

Pranav Kukreti, Director, Marketing Treks n Rapids, New Delhi says that adventure tourism has a lot of scope and need for localized and regional skill and entrepreneurship development. The local educated youth should be trained on the lines of ITIs, through workshops, seminars and short duration subsidized courses.

“One should get the right to education, training and complete operations of respective adventure sports

Voyager’s World > August 2015

and adventure tourism experiences in the respective regions, in complete professional, transparent and productively well monitored manner in order to ensure high safety and hospitality standards which will have multiple, beneficial socio economic benefits on a long term basis,” He added.

Kamlesh Lalan, Founder, Ravine Trek – Destination Ladakh stated that in Adventure tourism in India we lack good quality equipment’s, good sports or adventure branded stores and there is no insurance cover on adventure tourism in India using walk talky or satellite phones are banned which need to be regularized.

Rohan Prakash,Founder & CEO, The Adventure Bridge said, “Adventure Tourism is an exciting, vibrant, dynamic way to see the world we live in and to interact with people from around the world that gives you so much more than a clicked picture.”

Abhijeet Mhatre, Founder-Director, letscampout.com states that adventure tourism is growing day by day with lot of people from broad age

spectrum are signing for it. There should be a body which regulates and certifies and lay down norms for Adventure Tour operator. If managed well this industry has tremendous growth forward.Balaram Naidu, Director, liveinadventures.com says, “In our country there is no firm association to run the sport, mountaineering is established by ex Army guys other than this no other sport has rules and regulated certifications.

About scuba diving, many following PADI and SSI are foreign certifications costing more to the Indian client even the equipment of adventure sports are imported.”

In the opinion of Kavitha Reddy, Founder Director, Basecamp Adventures, every state has to come up with a good Adventure Tourism policy that promotes adventure professionally to invest and to do business, currently either is adventure tourism is non-existent or over regulated.

Pranav said, “One of the prime movers in the industry, we have witnessed a lot of transitions and developments in the segment since 2002 when we

started off. Adventure sports were largely limited to backpackers and a handful of few internationally exposed or regionally skewed individuals and groups.

“Adventure tourism is much larger, touching a vast segment of travellers, photographers, honeymooners, corporate employees, inbound tourists, children groups and so on, primarily from middle and upper middle class of urban Indians. The expected growth for this segment is 35% to 50% year on year.” He added.

Vaibhav Kala,Director ,Aquaterra Adventures explains that more people are travelling, more travel is going outdoors and the Indian industry has grown hugely as well. More Indians are attempting Everest than ever before, the awareness and the inclination and most importantly the aptitude of the domestic traveller is changing rapidly. The sector is getting more organized, albeit slowly.

“More and more players have changed the game, safety and eco – sensitivity may have taken a back seat it must be brought back to the

Adventure

Treks n Rapids

Letscampout.com

Basecamp Adventures

29>>

forefront. Issues like mass trekking, low entry barriers, little regulation still mar the space. Globally, over 60% of travel is turning towards active travel and women are leading the charge.” He added.

In the opinion of Kamlesh the market have been stable on adventure tourism not much as it was 10 years back with few self-drive destination have been added but nothing related to mountaineering or expedition happening.

Rohan said, “One of the most exciting things about being involved in the Adventure Travel market in India for Indians travelling abroad is that it is still in a very nascent stage, with regards to outbound travel. Domestically, there has been and there is an explosion of interest in Adventure activities such as white water rafting, hiking, cycling, rock climbing and abseiling.”

“People are taking weekend breaks or 3/4 day holidays in order to go and do something exciting and outside of their comfort zone. The market

is very dynamic and exciting at this stage and we are slowly seeing this convert into a thirst for adventure on outbound holidays too. It is still too early to have measured statistics for Adventure Travel for Outbound holidays in India however if worldwide trends are anything to go by then we are looking at very healthy growth over the next few years.” He says. “ In the years between 2013 and 2014, it has been said that 65% of all holidays taken by people from North and South America and Europe involved Adventure tourism in some form or another. This converts into a $263 million dollar per year industry. Following on from this, the continuous growth in outbound tourism from India year on year, coupled with the domestic markets increase in adventure activities and holidays, indicates that it is only a matter of time before the Indian market picks up on Adventure Travel abroad and really runs with it. There are really exciting times ahead for Indian travellers.” He added.

Abhijeet said that the market has

grown considerable amount over period of 4 years with movies/social media and internet penetration which makes youth more aware about adventure and offbeat holidays. The market is expected to grow more as we are seeing people of all demographics signing up for these kinds of adventure holidays. With easy dispensable money and hectic life style people are aiming to different than regular holidays.

Balaram observes that adventure traveling seems to be improved in India, there is lot of growth of this segment as most of the youth settling in good jobs and earning good amount, you know India has no.1 populated youth in the world, youth is always crazy about adventures.

Kavitha says that the adventure travel market has not only been overshadowed by the larger tourism market, but also focused more on foreign travellers/tourist. Even though the segment has been growing significantly natural calamities does drag it down every 2 years. Adventure travel in the Himalayas has not yet fully

recovered after the Uttrakhand disaster; many states have still not formulated Adventure Travel policy that can facilitate growth, so in short it has been a tough trail for Adventure Travel professionals.

Main activities of adventure tourism Pranav says, “Trekking expeditions, hiking, camping, white water rafting, para gliding, hot air ballooning, wild life safaris, birding which is one of the most promising and fast growing segments and nature photography, rock climbing, mountaineering and motor biking tours.

Vaibhav states that India is the year round active travel destination. The Indian Himalaya is more than a third of the entire range, and we have some of the best treks, and the most varied valley systems. These valleys provide all year adventure possibilities, even during the monsoon months, the Trans Himalayan regions of Ladakh and Spiti offers great avenues. In the winter, low altitude trekking trips offer clear bright days.

Spring and autumn offer climbing, hiking, rafting options in Himachal,

www.voyagersworld.in

Adventure

Aquaterra Adventures

30>>

Rohan Prakash,Founder & CEO, The Adventure Bridge Adventure Tourism is an exciting, vibrant, dynamic way to see the world we live in, to interact with people from around the world and an amazing experience that gives you so much more than a clicked picture.

Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal.

“High Altitude Self Drive, Expeditions, Winter Chadar Trek, Homestay, Short treks,” added Kamlesh.

Rohan said, “Everyone can have a different idea on what constitutes adventure tourism. Some people feel that when you say adventure it implies something very challenging, physically demanding and super high energy like sky diving or bungee jumping or trekking at Everest, but actually the definition that we like to use for adventure tourism, and one that is used throughout the industry is basically an activity which takes you out of your comfort zone and gives you a positive experience.

“So for one person that might be scaling Everest, but for another person, it is travelling to a country where you don’t understand the language, interacting with local people and eating local food. As long as there is an experience and that experience is different for you then it can be classed as adventure. Typically you will find Adventure tourism being divided into 2 categories - Soft and Hard Adventure. So you can add scaling Everest to the “hard” adventure category and eating with a local family into the “soft” adventure category. Thats one of the best parts about Adventure

Voyager’s World > August 2015

Tourism - there is no end to the activities one can partake in!.” He added.

In the opinion of Abhijeet,“Adventure tourism has multiple facet we provide fort treks,lesiure treks, adventure trek, paintball in jungle which is one of its kind, archery. adventure camping, lesiure camping & glamping. Rope activities such as rappelling, zip Line & rock climbing, Water based activities such as kayaking and raft racing is what we provide.

Apart from this we are also into Stargazing Camps where we have specifically dedicated campsite for Stargazing.”

Balaram says that scuba diving, open sea diving, parasailing, rappelling, rock climbing, paragliding, bungee jump and skydiving.

Kavitha said, “Adventure tourism included land, air, water based activities, some of them popular in India are. Land: trekking, mountaineering, skiing, rock climbing, cycling, camping, safari, trails etc. water: rafting, kayaking, water skiing etc. air: sky diving, para gliding, bungee jumping etc.

Marketing and promotional plans Pranav said that the Treks ‘n Rapids is planning to come with a further ex-

citing new brand identity and a larger presence on internet and technology platform, while maintaining our core focus on guests and adventure travellers from around the world. We also plan to launch various sub-segment products and packages this year, which shall include specialised adventure holiday packages for ladies, children, people with special needs and so on.

Vaibhav says, “We are reaching out to more and more adventure travellers.”

In the opinion of Kamlesh we are marketing through exhibitions, tourism offices, social media and print media and most booking through references.

Rohan said, “For the rest of 2015 we intend to continue our marketing through social media. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc are where we feel we will find our target travelers. We are planning to participate in couple of more trade fairs in the coming months too.”

“The digital marketing is the way forward for adventure tourism.” Abhijeet added.

Balaram says, “ We are doing social

marketing through Facebook, search engine optimizing and meet ups.

In the opinion of Kavitha, “We have been focusing largely on Karnataka, Goa, NE States, Uttrakhand, HP, J & K, Nepal and Bhutan. Being a pure player we will be focusing at core terrain Adventure travel like Trekking, High Altitude Treks, Hiking, Rock Climbing, Adventure Camps, Mountaineering and Skiing. Our marketing plans are both online and offline, we have a good presence in the social media but we also have a large existing clients base. Based on the feedback and demand we have put in place and our adventure calendar for Himalayas for 2015 and will focus on marketing the same.”

Trends Pranav says that the segment is ever growing, with culture development contribution from the media - print, TV, movies, internet/social media.

In short term, the new travellers may seek and get attracted towards ‘deals’ and discounts, however adventure tourism, also having higher risk content activities and experiences for the certain niche, eventually the brand reputation and professionalism of the outfit matters to the more stable and regular customers.

There is also an increasing interest in

Adventure

Treks n Rapids

Liveinadventures.com

31>>

Abhijeet Mhatre, Founder-Director, letscampout.com Adventure Tourism is growing day by day with lot of people from broad age spectrum are signing for it.The market has grown considerable amount over period of 4 years due to movies, social media a that makes youth more aware about adventure and offbeat holidays. adventure gear and camping equipment in India. Cheaper digital cameras and smart phones with better photography abilities are also fueling interest among the first timer adventure and nature travellers, to go out and explore.”

Vaibhav states that the positive trends are more and more people are wanting adventure travel as their main vacation. 70% individual travellers are also women, so it is deemed as safe travel very positive especially in India.Mass tourism and regionalism are the two negative trends seen recently. Forgetting that adventure travel is niche, small, personalized will be the biggest hurdle in a country like India. The fine line between eco-tourism and regionalism is being crossed in several regions, and poses one of the biggest threats.

In the opinion of Kamlesh, “Adventure tourism is growing but needs a centre and tourism board support to grow more better and better association as IMP and ATOAI been active till certain limits as every state in India there is lots of Adventure tourism can happen but from State or Centre government there is not much support if they start support in from of advt or marketing then India will rise in Adventure tourism too.”

Rohan states that the trends in this segment are currently towards customised holidays with adventure components added as per the wishes of the individual customer. We are also look at creating a parallel trend by providing small group adventure based holidays for people.Our small groups are only for up to 12 people which keeps the groups size small enough so that everyone gets to know each other but large enough that you can also have your own time as per your needs. It is about creating a community of likeminded travel enthusiasts from India, from all the 4 vast corners of India, and bringing them together in one group and taking them on an adventure holiday.

There are so many people who love to travel and experience the world in such a way and we want to bring those people together and share our experiences with them.

Abhijeet said that the overall trend in this segment is upward North (growth) as people are willing to try next level of adventure. We have seen people trying out adventure activities and gradually trying more thrilling adventure activities next time. Everybody wants to come out of comfort zone and get that adrenaline rush.

“The trends are more on being adventurous and about experiences.

Adventure seeker prefers less comfort and more adventurous activities, so today Adventure Travel companies are designing experiences and not just packages. The trend of experiences is here to stay and indeed it’s a welcome trend.” Kavitha added.

Exploring new activities and places Pranav said that the white water rafting has been extremely popular, largely due to excellent connectivity of Rishikesh with air, rail and road networks from across the country, and also because of immense promotion and highlight by media over the last one decade; we see a lot of growth in serious trekking across the Himalayas. The more serious and devoted adventure travellers are exploring Garhwal Himalayas, Ladakh, Sikkim and Bhutan like never before.

In addition to these Rappelling, Rock Climbing, Aero Sports, Bird Watching and Wild Life Safaris are growing pretty fast. Scuba Diving in Andamans and Goa has witnessed a lot of surge over the last two years.

Last but not the least, camping as an adventure holiday experience possibly are one of the largest since just about anyone can experience it and enjoy a bonfire night under a star studded sky.

“The new places seems to dominate as more people wish to climb 6000 m peaks or undertake challenging expeditions Peru, Chile, Bhutan, Africa, New Zealand are in demand.”

Vaibhav added.

Kamlesh says that people are showing more interest towards J & K and North East States.

Rohan said that we have seen within India is a huge appetite for something new, something different. You just need to google white water rafting in Rishikesh or hiking in Ladakh to see how many operators there are offering such activities to understand the demand from people locally for such experiences. There is a large growing enthusiasm, especially amongst the young professionals segment, to try new experiences on their holidays.

As the desire grows within India, we will see and do see this desire growing for places abroad where one can try out such activities.

Kavitha concludes that people in India are indeed very keen to explore, we always focused on India as a market. We are growing younger as a nation and more and more people are looking at different avenues to relax or as hobbies and outdoor/adventure is indeed the most preferred option.

www.voyagersworld.in

Destination

32>>

Padharo Mare Des– Do visit my state

“Khamma Gani Sa” - A rabdiwala made a sweet impression on me as he greeted and offered me hot rabdi, a sweetmeat sold in small mud pots, colloquially termed kullads, before I began exploring Rajasthan...

AANCHAL SALECHA

“

The train whistled as I neared the railway station. I stood by the door reminiscing my childhood. It has been long since I last visited this place but this year, destiny decided to take me to a state famous for its imperial food, popularly known as the Land of Kings - Rajasthan. The trademark fragrance of fried delicacies, bhajias and vadas, filled the air and setting in the mood.

My journey began from the Abu Road railway station, which is the one of the few places where most of the trains entering Rajasthan stop by. However, I was enroute to Mount Abu, Rajasthan’s only hill station.

No matter what time of the day it is, you have to squeeze through people standing upright like pillars on the station. I hopped on to the bus relishing the rabdi as I drove through the entwined paths leading to Hilltone Hotel located on the top of mountain. The window glasses blurred my vision due to fog. As it was October, the weather was cold as ice. After an hour long drive, we reached the hotel, constructed like a huge cottage and decorated with intricately designed artifacts and paintings.

The cozy bedrooms complimented the weather while the stillness of the surroundings haunted the building.

The staff was dressed in traditional

Voyager’s World > August 2015

robes and pyjamas, always on toe to assist their customers.

After a delicious, refreshing breakfast of parathas with curd and badam milk, I headed to the famous Dilwara Temple located about 2.5 km from Mount Abu. The huge dome and marble pillars carved with images of Jain saints as if blessing you. Further inside is the flooring of black and white tiles assembling themselves to form a huge chessboard leading you to the shrine. The entrance reinforces the simplicity of ancient architects and the interiors spontaneously activate the qualities of a ‘kind man’ in you.

After the spiritual indulgence, on my way to the romantic ornament of Mount Abu – Nakki Lake, the bus driver narrated the tale behind the strange name. “The lake is believed to be dug by a sage. The parents of his beloved had promised to get them married if he completed the task using his nails. Though he completed the task, they were not married. Today, it stands as a testimony to their eternal love,” he said passionately. A hill station on the desert land, Mount Abu has many other historical sites to indulge including the Achalgarh Shiva Temple and GauMukh Shiva Temple. The

next destination on my map was one of the most sought tourist spots of Rajasthan that radiates Rajasthani culture in every activity – Udaipur.

Home to numerous marvels of architecture, Udaipur also nurtures the beautiful lakes of Pichola and FatehSagar. Udaipur is an enormous pictorial representation absorbing entire Rajasthan in a nutshell such that if you visited Udaipur you would get a glimpse of the entire state.

Their ethnicity is so beautifully ingrained in the attire, food and festivals that even a foreigner would be pleased to transform into a Rajput.

Undoubtedly, I first landed at the majestic Udaipur City Palace, an assembly of 11 smaller edifices, each built with a different material adding to its youthfulness. I walked through the palace observing the sand coloured walls and pillars decorated with multi coloured mirrors, traditionally patterned tiles and intricately carved domes with gold plating. I saw myself as a part of the activities the royalties spent their leisure time on like singing, conversing about the lives with the maids or feeding birds, usually pigeons. Amongst all the edifices, you would not want to miss the majestic view of the Lake Palace from the heavenly Amar Vilas, a garden located at the highest

point of the Udaipur City Palace. The Lake Palace, also called as Jag Niwas, is now a hotel located amidst the serene Lake Pichola. A tourist guide informed that it was a summer resort for the king built in the 18th century. The Udaipur City Place is a spectacle to plenty of other uniquely constructed structures such as Moti Mahal, Pearl Palace and Sheesh Mahal or the Palace of Mirrors, Jagdish Temple, Royal Museum and Lakshmi Chowk.

Next on my list was the famous ‘Saheliyon ki bari’, a leisure garden gifted to the Queen of Udaipur and her 48 maids. The garden has vivid flora and many species of birds. Gazing at the surroundings, a pool filled with leaves waiting for to bloom caught my eye. The Fateh Sagar Lake, on whose bank the garden is situated, overshadows the beauty of all the other natural creations in the garden. These royal structures, once the cream of Udaipur, have now weakened lamenting the gradual loss of our faith, beliefs and practices.

My journey unfolded a new perspective in every step I took towards a new destination. I left Udaipur in the afternoon, resting in the bus, smiling at the moments that have passed

Destination

33>> and waiting for the ones yet to come.

On the way, I stopped by the Ranakpur Temple which, according to me, is an example of exceptional architecture. The temple is supported by varied sizes of pillars such that none of them obstruct your view of the main shrine. Every pillar is uniquely carved, noneresembling each other.

My anxiety heightened as I neared my favourite city Jodhpur. The pride of Rajasthan, Jodhpur has escalated towards modernity while retaining its cultural treasure. Famous for its delicious food, especially kachoris and mirchi vadas, the popular shopping streets of Jodhpur also feature exquisite collections of handmade goods like bags and mojris or Rajasthani shoes embroidered usually with golden-coloured threads forming patterns of flowers or leaves, intruding your sight at every second street.

One of the best choices, though less popular now, to travel through the city is the tongas, a two-seater bicycle rickshaw but auto rickshaws are also popular and easily accessible. Complying with my agenda, I stayed in one of the traditional hotels of Jodhpur, Nirali Dhani. Unable to control my hunger pangs, I rushed to the dinner hall which is a huge mud house accommodating about 200 guests at a time. The seating comprised colorful golden bordered pillows with a comfortable mattress huge enough to even lie down.

Food was served in huge brass plates and bowls on small wooden tables called chauki. I pounced on the sweet dishes especially churma followed by kinds of batis made using wheat, bajra, corn and jowar baked in traditional ovens called tandoors.

A substitute for batis is rotis roasted on stoves known as chulhas fuelled by cow dung cakes or coal. The list of delectable curries included gatta ki sabz, which is the speciality of the state, methi, fenugreek seeds and fried potatoes invariably topped with a spoon or two of Rajasthani food’s essential ingredient – ghee. What impressed me is that they feed you until they are satisfied, regardless of whether or not you are hungry.

After the over-loaded dinner, I returned to my small mud house with thatch and bamboo beds. Most of the older houses in Rajasthan are built largely using mud which helps keep the ambience warm in winter and cool in summer. I spent the next day visiting the Mehrangarh Fort, housing the royal arsenal - swords,

shields, arrows and huge cannons.

My final halt was the place that introduces you to the tribes of the Thar desert. At the entrance were men dressed in dhotis wearing red turbans and drawing a tilak on the guest’s forehead as a welcome gesture. Dancing to the beats of the dholaks, I entered the camp accompanied by women dressed in maroon ghagra cholis, their local attire.

Teaching me a few moves of their traditional dance moves – Ghoomarthey danced relentlessly. Even as my legs gave way, their enthusiasm refused to fade away. Finally, it was

time for the legendary camel ride around the Thar Desert. The camels stood in a peculiar lazy posture but were exceptional with their feet on the sands that deformed at every step. I heard the wind echoing in my ears and changing its flow towards our neighboring country, Pakistan.

Shortly after, I sipped tea in the warmth of the bonfire, adoring the sun hiding behind the sands. The dying flames of the bonfire indicated that it was time to return back after spending five days here. This tour waived away my notion that Rajasthan was all about deserts and camels!!! It is a place with extreme

weather conditions. While, the ideal time to visit the place would be from July to September, the winter season could also be opted as it is pleasant in the daytime but freezing cold during the nights. The state has everything to offer, from luxury hotels to low-budget hotels and has abundant local food joints to well-furnished accommodative restaurants.

Every journey is a mystery, a part of it is decided by you and the rest unveils as you go by uncovering the hidden secrets. To me this was the beginning of my quest for travel and what about you?

A B2B Roadshow for International Travel Suppliers with India’s Top Buyers

India’s Only Multi-destination Roadshow Your gateway to the Indian Outbound Travel Market 8th - 11th February 2016 New Delhi & Mumbai

www.voyagersworld.in

Cover Story

34>>

Airport lounges

relaxed and ready to take off...

AANCHAL SALECHA

Airport lounges in India are keenly expanding base to Tier 2 cities, add amenities to incorporate the

GVK TFS Lounge, Terminal 2, Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA), Mumbai

leisure travel segment.

M

an’s craving for light led to the discovery of fire, his need to communicate resulted in formulation of language and his desire for comfort gave birth to technology.

Sofa, LED TVs, private rooms, Spa and Bar & restaurant have become luxurious facilities and laptops, smart phones and internet are business essentials.

This surge in demand for technology has reflected largely upon the aviation sector in India, which is expected to become thethird largest in the world by 2020. Identifying this opportunity, the hospitality industry is facilitating airports with the concept of airport lounges.

“Despite the initial investment being high, I see tremendous potential in this segment. Pranaam lounge in particular is witnessing a growth of 15-20% every month”, said Rekha Nair, Head Airport Services, Pranaam GVK Lounge, Mumbai.

Voyager’s World > August 2015

Pointing out the key sectors of investment she adds: “Broadly classifying, there are three main sectors for investment in an airport lounge – the lounge, human resources and technology.”

In the past five years, the airports lounges have become increasingly popular amongst investors. Substantiating the rise in investments, Gaurav Dewan, Chief Operations Officer, Travel Food Services, Mumbai, said: “The development of the Indian travel and aviation segment has rendered airports an important part of our country’s infrastructure.

Lounges will soon become an imperative facility especially in metro cities with high air traffic and huge passenger footfalls. Passengers anticipate the best services along with a high quality overall experience.”

Privatisation While the prospects of growth are high, Rajat Maharishi, CEO, Bird Ca-

tering and Lounges Pvt Ltd, Above Ground Level Lounge, Bangalore sees privatisation as a crucial driver of fast growth. “In India, a key factor hindering the growth is the lack of private airports. Privatisation will set a standard for infrastructure and other facilities. Today airports lack quality service. It may not necessarily reflect on the prices or burden customers but will definitely provide optimum quality services at the same or slightly higher rates.”

Return on investments The investment on airport lounges is huge but it may not fetch returns at the same pace. “This is a business proposition with long gestation periods and hence, returns generally take a three or four year plus horizon,” said Gaurav.

“Ideally break even should happen in three years”, said Rajat, adding that their concept was currently aimed at creating a niche. “Hence,

we might take a little longer to reach the breakeven point.”

Leisure traveller segment Often airport lounges are viewed as a facility for business class travellers. But the trend has taken a new course as many lounges are planning to introduce family-friendly facilities. Lounges in India are fast coming up with different concepts for first/business class lounges for different airlines as well as common luxury lounges.

“Lounges are definitely not meant for business class travellers alone, though most of our customers are either corporate or travel agents.

To make it a place well facilitated for the leisure traveller segment as well, we are soon going to incorporate new facilities like sleeping spots and mother care rooms”, indicated Rekha.

“Earlier our targets were premier

Cover Story

Pranaam Lounge, GVK CSIA, Mumbai

Domestic lounge, Above Ground Level, Bangalore International International Airport

35>>

Rekha Nair, Pranaam GVK Lounge, Mumbai Despite the initial investment being high, I see tremendous potential in this segment. There are three main sectors for investment in an airport lounge – the lounge, human resources and technology.

Gaurav Dewan, Travel Food Services, Mumbai Lounges are targeted at premium travellers who desire exclusivity and hence look to spend time away from the regular busy areas. Of all, concierge services, F&B, bar, luxury spa, relaxation area and business centre are the most sought facilities. customers, but now we are looking at extending our base to leisure travellers as well, specifically family groups and vacation travellers. As this segment is price sensitive, we have introduced the concept of fee based on service. Since they travel for long, it becomes appropriate for them to opt for a lounge. We are also planning on introducing playing areas and kid zones to attract this segment,” said Rajat.

also keen on good Wi-Fi connectivity and baggage assistance.

Amenities preferred by customers Every traveller looks for mandatory facilities and services at airport lounges to make their journey hassle-free. “Lounges are targeted at premium travellers who desire exclusivity and hence look to spend time away from the regular busy areas. Of all, concierge services, F&B, bar, luxury spa, relaxation area and business centre are the most sought facilities,” remarked Gaurav. Considering the fact that lounges are often used by business travellers, they are

Though established in a different geographical area, the Above Ground Level lounge experiences traffic during the same time i.e., in the evenings and at nights especially for dinner. Detailing further, Rajat remarked: “The domestic terminal observes maximum footfalls during the months of February, April and December and the international terminal observes most footfalls during October, November and December.

On an average around 400 passengers visit our lounge everyday.”

Traffic to lounges While lounges are functioning throughout the year, October to December is the busiest period for Pranaam GVK. Narrowing it down further, Rekha adds: “Traffic is the maximum at night often comprising business travellers with a layover time of 45 to 90 minutes.”

Future expansion plans Despite not breaking even, airport lounges are looking at expanding to domestic and international airports.

“We would like to tap the opportunities in Asian countries like Malaysia and the Philippines, considering the ease of operations as India would remain our base”, explained Rajat.

Giving insights into their expansion chart, Gaurav said: “In addition to Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata, we recently won the concessionaire for Mangalore airport. We are also looking to expand across the highways / road and railways segments and have recently been awarded the tender for Visakhapatnam Railways which is under expansion.”

The coming years are likely to bring considerable corporate investment to this sector. Construction of airports is on rise in the Tier 2 cities and for this reason, lounges are

developing their areas of operation to these cities as well. While lounges are primarily used by business travellers, the focus can soon be expected to embrace leisure travellers also.

On the whole, the goal of lounges is to make their services the best part of an airport experience that travellers would look forward to, during their otherwise drab and stressful waiting hours and layover time.

Lounges across the globe are striving to provide their guests the ultimate comfort and luxury.

As the country’s airports are on an ever expansion and renovation mode, lounges are anticipated to be the next big thing to look for, as an ancillary contributor in aviation. Increase in international airlines serving India will only see more players entering the lounge sector and lead to competitive services and pricing.

www.voyagersworld.in

Flight Talk

36>>

SriLankan Airlines eyes 20% growth from India IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

Balakrishnan Pirathapan, Manager-Tamil Nadu & Karnataka, SriLankan Airlines says India is a huge market and the growth is very good. The Indian travellers can enjoy beach activities and shopping in Sri Lanka .

Indian Market The growth has been very good from the Indian market that is the reason we have increased frequency from Bangalore to 11 frequencies in a week. In Chennai we have 26 flights weekly with 3 more frequencies

added. India as a market is a huge market and third in position as we are culturally connected, geographically very close and food habits are similar.

confidence to the investors to invent in Sri Lanka. This shows that there is great potential in attracting Indian tourists into Sri Lanka.

SriLankan Airlines has code shared with Mihin Lanka for the operations of flights between Kolkata and Colombo started last month with weekly three flights. Source: Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority website – sltda.lk. There has been tremendous improvement on tourism for the last 6 months as India is number 1 for arrivals into Sri Lanka. We are expecting minimum of 20% growth. New hotel projects have come up with brands like Shangri La Hotels & Resorts and ITC Hotels starting a project so it gives

Trends We have noticed more of travellers showing interest for online bookings as well as packages and air tickets.

Destination weddings is one of the latest trends we have noticed as we have had weddings organized in Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo- Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts-Sri Lanka, Colombo, Bentota and Negombo.

Promotions We had organized a roadshow on 8th July in Bangalore showcasing

the Ramayana Trails with the tourism board. The SriLankan Airlines also hosted a promotional event in collaboration with SriLanka Convention Bureau on 23rd July Hyderabad to enhance Sri Lanka’s profile as a MICE destination and becoming a premier conference location in the Indian Ocean.

Segments Some of the segments we have witnessed are leisure travel and mice travel over the last 2 to 3 years, Honeymoon and Ramayana trails.MICE is another segment that has seen good growth with a lot of people travelling in terms of exhibitions and incentives.

government gives the nod for fdi in indian aviation sector PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU

Proposals to develop low cost airports in many Indian cities, permits for foreign direct investments into the aviation sector and ceiling on airfares have met with closer inspection by the Civil Aviation Ministry as well as the DGCA.

T

he Government has permitted different limits of Foreign Direct Investment for different services in aviation sector. The following Airlines have been granted permission

by Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to have joint Venture with foreign Airlines:- Jet Airways with Etihad Airways (foreign airline).

-Air Asia (India) Pvt. Ltd is joint venture of three Companies i.e. TATA Sons Ltd, Air Asia Berhad (foreign Airline) and Telestra Tradeplace Pvt. Ltd. - TATA-SIA Airlines Ltd is joint venture of TATA Sons and Singapore Airlines (foreign airlines).

The above three Airlines are operational at present. The Government has issued Aeronautical Information Circular (AIC) 12/2013 on Guidelines for foreign direct investment in

Voyager’s World > August 2015

aviation sector, which also includes pre-conditions for such investments and the same are available in public domain.

In addition to the above, the Government proposes to develop no-frills/ low-cost airports in various cities of the country. In order to promote the Regional and Remote Area Air Connectivity, Government of India has decided to develop small airports at tier II and tier III cities across the country. Five locations namely, Hubli and Belgaum in Karnataka, Kishangarh in Rajasthan, Jharsuguda in Odisha and Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh were identified for construction of small airports. The estimated project cost for Hubli is Rs. 141.44 crore, Belgaum is Rs. 141.87 crore, Kishangarh is Rs. 160.05 crore, Jharsuguda is Rs. 200 crore and

Tezu is Rs. 96.5 crore. The above locations were identified based on the criteria of population, availability of land and the potential for tourism and industry. The construction work at these locations has already commenced. The timelines for completion of the airport projects depend upon many factors like availability of requisite land, mandatory regulatory clearances, environmental clearances, traffic projections and provision of support services by the State Government such as access road to the airport, water supply, power supply, services of State Police and State Fire Staff for Security and Safety needs of the airport, etc.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued an Air Transport Circular (ATC) 02 of 2015 on unbundling of services and fees by

scheduled airlines. The cancellation charges range from Rs. 1055/- to Rs. 2750/- depending upon class of tickets, fare level and time before departure. Under the provisions of existing regulations, airlines are free to establish reasonable charges/ fees for the services being offered by them, which include charges for cancellation of pre booked tickets.

Further, airlines have made the cancellation charges time sensitive, depending upon the class of tickets, fare level and time before departure.

Under the provisions of sub-rule (1) & (2) of Rule 135, Aircraft Rules 1937, scheduled domestic airlines are required to establish the air fare on their websites. Airlines remain compliant to the regulatory provision as long as the fare does not exceed what is published on their website.

37>>

M.I.C.E poised to be new growth area for Sri Lanka IRENE SUSAN EAPEN

Vipula Wanigasekera, Chief Executive Officer, Sri Lanka Convention Bureau says Sri Lanka’s MICE industry experienced a leap forward in the last few years and expects MICE to reach 150,000 this year. of which majority has emerged from the Incentive Travel segment.

Sri Lanka is a hot spot for incentive travel, where apart from known attractions such as beaches and ancient cities, mountains, wild life, this island is now a popular destination.

Growth of the MICE industry The growth is around 5 % compared to the same period in 2014. Sri Lanka’s MICE industry experienced a leap forward in the last few years recording over 130,000 MICE visitors to the country in the year 2014

Conference business has reached a new high with 62 International conferences recording in the year 2014. Among them are 5 International Symposium on Water Resources and Renewable Development Asia -ASIA 2014, International Convention on Quality Control Circles -ICQCC 2014, 9th SAARC ENT Congress, World Blood Donor Day -WBDD2014, 7 World Youth Con-

gress , 5 International Symposium on Water Resources and Renewable Development Asia -ASIA 2014.

The MICE future is bright in Sri Lanka and invites all Incentive house and meeting planner to choose Sri Lanka as the next venue for MICE and Sri Lanka will assure satisfaction way beyond expectations of the visitors.

Expected growth for 2015 We expect MICE to reach 150,000 this year from 144,000 in the year 2014.

Promotional activities Sri Lanka has done a lot of promo-

tional activities in the MICE segment. We conduct road shows and take part in MICE fairs, work with associations in bidding process, we give value addition to event, we produce promotional material etc.

Convention centers We have several BMICH, Nelum Pokuna, Waters Edge, Eagles Lake, Hambantota- Practically all hotels have convention facilities.

MICE Trends Sri Lanka is getting a unique name for an exclusive venue for Incentive travel mainly because of diverse nature of our locations.

new Delhi to host SITE Global Conference 2015 VW BUREAU

C

hicago-headquartered Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE) Global Conference 2015 will take place from 23 - 26 October in New Delhi. With the theme ‘Awaken your Senses’, the conference is expected to attract 350-400 fully paid delegates, of which there will be at least 250-300 foreign buyers to whom we shall showcase India as a key incentive travel destination and a growing source market.

The SITE India Chapter is also offering pre-event tours of the Taj Mahal and some 14 post-event tours. The cost of registration is USD 895 for members and USD 1,195 for nonmembers. An Early Bird Offer of a $100 discount is on till 31 July 2015. However, in order to encourage Indian participation, SITE HQ is offering Free Membership to SITE for

the rest of 2015 (only a $50 joining fee applies) and a 10% discount on the Conference. Having been associated with SITE for over 18 years, Anup Nair, Conference Chair and President, SITE India Chapter, says: “The Ministry of Tourism, along with Air India, has extended its wholehearted support. The event will serve as a knowledge forum and an excellent opportunity for the incentive travel industry in India to network with foreign stakeholders and build relationships. The world-class educational sessions at the conference would deliberate on trends and issues related to technology, human resources, return on investment, and more.”

This year’s conference will feature new session styles including ‘unconference sessions’, SITE storytell-

ers’ and ‘deep dive cultural immersions’. Delegates will ‘Experience India’ with Deep Dive Sessions on yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, Indian cuisine, dance, music, mythology and Indian culture. Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik, a leadership consultant, mythologist, and bestselling author, will be a keynote speaker at the event. The conference aims to enable delegates discover the India has for incentive groups by letting them discover not only how to successfully operate programmes in India, but also how to gain a share of what is one of the fastest growing outbound travel markets.Delegates will learn how incentive travel creates business results with education tailored to their individual learning preferences. here will also be a session conducted by the SITE Young Leaders Program (launched in In-

dia in January 2015), which is open to industry professionals aged 35 years or less and who have less than five years of experience. The Young Leaders, led by Nitin Sachdeva and Ayesha Nageshwaran, will help conduct a workshop at the Conference.

Anup said: “SITE, as a professional association, aims to bring together the fresh approach of young professionals with their millennial mindset and the experienced generation, to build business opportunities”.

The conference will include the prestigious SITE Crystal Awards Luncheon and the SITE Global Awards Dinner. Besides, the current Global President of SITE, Rhonda Brewer will hand over the gavel to Rajeev Kohli, who will be the 1st Asian to become the SITE President in 2016.

www.voyagersworld.in

38>>

iato’s conventions seek to voice member views rationally VW BUREAU

Subhash Goyal, President, the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) dwells at length about the association’s forthcoming convention and how it can represent members’ concerns to the government. room rates for delegates at various hotels.

In this context, IATO’s President, Subhash Goyal, elaborates on the relevance of such conventions for the industry and the event venue.

T

he 31st Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) Annual Convention, which is scheduled to be held from 20 to 23 August 2015 at the Grand Bhagwati Palace, Indore, has the theme ‘Tourism - We will change the Indian Economy’.

The event is supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India and Government of Madhya Pradesh would be the host state. The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi is expected to attend the convention. The inauguration will also be attended by the Union Minister of Tourism, Government of India, Dr. Mahesh Sharma and the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivaraj Singh Chauhan.

The agenda for the convention includes business sessions, presentation by MP Tourism. The convention will continue the format of ‘Talk Back’ to engage the audience in an interactive panel discussion on different topics like the affairs of the Indian tourism industry, an open house session with the Minister of Tourism, the Indian economy, manpower and the inbound Tour Operator, bridging the gap between tour operators and hoteliers, new foreign trade policy, etc.

Like previous years, members will have a ‘Run for Responsible Tourism’ on 21 August early in the morning, followed by breakfast.

There are also sponsorship opportunities and door prizes. The IATO has negotiated special discounted

Voyager’s World > August 2015

Importance of participating in association-centred convention Annual conventions are very important not just for IATO, but for any trade organisation for three reasons. First, the members and attendees get to know each other.

Second, they are able to express their views openly in a free and frank manner so that the decisions of the executive committees are reflective of the views of the members. Third, people from as far as Andaman & Nicobar, Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal or Odisha will all come together to voice their issues and concerns jointly, which are otherwise difficult to address individually. They will all be unified in expressing their views and appeals for the government to listen. As far as IATO is concerned, our voices will be rational and not emotional; they will reflect the larger, national interest.

70% of the foreign exchange earned through tourism is contributed by our members. We have 1500 members spread across every nook and corner of the country. When we founded the association, we were only 300 in number and today, we have grown because members derive true value for their time and money with us.

During this 31st annual convention, we are having a trade fair where most state governments will showcase their latest developments, circuits and conduct B2B meetings.

There will be numerous networking sessions, signing of agreements, matchmaking sessions with sellers and buyers, breakout sessions, etc.

As part of the inaugural function, we will select one or two persons who have done outstanding work in the promotion of tourism and confer upon them a ‘Hall of Fame’

award, in addition to recognising travel writers, travel publications, videos, etc. There will be motivational programmes led by key speakers and eminent persons from the industry.

Theme – We will change the Indian economy Earlier, agriculture was the main contributor to our country’s economy and the largest employment generator engaging 75% of the national workforce. Post mechanization, villages have no jobs and many small scale industries closed.

People from these industries and agriculture were absorbed into government-run organisations like ITDC, Ashoka Hotel, Air India, etc.

The public sector eventually became storehouses of unemployed people, which, in turn, made them a financial burden on the exchequer.

After liberalization, people woke up to realize the potential of the service sector such as the IT and off-shore outsourcing business, which, due to laxity on the part of the government, is being captured by other emerging markets like the Philippines and China. The biggest need of the economy to counter such threats as automation and competition is the creation of jobs and the eradication of poverty.

Even a ‘Make in India’ campaign for industries won’t be labour intensive as they would be computerised. Only tourism is a people industry and highly labour-intensive.

We need manpower at the airport immigration, porter services, hotel stay, etc. and the hotel industry, in particular, is responsible for the creation of many ancillary jobs for its various operations. This will create a multiple effect throughout the state.

Presently, India receives only about six million tourists and if we were to reach even 15 million arrivals, tourism earnings will have a big effect on the GDP of the country.

The biggest bottleneck in this was the extension of ETA-enabled visas

to foreign tourists. IATO, along with other stakeholders, fought relentlessly for 20 years to make E-visa a reality. However, we still have problems with those countries that require biometrics for visas. Countries like the UK, Spain and Poland have only single-entry permit for 30 days. Multiple entry permits can be considered for tourists from such countries who may want to combine a trip to India with some other country, say Sri Lanka. We want more airlines to come in.

Why did you choose Indore?

Tourism in Madhya Pradesh has grown by 25 – 30% in the last few years. We did get invitations from other state governments like Kerala, Karnataka and Rajasthan to organise the convention there. We have had the convention in Kerala twice and thrice in Jaipur. There is a direct correlation between tourism and the destination and IATO is a professional in marketing the place. As a matter of policy, we are very clear that we shall hold our conventions only within India because we believe that charity begins at home.

Indore is situated between New Delhi and Mumbai and boasts of some world class hotels. There are many Buddhist and other religious circuits in proximity to Indore. Ujjain and Bhopal are also not too far from Indore, to which we have organised post-convention tours.

Normally, a committee from IATO does a recce of the destination to determine its feasibility. As far as this year’s convention is concerned, the state government of Madhya Pradesh has been very supportive of our convention. The Chief Minister has assured the best support and Ashwani Lohani, Managing Director & Commissioner Tourism, Government of Madhya Pradesh, has extended tremendous support and encouragement to us.

“We have engaged local suppliers in the state for all aspects of the convention,” he signs off.

39>>

conventions help make common objectives clearer to all concerned PRIYAMVADHA BALARAM

E.M. Najeeb, Chairman, IATO, Kerala Chapter, shares his views against the backdrop of the upcoming 31st Annual Convention of the association. keen to participate in the convention and renew relations.

Expectation from the government

The government has always been supportive of our conventions. Tourism Ministers and officials are usually keen to attend them. IATO’s conven-

tions are not perceived as association-centric but as a very active and meaningful trade association in tourism contributing to the economy.

I

ndian Association of Tour Operators is a trade body of tour operators in India. It is the tour operators who developed products, package them and sell them and finally deliver the service to the tourists as offered in the packages. This is a very important role in the whole tourism industry. The needs of the operators are almost similar and their concerns are common.

On the end objective of discussing and imbibing the best industry practices among peers, E.M Najeeb says that IATO has been keen on upgrading quality and practices of its members. “Our annual convention is an occasion to focus on discussing problems and concerns and to deliberate on relevant topics pertaining to the business they are in. The convention makes the common objectives clearer to all concerned. I would say that this way, an association-centered national convention is more relevant and meaningful than any other kind of a non-focused convention.”

This year’s theme ‘Tourism - We will change the Indian Economy’ was selected so as to be a more meaningful contributor to the national growth. Tourism is a foreign exchange earner, employment provider, preserver of culture and heritage, and a conserver of the environment. Thus the tourism industry plays a vital role in the development of the country.

Efforts from the South Chapter The tour operators in the southern region who are members of IATO are earnestly being active in selling the destinations.Members here are

Your gateway to the Indian Outbound Travel Market

13 – 21 JANUARY 2016 Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi Email: otrindia@otrindia.com www.otrindia.com

www.voyagersworld.in

40>>

FESTIVALS OF 18 - 20 September, 2015

O

ne of the biggest events in the UK foodie calendar, this festival showcases local produce and international delicacies, celebrity chefs, master classes, tastings and street stalls. Around 170 stalls with produce from Wales, the Marches and from further afield will be present, together with a programme of individually ticketed master classes, tutored tastings and chef demonstrations.

Abergavenny Food Festival, Wales

3 - 6 September, 2015

J

azz in ‘t Park guarantees a jazzy late summer. Lots of Belgian jazz bands will perform in the Ghent Zudipark in the afternoon and in the evenng . With free concerts from established names and young talent, bringing light- digestible jazz as well as the more complicated genre. Around midnight there is the projection of authentic jazz documentaries and movies

Zuidpark, Ghent

14 - 16 September, 2015

9 - 18 August, 2015

T

his August, the International Folklore Festival comes to Koronadal bringing a fusion of world culture in one place. Witness the colorful pageantry, the high-energy perfomances and the rich cultures of the world at this amazing cultural extravaganza showcasing 12 participating countries; Armenia, Chinese Taipei, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Russia, Turkey and the Philippines.

Koronadal International Folklore Festival, Phillipines Voyager’s World > August 2015

Y

ukinoshita celebrates the famous Yabusame, the Shinto ritual of shooting arrows on horseback. Spanning for three days from 1416 September, the fest has many attractions such as a tea-offering ceremony to the gods and classical Japanese dance. The most famous of all is the gallant Yabusame, combining equestrian skills and Japanese- style archery which was popular among samurai warriors. The archers are dressed in samurai hunting wear called age shozoku and use turnip-head arrows.

Reitaisai, Kamakura City, Kanagawa, Japan

41>>

THE WORLD September 5, 12, 19th, 27 & October 1 & 27

T

his is an event organized by Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO). The 27th Macau International Fireworks Display Contest is scheduled to take place above the sea area in front of the Macau Tower between September 5th and October 1st. 10 contesting teams will brighten up the city skyline with spectacular fireworks on the nights. Different outstanding pyrotechnic companies come from around the world to join the Macau International Fireworks Display Contest each year.

Macau International Fireworks Display Contest

25 - 27 September, 2015

F

remont Street hosts the Life is Beautiful festival taking place in downtown Las Vegas from October 24 to 26 bringing amazing music, world class food, iconic public speakers and phenomenal art together for an incredible three day event. The events will host over 50 musical acts, 60 chefs and restaurants, special performances by Cirque du Soleil and other theatrical productions, renowned artists and over 25 noted speakers. Life is Beautiful event is expected to attract thousands of people for the fest.

Life is Beautiful, Las Vegas, USA

18 - 23 October, 2015 November 2015

E

very year around November, the Macau Food Festival - sited in the rotunda opposite the Macau Tower - attracts local residents and visitors beguiled by delicious Asian, European, Mainland Chinese and local delicacies. Liberally salted with exciting live entertainment, games and beer competitions, this foodfest has become a firm favourite for its uninhibited, relaxed and welcoming atmosphere of street stalls, booths and tents.

D

urga Puja is an annual Hindu festival in South Asia that celebrates worship of the Hindu goddess Durga. Community prayers (pujas) are organized in every locality, around which shops and eateries spring up. Cultural events and shows are held every evening of the nine-day celebrations. Families visit each other to share feasts.

On the final day, the idols are taken in elaborate processions to be immersed in the river or the sea.

Durga Puja, Kolkata, India 15th Macau Food Festival www.voyagersworld.in

Happenings

DCTCM organises four-city Cruise Tourism Roadshow in India

42>>

Kerala's Muziris Heritage Project wins PATA accolade

K

T

erala Tourism bagged this year’s Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Awards for its Muziris Heritage Project in the ‘Heritage & Culture’ category. The award, sponsored by the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO), was bestowed on the Muziris Heritage Project for its conservational aspect, uniqueness and impact on local community. The awards will be presented on September 8 at PATA Travel Mart at Bangalore. “This award is recognition of the Muziris project, aimed at restoring the historical and cultural significance of the ancient town that stretches across North Paravur in Ernakulam to Kodungalloor in Thrissur,” said Tourism Minister A P Anilkumar.

he Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM) held a cruise tourism roadshow on 3, 4, 6 & 7 August in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi respectively, along with Costa Cruises, MSC Cruises and Royal Caribbean International (RCI). The delegation included Jamal Humaid Al Falasi, Director, Cruise TourismDubai’s DTCM, Vasundhara Gupta, Sales Manager - Corporate & Trade, Costa Cruises, Kunal Sampat, General Manager - India, MSC Cruises, Smriti Pandey,Cruise Sales Counsellor, Tirun Travel Marketing, RCI. In photo: His Excellency Saed Mohammed Saed AlMheiri, Charge D’Affaires at Embassy of UAE, New Delhi (third from left) and Mr. Jamal Humaid Al Falasi-Director Cruise Tourism (second from left).

TCEB organizes three-city roadshow

T

Stark unveils India Outbound Tourism report

he Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) organized their annual B2B roadshow in Kolkata, New Delhi, Mumbai and Corporate Networking in in July in Mumbai with a delegation comprising travel partners and stakeholders from hotels, attractions and DMCs, led by Nooch Homrossukhon, Acting Director, Meetings Industry Department, Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau. The were organised along with Team Thailand - Tourism Authority of Thailand, Thai Airways International and Bangkok Airways and Royal Thai Embassy.

S

The delegation had 29 companies which included representatives from Thailand’s finest Hotels, DMCs, convention centres and attractions to showcase their MICE offerings. Over 800 buyers in Kolkata, New Delhi and Mumbai attended the roadshows making it a very successful mission. The Mumbai function at Olive was exclusively hosted for networking opportunity with the decision makers from the corporate houses.

Earlier, an Interim Study of this report was unveiled at the world’s largest tourism meet, ITB Berlin by Dr Taleb Rifai, Secretary General of United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) where Suman Billa, Joint Secretary, India Tourism spoke. Stark has developed the report in collaboration with the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI). The India Outbound Tourism Report is available for sale on www.starktourism.

Voyager’s World > April 2015

tark Tourism Associates (STA) launched the first-ever India Outbound Tourism Report today. The in-depth study covers in detail, the complex Indian outbound holiday market and offers a composite bird’s eye view of the complexity of India and the intricacies of outbound travel.

43>>

Tourism Malaysia makes product presentation to Puducherry agents

T

ourism Malaysia Chennai made a presentation for tour operators and travel agents from Puducherry about its latest products and special events lined up for Malaysia Year of Festivals 2015. AirAsia, which was the airline partner, gave the latest updates on the fares and new routes launched from Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad to the front liners. Genting Highlands, the product partner, gave an overview of the 2016 launch of the much anticipated 20th Century Fox theme park.

Noor Azman, Director, Tourism Malaysia, Chennai, said: “After the success of the previous Visit Malaysia Year, we are delighted to promote our yearlong festivities this year which is celebrated as Year of Festivals 2015. This event is to highlight the splendour at Malaysia which includes George Town Festivals(1-31 August 2015), Rain Forest Music Festival at Sarawak(7-9 August 2015), Malaysia International Mask Festival at Kuala Lumpur(14-16 August 2015), Borneo Cultural Festival at KLCC (14-16 August 2015) to name a few. The country’s biggest shopping extravaganza –– the annual 1Malaysia Mega Sale Carnival and 1Malaysia Unified Sale –– are back again, offering big bargains, huge discounts and fun-filled promotional activities put together by malls, retail stalls and other participating trades throughout Malaysia.”

OTOAI organizes Mumbai meet

IATA team discusses aviation trends at TAAI-TAFI symposium

KTF forms new core committee

T

A

T

he Outbound Tour Operator’s Association of India organised its Mumbai members meet for 2015-17 in June 2015. The event was led

by OTOAI President Guldeep Sahni, with Vice President-Riaz Munshi, General Secretary- Shravan Bhalla, Joint Secretary-Gurdeep Gujral, Treasurer- Kapil Berera, Finance Committee Head- Rajeev Sabharwal, Chapters Committee Joint Head- Rohit Shorey, etc. Manish Kriplani was announced Chapter Chairman, South India.

Guldeep urged the trade to show solidarity and integrity for the greater good and to deliver quality and work unitedly.

team of senior International Air Transport Association (IATA) officials led by Tony Tyler, Director General & CEO-IATA met in Mumbai for a Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI)- Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) symposium on 15 July titled ‘Future Aviation Trends’. The IATA delegation consisted of Yeoh Hoy Chin, Regional Director, (Financial & Distribution Services, IATA Asia Pacific, Eric Leopold, Director,Transformation (Financial Distribution Services), IATA, Yanik Hoyles, Director, NDC Programme. TAAI and TAFI IATA travel agents from all over India attended the event to hear what IATA had to say about NDC.

he Karnataka Tourism Forum (KTF) elected a new set of 14-member core committee for 2015 - ‘18 with Sanjar Imam succeeding C.B. Ramkumar as the new president. Sanjar was earlier the Vice President and a part of the core committee for seven years.

New office bearers are Tushar Bafna – Secretary; Manoj Vasudevan - Treasurer; Ramya Ravindran Coordinator. Other members are S.N. Krishna Chidambaram; Sanjiv Banerjee; Sandeep Bafna; Thomas E Ramapuram; Rohit Kuttan; Bharthi Sheety; Revathi Iyer; Patrick George; Raj Andrade; Poonam Tipnis; Anurag Gupta. Advisors consist of C.B. Ramkumar and Loveleen Arun.

www.voyagersworld.in

Travel Technology

44>>

AMADEUS AGENTS GAIN ACCESS TO TRAVELGURU’S INDIAN HOTELS CONTENT

Amadeus will distribute Travelguru’s 20,000 hotels from 800 Indian cities.

VW BUREAU

T

ravelguru chose Amadeus to distribute its 20,000+ hotels from across 800 cities in India. This is the first time that Travelguru makes its content available through a global distribution system, offering both leisure and corporate travellers access to a widespread choice of hotels through the travel agency channel.

Travelguru’s hotel content will be available to agents in Q3 2015 through the extended marketplace in Amadeus Hotels Plus. This solution provides seamlessly integrated content from multiple hotel sources in one single interface. Travel agents can see hotel results in a standardised format making comparison shopping quick and easy.

Hotels partnering with Travelguru will benefit from international reach through Amadeus’ global travel agency network. Travelguru will also offer dynamic commissions in the Amadeus solution, so that travel agents are guaranteed to have the most attractive commission available when booking a hotel for their customers.

Subscription Form

Leading hotel chains, thousands of independents, ‘private’ content and now, your favourite aggregator partners – GTA (TravelCube and Travel Bound brands), Albatravel, Bedsonline, Destinations of the World,

Despegar.com, HRS, hotel.de, SunHotels, Teldar Travel, Travelboutique and Travelguru ... and more to come.

Amadeus does not force you to change how you contract and make money – we let you continue to work with your preferred partners the way you want.

It supports multiple rate types and payment models: commissionable, net-rates/mark-up, service fee models.Pre-payment/post-payment; Travel agency or traveller credit cards, credit lines, etc.

Any point of sale The marketplace can be accessed via ready-to-use agency desktop (Amadeus Selling Platform/Amadeus Hotels plus); online and customised shopping interfaces (Amadeus Hotel Web Services; Amadeus ePower) and Corporate self-booking tools (Amadeus e-Travel Management) etc.

Akash Poddar, Head of B2B Business, Travelguru said that global reach was a key factor in the decision to distribute their hotel content via Amadeus. “Amadeus’ true global network of travel agency customers means we can increase our sales channels. In addition Amadeus provides us with a globally adopted platform to engage with, and tap into, new markets which we previously could not reach. Domestically,

this helps us to further consolidate our leadership position in the Indian sub-continent.”

Christian Lukey, Head of Hotel Distribution, Amadeus Asia Pacific commented, “This partnership with Travelguru ensures that the whole spectrum of hotel properties in India from boutique to budget and highend luxury hotels are now available to Amadeus travel agents. India is an increasingly popular destination, for both leisure and corporate travellers, so it’s fundamental that Amadeus travel agents can offer as many choices as possible to their customers.”

The inclusion of Travelguru’s Indian hotel content means that Amadeus travel agents will now be able to search, shop and book over 1 million hotel shopping options.

Amadeus, together with Tech Sauce, a Bangkok-based technology startup organisation, just wrapped up “Bangkok Startup Weekend 2015: Travel Edition, powered by Amadeus.”

The event, held from 24 to 26 July 2015, saw more than 55 participants including developers, entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts, passionate about marrying technology and travel, come up with original and pioneering ways to address

travellers’ pain points and improve the travel experience.

Amadeus equipped participants with industry expertise and coaching from in-house experts as well as access to the Amadeus Travel Innovation Sandbox, a set of APIs to access Amadeus content for testing and prototyping.

“Travel and technology are two of the fastest moving industries that exist today. We know that fresh, innovative and often disruptive ideas are constantly being generated from startups across the region.

That is why it is so exciting to support this event and be able to listen to, learn from and work with talented individuals, and together envisage innovative ideas that could potentially revolutionise our industry,” said Simon Akeroyd, Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Business Development.

Amadeus’ participation in Bangkok Startup Weekend 2015 is just one of the initiatives from Amadeus NEXT, a programme to nurture, mentor and partner with travel startups in Asia Pacific. The programme leverages Amadeus’ technology, expertise, reach and funding to evolve new and original ideas in travel.

Amadeus NEXT drives new idea development through internal hackathons and a startup academy.

1 Year, 12 Issues Rs. 800 (Inclusive of Rs. 200 for postage) 2 Year, 24 Issues Rs. 1,600 (Inclusive of Rs. 400 for postage) 3 Year, 36 Issues Rs. 2,400 (Inclusive of Rs. 600 for postage) Name Designation Company Name Address City Pin State Tel. Fax E mail

Voyager’s World > August 2015

Cheque/DD to be drawn in favour of Sphere Travel Media & Exhibitions Pvt. Ltd. Payment must accompany order with Enclosed herewith is my Cheque/DD Cheque/Draft No. Drawn on No 245 Amar Jyothi Layout, Domlur, Bangalore - 560071 Phone: 080- 4083 4100 editor@voyagersworld.in www.voyagersworld.in

Top Appointments

45>> Anuj Bidani

Saeid Heidari

Director of Sales & Marketing, Claridges, New Delhi and Nabha Residence, Mussoorie

General Manager JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar

A

nuj Bidani is the new Director of Sales and Marketing at the Claridges, New Delhi and the Nabha Residence, Mussoorie. He will lead and improve all aspects of sales, formulate s​​ trategies. Prior to this, he worked in many hotels and most recently Swissotel Kolkata, a part of Fairmont Raffles Hotels International.

S

aeid Heidari is the General Manager of JW Marriott Hotel Mumbai Sahar. He has 25 years of experience with Marriott Hotels across Middle East and Europe followed by his role as General Manager for Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre Hotel & Lakeside Chalet Marriott Executive Apartments.

Ramasamy Natarajan

Dhiraj Trivedi

Director of Sales Shangri-La Hotel, Bangalore

President, Revenue Management Services, RezNext

S

hangri-La Hotel, Bangalore appointed Ramasamy Natarajan as Director of Sales.

In his new role, Ram will head the sales department in corporate sales, MICE and travel trade business. With over 11 years of experience in hospitality, he has worked with various five-star hotels; in his last assignment, he was part of the sales team at Fairmont Jaipur.

D

hiraj Trivedi comes to RezNext Global Solutions with over 20 years of experience in hospitality. He was earlier Group Director, E-Marketing at The Park Hotels. His new role in RezNext involves revenue management service function delivering revenue consulting for RezNext’s customers, helping them maximise their revenue potential.

Prakash Topa

Vikram Reddy

General Manager Sales & Marketing, Ranbanka Palace

P

rakash Topa has been appointed as the General Manager - Sales & Marketing for Ranbanka Palace Jodhpur. Prakash comes with an experience of over 20 years in travel and hospitality. He has worked with Hotel Jeddah Trident, Bristol Hotel Gurgaon, Hotel Howard Park Plaza and Holiday Inn, etc.

V

ikram Reddy has been appointed as the General Manager of Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai. He has been with the hotel group since 1993 and worked in its properties in Bali, Singapore, Philadelphia and in Jakarta for the last 11 years before the new assignment.

Roshan Mendis

Shailesh Srivastava

Senior Vice President ​Sabre Travel Network, Asia Pacific

Head-Sales Keys Hotels & Resorts

S

abre Corporation recently appointed Roshan Mendis as the Senior Vice President for Sabre Travel Network, Asia Pacific, following the completion of its acquisition of Abacus International. In his new role, Mendis will handle the overall Sabre Travel Network business in the Asia Pacific region He joins the team following 12 years with Travelocity.com.

S

General Manager Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai

S

hailesh Srivastava has been appointed as the Head of Sales for Keys Hotels & Resorts. He brings a vast experience from many industries like consumer banking, insurance and telecom like ICICI Bank, GE, Fullerton India Credit Card, etc., where he was responsible for managing online, alliances and channel sales businesses at a national level.

Simarjeet Singh

Farhat Jamal

General Manager, Hilton Garden Inn New Delhi / Saket

Senior VP - Operations, West, Indian Hotels Company Ltd.

imarjeet Singh has been appointed General Manager of Hilton Garden Inn New Delhi, Saket. With over 15 years of experience in Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, Starwood Hotels, InterContinental Hotels, Jaypee Group and most recently in Park Plaza Gurgaon.

T

he Indian Hotels Company Ltd. appointed Farhat Jamal as the Senior Vice President - Operations, West, to handle operations in West India and Africa. He returns to the Taj group where he worked for 30 years before joining Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts Palaces.

www.voyagersworld.in

NETWORKING ISthe THE networkIng IS ke KEY y August

September

October

November

December

August2015 7, 8, 9 Conventions India Conclave Greater Noida, Delhi NCR

20, 21, 22, 23 IATO Convention 2015 Indore

28, 29, 30 India International Travel Mart Mumbai

September 2015

October 2015

03, 04, 05

9, 10, 11

India International Travel Mart Gurgaon

Holiday Expo Nagpur

06, 07, 08

13, 14, 15

PATA Travel Mart Bangalore

imex america Las Vegas

25, 26, 27 FHRAI Golden Jubilee Convention Bhubaneswar

16, 17, 18 Madhya Pradesh Travel Mart Bhopal

28, 29, 30

23, 24, 25, 26

Maharashtra International Travel Mart Mumbai

SITE Global Conference New Delhi

November 2015

December 2015

02, 03, 04, 05

03, 04, 05

WTM London UK

Chengdu International Travel Fair Chengdu,China

17, 18, 19

04, 05, 06

IBTM World Barcelona, Spain

India International Travel Mart Hyderabad

27, 28, 29

09, 10

IITM Pune

30, 1 - 3 December International Luxury Travel Market Cannes, France

Brussels Travel Expo Brussels

10, 11, 12, 13 Travel Turkey Izmer Tourism Fair & Conference Turkey

PRESENTS

w w w. m i t m l i v e . c o m

28 29 30 SEPTEMBER

BUYER REGISTRATION NOW OPEN! Who Can Attend?

BUYER ENQUIRIES

Managed By

buyer@mitmlive.com

Event Partner

TO EXHIBIT

sales@mitmlive.com

Strategic Partner

Media Partner

Partner Associations

For Further Details Contact

‘MAHARASHTRA INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL MART'

MITM Secretariat: 701/ 706, Shree Kedarnath, Opp. Gokul Anand Hotel, Western Express Highway, Dahisar (E), Mumbai- 400 068.

Tel:+91-22-6457 1700 - 15 (16 lines), Fax:+91-22-2892 0471.

Corp. Off.: 245, 7th Main, Amar Jyothi Layout, Domlur, Bangalore - 560 071. Ph : +91-80-4083 4100 | Fax : +91-80-4083 4101 | Email : info@mitmlive.com