Archive 2018

Government's Digital India initiative, Minister of State for Tourism and Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, K.J Alphons launched the Incredible India digital calendar in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Along with the digital Calendar, he also launched the Incredible India wall and desk calendar for 2018. The calendar has an application that enables users to know about the events and festivals happening in India on the go. The digital calendar App can be downloaded on Android and iOS platforms.

It contains all the information about the festivals and events happening in the country and will also allow the user to plan their personal events accordingly. It helps the user by notifying the upcoming festivals and events, allow set up of customize reminders for individual events, share the events with friends and contacts, etc.

The calendar contains all exclusive features making it a perfect travel planner on to go. The calendar is designed in such a way that, each day the user will get a different experience, stunning images of different tourist destination from all across India. which can be shared on various social media platforms also. Incredible India Desk calendar 2018 profiles has 12 different kinds of travelers that suggests the great destinations for them.

The theme of the Desk Calendar is designed as "India for Everyone" showcasing India's incredible destinations for travelers.

In 25th GST council meeting FAITH had made 9 major demands to the GST council in meeting with the ministry of finance. On 17th January 2018.

FAITH  statement says-
“To push through the remaining recommendations, FAITH and its member associations will keep on engaging with the central and state policy-makers to hone in the realization that a strategic GST regime is very critical for competitiveness of our tourism & hospitality industry and consequently for higher employment in India,”

FAITH pay gratitude to honorable Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and pay special attention to the two main bottleneck points in the GST council meeting -

1. Tour operator to tour operator GST to be made available as it was earlier in the service tax regime.This will prevent the tax on tax in the tourism distribution value chain.

2. Administrations like elephant rides, camel safaris, event congregations and such others are at 0% rating. Elephant rides, camel rides, Amusement parks, joy rides have been brought down to 18% from 28%.  

Complete Highlights of the Meeting are-

• IGST be made accessible for ardent properties for tourism convenience such as for hotels, cruises, campgrounds and for eateries (restaurant).
• Trade profit in tourism benefits as fares and give a zero rating or an extraordinary rating of 5%.
•  Exchange esteem and not Declared Tariff ought to be the reason for rate arrangement of lodgings.
•  Hotels above 7500 charge 28% GST,  will be rationalized.
•  An option to discharge under presumptive model may be extended to travel agents, tour operators who are booking hotel accommodation/ any other tourism products/ tour packages (1.8% for B2C & 0.9% for B2B)
•  Tour operator to tour operator GST to be made available as it was earlier in the service tax regime.
•  Travel and Tours administrations outbound from India ought not draw in GST as they are in the nontaxable domain.
•  Administrations like elephant rides, camel safaris, event congregations and such others be at 0% rating.
•  Special arrangement and administrations account code of experience for visit administrators.

With annual “Beat the Peak” campaign – the united kingdom to encourage Indian visitors to make use of the UKVI’s post-dated visa offer, which allows travelers to apply three months in advance from the date of their visa for when they travel.

The post dated service benefit the visa applicant as Indian visitors are allowed to start their visa on their intended travel date. For example, If you are planning to travel in April, you can apply for the visa 3 months before  January, whilst keeping the full six-month validity for when they intend to travel.

According to Dominic Asquith, the British High Commissioner to India said:-

“2017 was a record-breaking year for the UK-India relationship, with more Indians traveling to the UK than ever before. In the year ending September 2017, well over half a million visas were issued to Indian nationals and visit visas alone were up by 11% year-on-year,”

“We want the UK to be a ‘must-go-now’ destination for visitors from India. Making it easy to travel here is an important part of our tourism offer.  With our hotels, attractions, and shops, all offering great value for Indian visitors right now, it is a great time to come to Britain.” said by Tricia Warwick, Interim Director for Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa.

#BEATthe peak campaign 2018 was launched by the British High Commissioner to India, Sir Dominic Asquith KCMG to begun that intend to connect with the Indian visitor's showcase and urge them to visit Britain and apply ahead of schedule for their visa to do so.

Source: Travelbizmonitor

Hotel Industry is planning to utilize Artificial Intelligence to show better information of customers via personal data provides on reservation or “Beacon Technology”

"Technology will allow us to know what the client needs before he even knows he wants it," says Alvaro Carrillo de Albornoz, head of Spain's Hotel Technology Institute.

A hotel room automatically brings into an agreement according to the need of each guest, with new technologies like virtual reality headset, AI algorithm to track the guest hoping to benefit from lucrative personal data.

Some Important Points Are -

• A prototype of the hotel industry for checked-in will completely change. Hotels of the future will provide checked-in via a mirror equipped recognition.
• Once the client is identified, the room adapts itself automatically to all demands made at reservation: temperature, lighting, Picasso or Van Gogh in the digital frames hanging on the walls.
• Hotels incorporated with cutting-edge speech recognition technology, allowing to guest to order in 40 languages
• Even the lock is intelligent — it opens and closes via the WhatsApp application on the client’s phone.
• Apart from data collection, AI algorithms will help in determining the client's like and dislike offering a tailor-made experience or sell them additional products for their special events and purpose. All purchases can be made automatic.
• Virtual reality (VR) headsets will be provided to the visitors so that they can carry with them and can get the amazing experience of the place. Promoting this tool to tourism professionals as the brochure of the future, without too much success so far in some places by virtual reality travel agents in the world.

Source: The Hindu