Pune, Maharashtra – Travind Institute of Travel & Tourism Management conducted The Philippines Training Destination Module, taking place at Travind Institute on  13 May 2018, in collaboration with Philippines Tourism Board. Travind Institute is proud to conduct such events on regular basis as a part of their curriculum providing in-depth knowledge of the subject matters pertaining to travel destination worldwide.

The module was conducted by Mr. Mandar Kelkar, who represented the tourism board of Philippines presenting the nitty-gritty of traveling to the Philippines. In the words of the speaker,“It’s More Fun in the Philippines!- the Department of Philippines always welcomes its tourists all over the world focusing on Leisure, FIT (Free Individual Traveler), Destination Weddings boosting the sustainable eco-tourism and medical tourism leading to the financial growth of the country.

He added saying “Usually such events are mostly conducted by travel agencies. I really appreciate the efforts taken by the Travind Institute to conduct such good events for its faculties and students. For the first time, I could interact one on one with the students, the upcoming leaders in travel and tourism industry”.

Our director Mr. Vivek More is constantly on the spree of adding more value to the courses conducted every day at Travind, be it the 9 Month diploma course or 6 months IATA certification. He always says, “Using such interactive training modules always has a good impact as it gives the exact and complete knowledge about the destinations covered in our courses with real-life scenarios and case studies as to how the industry works.”

The student enjoys such interactions with industry experts since they get to learn things straight from the horse’s mouth. This is practical training in a true sense. 
The institute celebrated the entire week ( 13 May 2018 - 19th May - 2018)  as The Philippines week exploring and studying the destination and the history of the country. 

As Indians are big fan of sports and travel, sports tourism industry in India sees 10-12 per cent growth says experts.

"Globally sports tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry. According to estimates, global sports tourism was worth USD 7 billion in 2017. While it is a mature industry overseas, in India it is in infancy (stage)," Cox and Kings Head, relationships, Karan Anand told here.

The first love for Indians is cricket and they travel to watch the game, whether in India or overseas, he added.  Sport events like the Soccer World Cup or the Olympics. We see large number of people travelling to the destination where the sport is going to be played. Over the last 10 years its reported that the interest to watch the olympics, the Soccer World Cup and Grand Prix Formula One motor events apart from cricket.

India Marketing Head, Brand, Manmeet Ahluwalia said India saw a change in travel patterns and rise in incidence of travelling for sports events ever since the launch of Indian Premier League in 2008.

“Indians always loved to adored the two games and travel, so occasions around donning occasions are the ideal mix to fulfill two desires immediately, he added.
Many people travel for watching these sports and hence these trips boost sport tourism and many tourism industry have began to realise the value of wooing these tourist -  many of them fall into the high-spending category, stay longer than other tourist categories, are high-calibre and often stimulate other tourism," he added.

Source: Economic Times.

Thailand Tourism Authority has launched its new marketing concept 'Open to the New Shades of Amazing Thailand' in India. The campaign focused on attracting more visitors to Thailand. Discover new perspectives on existing attractions and including unique experiences in new tourist attractions.

In his product presentation, Tanes Petsuwan, TAT Deputy Governor for Marketing Communication said, "The Open to the New Shades concept is about asking visitors to 'open' their minds and hearts to deepen and widen their experiences into a new perception of attractions and variety of experiences in Thailand."

The campaign will introduce brand-new products to visitors, or reveal a new destination to explore Thailand. To target specific customer like Luxury Travel, Weddings and Honeymoon visitors, Female Travellers and Families. Also targeted are university students and newly working women.

Source: Aninews

After the first edition of Abu Dhabi Week in Delhi and Mumbai in 2017, the second edition is all set to host this year in Kochi & Kolkata on February 16  and 23 respectively.

The three-day event is organized by the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi, to promote the cultural heritage of the Emirate in India. The event will start on February 16 in Kochi at the Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium, Kaloor (Kochi)

After that, the exhibition will continue to host in Kolkata on February 23. Positioning Abu Dhabi as the ultimate destination for vacations, leisure travel, and weddings, the Abu Dhabi Week will offer an experiential mix of culture, art, entertainment, cuisine, and sports. It will also take guests on a virtual tour of the city in all its grandeur.

‘Abu Dhabi Week’ will offer variety of new experiences to its audiences including life-like encounters of Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, Desert Safari, and a glimpse of the majestic Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Speaking about Abu Dhabi Week, Mubarak Al Nuaimi, director, promotions and overseas offices, department of culture and tourism, Abu Dhabi, said:

"Owing to the growing levels of disposable income in the hands of Indian travelers, we believe that India is a crucial market with a potential to expand the tourist inflow in Abu Dhabi."

Source: The Hindu

Forget mountains, oceans, pebbled beaches and waterfalls. Mud tourism is a whole new concept to come close to nature mother earth, I bet you won't regret it.

"Mud tourism" is booming as visitors flock to see rooftops poking above the bubbling lake and life-size statues made of mud. Like all forces of Nature, earth — in its gritty, runny form — can give both great joy and great pain. It can relax and rejuvenate, it can get you into a party mood or leave you reflecting on the destruction it leaves in its wake sometimes.

The Daecheon beach is called Mud Square: for an entire week in July, The Boryeong Mud Festival is South Korea's biggest attraction for global tourists. Mud tourism is a whole new concept rising in tourism industry tourist all over the world comes to experience the different range relaxing and adventure activity.

Think concerts and air shows, rowdy bouts of mud wrestling, mudslides and mud obstacle races. While rowdy bouts of mud wrestling, slides, and obstacle races set the tone of the event, there are plenty of niches and relaxing experiences to have as well, like massages and mud baths.

Travelers across the world rejuvenate themselves by soaking themselves in mud, letting it dry all over them and then washing it off. In 2006, in a phenomenon commonly termed the "Lusi mud flow", mud just began spewing out of the ground in a paddy field and didn't stop.
“Such was its scale and speed that it began to be called a "mud volcano", though the cause is still under debate”.

Source: The Hindu

Travel representator Renuka Natu (RNTR) has been appointed as the India representative for Brunni-Bahnen Engelberg AG, a mountain destination in Switzerland.

In an appointment  Renuka Said -
“In the current year, which is our first year for Brunni, we will follow the traditional methods of marketing in the first two quarters i.e. promote and market through tour operators, consolidators, European DMCs and travel agents. In the second half of 2018, we will look at other methods of promotions.”

Renuka plans to promote Brunni - Bahnen Engelberg among the travellers who love to explore and enjoy mountain excursions. It is considered as the sixth product added to the portfolio of RNTR for promotions and marketing in India.

During the discussion when asked to Renuka Nath about the company’s expansion plans she said -
“Our primary efforts through 2018 will be to service the existing accounts in such a manner that we are able to expand our B2B client base in India through personalised training and hand-holding. In 2018, we will focus on strengthening our foothold for the existing portfolio and render the market better prepared for selling these destinations,”

Source-Travel Biz Monitor

Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance, Government of India would like to convert 10 prominent tourist destinations into iconic and model destinations by adopting a holistic approach to development with private sector support.

Finance Minister announced that they are planning to enhance the tourist experience of 110 monuments which comes under the ASI ( Archaeological Survey of India) under the scheme National  Heritage City Augmentation.

The ministry announces the construction of a tunnel under 'Sela Pass 'in Arunachal Pradesh to improve connectivity and tourism in that northeastern state.
Sela Pass is a high-altitude mountain pass located on the border between Tawang and West Kameng Districts of Arunachal Pradesh, an area China claims to be a part of south Tibet.

He also mentioned about the 14 km long tunnel at the Zoji La Pass is progressing well.Considering the aviation infrastructure, “the government will enhance airport capacity to handle one billion trips a year” he said

“56 un-served airports and 31 un-served helipads have been already activated under the Regional Connectivity scheme of the government and operations have already been started on 16 such places,” he said.

Source: Travel Biz Monitor

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

To give it a further boost, West Bengal tourism department has taken an elaborate promotional plan for the northern corner of the state as a part of its international travel mart 'Destination East'.

"Among all sectors of trade and commerce, tourism business has been one of the deepest sufferers of the situation. Now it is the time to turn around," said tourism minister of the state Gautam Deb.

"Under Destination East travel mart, a special promotional initiative has been chalked out to showcase Darjeeling hills and adjoining foothills to the international travel trade representatives," He added.

"Their first-hand experience will be the confidence builder for travels from their respective locations to Darjeeling as well as the entire eastern Himalayan region," said veteran travel consultant Raj Basu.

Destination east is a joint endeavor of state tourism and Confederation of Indian industries to showcase and promote new and non-conventional to international buyers. Beginning in 2010 with 30 representatives from south Asian countries only, the travel mart will have 102 visitors from 30 countries in 2018.

Source: economictimes

France, the country emerged as the world leader in promoting sustainable tourism. Report state that the country leads as the world leader in promoting sustainable tourism and preserving their social, cultural and natural capital of the country.

As per The Economist's Sustainable Tourism Index, the first place is occupied by Europe, with France, Germany and the UK taking up the top three spots.

"Of the ten countries included in the index, only France and Germany have taken concerted and sustained action at the national level to develop policy, set targets and monitor results," researchers write.

France preserved it's sustainable tourism and sets specific targets and guidelines for carrying capacity and tourist attraction worldwide. Studies say, Tourism contributes about 5% of the worldwide greenhouse gas emission and is expected to grow more in the coming years. The overflow of tourist leads to the physical degradation of several natural and historical assets.

As per the ranking report, here we have mentioned the top 10 countries on the basis of Sustainable Tourism Index.
1. France
2. Germany
3. UK
4. US
5. Japan
6. India
7. Brazil
8. China
9. Indonesia
10. Egypt

Source: news18

‘Travel and Tourism’-the new engine for India growth. Cruise tourism is one segment of the tourism industry and is famous all over the globe. It is one of the expensive, luxury tourism witnessed a steady growth over time. India also has a large number of travelers who choose to spend time at sea and explore popular destinations at the same time.

Maharashtra's Minister of Tourism Jayakumar Rawal said cruise tourism will “create more jobs while making a value addition of Rs 32,500 crore to the national economy.”

An increase in the cruise tourism will increase the economic growth of the country as the purchasing power for India’s middle class has fuelled a rising demand for luxury travel. 

Mumbai developing the city as a homeport, Jayakumar Rawal along with the chairman of the Mumbai Port Trust Sanjay Bhatia working to boosting tourism in Mumbai the port has huge capacity to explore. 

Tourism Minister Jayakumar Rawal said that the “shipping ministry plans to convert all six ports into cruise ports”. He also lauded the Immigration Department for introducing e-visas at ports like Mumbai, Goa, Kochi and Chennai.

He also announced Mumbai Mela, a shopping festival on the lines of the annual shopping event in Dubai to attract more people to the city.

The European Union’s Mobility and Transport Commissioner Ms Bulc has invited India to explore a longer engagement in the civil aviation industry.
Ms. Bulc talked focused on the importance of global agreement on railways and safety, security and improvements in airports.

Which result is the growth in the aviation sector in India. This will explore new career opportunities in the aviation industry in all possible concrete areas.
In an interview, Violeta Bulc said that she met Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Tuesday and had suggested holding an annual aviation summit in India to explore ways to improve safety, security, and the size of airports.

Ms. Bulc said - 

“We shared connectivity issues during our meeting,”  “That's why I invited the minister to consider the next step in our bilateral agreement, which would be a comprehensive aviation agreement. That will, of course, have a direct positive impact on tourism as well.”

She also met Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, where she discussed the issues related to railways and road safety.

She said - “Road safety is at the top of our agenda,”
“It has become a very important global issue. It has been elevated at the UN level as well. The Minister [Mr. Gadkari] expressed an interest in how we approached the systemic issues to decrease road safety, especially fatalities. So, I shared with him our policy attention, and also our Vision Zero, which I invited India to join.”

“One thing that was very effective in the EU was that we started to collect statistics on road safety and compare member states and wherever we saw that there was not such a good performance, we would then engage with the member state and help them make the next step,”

“In engineering, many new features will be introduced in cars, we are working with industry.”

While talking to Mr. Goyal Ms. Bulc Highlighted on the importance of global standards and had also said that there is emerging a need for an international agreement regarding railways.According to Ms. Bulc

“So, we will initiate a joint global event where we can start discussing standardization and regulator alignment on a global scale. We hope that this will emerge next year. There could be potential for a new UN chapter like we have for aviation,”

Source:thehindu

Alphons says the tourism ministry has recognized medical and wellness promotion tourism by organizing campaign shows

The government said that the value of medical tourism in India is likely to touch USD 9 billion by 2020 forecast as compared to the USD 3 billion in 2015.

Tourism Minister KJ ALphons today informed the Lok Sabha that India has developed as a major medical tourism destination over the years.

According to a Ministry of Commerce report 2016- India is ranked among the top six medical value travel destinations of the world including - Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Mexico.

"It is further informed that as per the report, through adequate focus and effective execution, Indian medical value travel, pegged at 3 billion USD in 2015, can be 9 billion USD opportunity by 2020", the minister said.

Kerala, is now an all weather tourist hotspot. The state Tourism Department is all set to promote Global Awareness campaign to promote MICE tourism ( meeting, incentives, conference, exhibitions) promoting withdrawal of liquor ban as it widely liquor ban decreased the popularity of the state as MICE.
The meating is all about how how tourism industry generally felt that tourism policies should hold good for least 5 years."Targets should be set, and the implementation of various aspects of the policy should also be subjected to regular monitoring and supervision," Mr Iyer said.

The tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran mentioned many points as-

"MICE tourism has opened up infinite possibilities for tourism in the state but the policies of the former government had played spoilsport," tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran said.
"MICE tourism will go a long way in tackling the crisis in the tourism sector," the minister said. 

"Water sports, golf and casinos that were in the wish list of foreign travellers should be set up at any cost," Mr Iyer said. The minister, however, was sceptical about giving in to the wishes of foreigners.

"We need to create a unique Kerala experience," he said. Mr Iyer also raised the militancy of trade unions in the state.
"Such issues have dampened the state's MICE tourism potential. Demonetisation and the liquor ban imposed by the former UDF government had also affected MICE tourism in the state," he added.

It is decided a digital platform should be created in order to promote MICE tourism   "A blog should also be created for the internet promotion of MICE tourism in the state," said Anish Kumar, the president of ATTOA. 

The city of ports got new wings, Visakhapatnam airport (Vizag Airport) is now the entry gate for foreign tourist. The center has finally given approval for the introduction of e-Tourist visa on arrival (e- TVOA) launched by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday.

State Tourism Secretary Mukesh Kumar Meena informed visa stamping on arrival-

"Tourists and businessmen coming to Visakhapatnam so far had to get their e-Visas either in Hyderabad, Bengaluru or Chennai. The e-Visa facility will now make it easier for them to land in Visakhapatnam directly. Already visa-on-arrival facility is available for visitors from certain countries," Meena said.

In Andhra Pradesh Vizag airport is the first to facilitate e- tourist visa, the visitor could stay here for two months and can utilize the medical tourism facilities provided by the state.

There are 16 airports in India that give e- Tourist visa on arrival and now Visakhapatnam joined the list.

The facility of e-visa is extended to facilitate foreign tourist to fly into Andhra Pradesh. Tourist from Finland, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Singapore, Cambodia, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Laos, Indonesia and Myanmar do not need e-Visa or Visa in advance and they can take the Tourist Visa on Arrival (TVOA) at eight airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
source:TheHindu



 

“Mysuru is the transit route to Madikeri. Once the airport becomes operational, Kodagu may become the new transit zone to Mysuru if tourists prefer flying to Kannur instead of Bengaluru when they plan their vacation to the ‘Land of coffee’. Tourism is booming in Kodagu with scores of home stays and popular hill resorts to unwind,”

According to tour and travel tourist who wishes to visit Mysuru and Madikeri may opt travel to Kannur instead to Bangalore airport. The MTA invited to the stakeholders and authorities for a tour of the greenfield airport to check and start the operation.
Source :TheHindu