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` 50 / us $5 01-15 July 2014Volume III l Issue 16 Pages 32 www.travelnewsdigest.in

INDIA 04 AsIA 16 oceANIA 19 europe 23mIDDle eAst 20 AmerIcAs 26 cArIbbeAN 30 eveNts 31AfrIcA 29

Promoting Tourism to the Eastern and Northeastern India, including neighbouring countriesTourism in the East and the Northeast India shows a new promise. The region has one of the richest historical, cultural and biological biodiversity. West Bengal is uniquely positioned to act as the gateway to the region. With the brand new airport terminal of Kolkata and fast developing infrastructure in the region, tourism is poised to grow. The central government has also emphasised its policy of giving a push in the region in general and to tourism in particular. Numerous ventures are being undertaken to develop the region’s tourism potential. TTF was introduced for the first time in the Northeast India, in Guwahati, in June and it will be held in Kolkata this month, where it started 25 years back.

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Ministry of Tourism upbeat about issuing e-visas

P# 04

Terrorism divides, tourism unites: Narendra Modi in Bhutan

P# 16

New Zealand expects double digit growth in Indian arrivals

P# 19

Oman launches blogging contest to attract Indian tourists

P# 20

Bengali movie Bachchan films three songs in Portugal

P# 23

Maracana Stadium: Tours to resume after FIFA World Cup

P# 26

Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles witness higher tourism demand

P# 29

Jamaica expects significant tourism growth this season

P# 30

The President of India recently outlined the new government’s plan of promoting ‘Brand India’ on the

basis of five Ts that have been identified as the nation’s assets. This includes Tourism.

It was announced in the inaugural session of the parliament, the new Government will lay special emphasis on improving the intra-regional connectivity and border infrastructure in the Northeast. “Highest priority will be accorded to bring Eastern region of the country on par with Western region in terms of physical and social infrastructure”, proclaimed the President. The Prime Minister too had earlier spoken about the need to develop Northeastern states, in an ‘all-inclusive and all-assimilated’ approach.

The Prime Minister of India, on his first official trip abroad, articulated his vision of promoting tourism in the region, including the East & Northeast India, and the neighbouring countries like Bhutan - the host country.

It is noteworthy that this part of the world comprising Indian states Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha can boast of the largest biodiversity in the world. Some of these states share boundaries with countries like Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Burma (Myanmar). Apart from world’s richest biodiversity, the region also has some of the most holy shrines of Buddhism.

Seen from far what would appear as one destination comprising a geographical area of the size of a couple of larger Indian states, the region is divided into tens of states and several countries as above, making it difficult to promote tourism. Diversity, which could be the biggest asset of the region, is also a constraint making it impossible to catch the imagination of travellers in India and abroad, as one of the most exotic destinations in the world!

Yet the potential seems to be huge, because new destinations are always in need, as the most exotic and sought after destinations run their life cycles. Building on the charm of Asian Tigers - Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia which may be in their prime, this region can offer a very different product to a modern Indian, as well as Western tourists.

What is stopping that? Many would say lack of infrastructure and development, but these can sometimes be USPs of a destination, as long as connectivity and

hassle-free travel is available. Cambodia may be case in the point. Apart from that, scenic beauty, cultural diversity, clean accommodation and friendly people are often the only prerequisites to promote a place.

Let us take connectivity. The region has several International airports and air strips. Few would know that small town like Bodh Gaya, in Bihar, the holiest shrine of Buddhists, has a tiny International airport that receives scheduled and chartered flights from several countries in the South East Asia. The new terminals in Kolkata may not be as glitzy as those in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, but much better than what used to be. However small, Kathmandu, Paro, Yangon and Dhaka are all International airports in their own right! Most of the Indian states in the region are interconnected with short flights, thanks to the public policy of prioritising and even subsidising these.

Then the tourists need clean accommodation. There is no reason why these cannot be provided, considering it is often the bright boys and girls from this region who are managing front office to housekeeping of large hotels and restaurants in India. A bit of public policy support can create enough room capacity of budget hotels of high standards of cleanliness, if only there are takers.

Then comes the hassles free travel - long way to go in these departments. Not only Visas are an issue - although increasingly liberal, for example the Visa on Arrival at Kolkata (Nepal has been doing so for decades). A good thing is Indian, Nepalese and Bhutanese can travel in the region visa-free. However, there are self-defeating controls still

Contd. on page 2

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 2 • COVER STORY

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exercised on Indian travelling within India that may be thwarting assimilation and economic well being in the region. Although there are a different set of controls on foreigners in India visiting some of these states, these are increasingly being liberalised to attract tourists. However, mere thought of any such control is enough to scare tourists to look elsewhere, so the potential remains latent.

Then let’s come to friendly people - smiling faces - the biggest tourism infrastructure of any place in the world. Without any doubts, most parts in the regions can boast of it, especially the ethnic Nepalese, Bhutanese and other races inhabiting the North and Eastern most part of the region. These are the same people who increasingly make the bulk of our hospitality sector employees, in most of the big cities in India. Public service campaigns in the mass media may be all it takes to turn around the traditionally fun-loving and hospitable cultures of this region to grasp the importance of promoting tourism in the region.

It is true that some parts of the region are forever involved in internecine battles of sorts, but that is all the more reason the central government must give a big push to the region. Some of the simmering discontent in the region is most likely due to economic reasons

rather than political or racial. The days when some of the Northeastern states wanted to secede from India are long past. The new dispensation in New Delhi has rightly grasped the opportunity and must quickly act to ‘include and assimilate all’ of this beautiful region in India’s growth story.

Relaxing visa controls on Bangladeshi tourists visiting India has been in news recently. This journal believes that such relaxation should start by visa-on-arrival on reciprocal basis. Technically, the way on-arrival visa system works is that it is issued to travellers who would have qualified to get a visa within their home countries, otherwise they are deported. Then why stop tourists with dollars in the fear of infiltration. It is foolish to assume that the trouble maker on either side would queue up in the visa-on-arrival counters at the airports - they already know better ways - stop those and encourage dollar paying tourists on both sides. Why not pilot a relaxed regime on a strictly reciprocal basis, because if the fear is of being inundated by influx, that should be on both the sides, if the arrangement is reciprocal? Apart from others, there would be enough ethnic East-Bengali population in India who may like to visit Bangladesh as tourists, and they may be India’s bulwark against any fear of Bangladesh pushing its citizens while not welcoming ours - we would immediately come to know of that!

It seems evident thus that states in the East and the Northeast India, and the neighbouring countries in the region can have a shared and bright future, as far as tourism is concerned. If only they could come together in some ways, to remove the obstacles and to promote the area as a package of destinations, rather than a plethora of individual destinations. The players in the region must seize on this opportunity, to build a momentum and gather critical mass, for a turn around.

The big question then is what needs to be done and who will do it. That may be a non starter, like proverbial who will bell the cat? The author of this essay, having

lived in the region and got a ringside view of tourism for decades ventures to suggest a strategy. Let there be some kind of a common platform, an alliance of stakeholders in the region to ‘Think, Plan and Act’. For a start, it can be a Foundation, as private-public-partnership model would be necessary, with ideally the private sector leading the way, to navigate political boundaries. The stakeholders can become members of the Foundation, by contributing ways and means. The objective of the Foundation can be primarily to promote the region as a destination package. Additionally, the foundation would seek to promote hassle-free travel as well as international co-operation in the region. For a start, it can research and develop attractive circuits, develop a tourism corpse of the bright young persons in the region and provide a helpline network for the tourists in the region. It can also advocate public policy changes for promoting hassle-free travel in the region.

The Foundation can be aptly called ‘Eastern Himalaya Foundation’ (the author had pioneered branding of this region as Eastern Himalaya, almost a decade ago). It can offer memberships in different categories e.g. Founding Members comprising of the various states in the region, Sponsoring Organisation Members that includes large companies in the private and public sectors, and General Membership for all other stakeholders. The Founding and Sponsoring Members could be expected to contribute generously to a fund, while General Members could pay modest fees. In time, the Foundation can show credible work and get other government, non-government and multilateral agencies to support the cause.

Such an endeavour may indeed be the trigger to catapult the region as a most favourite destination in the world. Victor Hugo would say: No one can stop an idea whose time has come!

The doctrine of ‘Rebirth’ is after all one of the eternal beliefs of Buddhism gifted by this region to the world. Can the region hope to be reborn as one of the most sought after destination? If only the stakeholders, especially the Governments in the region came together, even if with a basic common consensus on the potential and need to develop tourism together; in the humble view of this author.

sanjiv [email protected]

Contd. from page 1

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 • 4INDIA

While addressing the first ses-sion of the 16th Lok Sabha Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, President of India, highlighted the new government’s agenda for tourism and further added, “India has a vast untapped potential for tourism, which can play a special role in our socio-economic progress. The government will initiate a mis-sion-mode project to create 50 tourist circuits that are built around specific themes. With a view to encouraging Pilgrimage Tourism, a National Mission for beautifying and improving the amenities and infrastructure at pilgrimage centres of all faiths will be launched.”

The President strongly believes that the government can revive ‘Brand India’ riding on the strengths of 5 Ts—Tal-ent, Tourism, Trade, Tradition and Technology.

Mukherjee further said that the new government will “chalk out an ambitious infrastructure development programme” over the next ten years.

He mentioned that mod-ernisation and revamping of railways and related security is on top of the infrastructure agenda. The Diamond Quad-rilateral project of high-speed trains will be soon launched along with the railway expansion projects in hilly and

north east region.Similarly, the National High-

ways programme will be initi-ated to overcome the stagnancy of the past few years, low-cost airports will be developed for better air connectivity between smaller towns, and modernisa-tion of existing ports along with development of new world-class ports will be undertaken.

New government spells out tourism agenda MoT takes special care to protect foreign touristsUnion Ministry of Tourism (MoT) is planning to launch major Public Relation (PR) exercises in international mar-kets, with an aim to create a positive image about India and convince international travel-lers that India is a safe travel destination.

Shripad Yesso Naik, Min-ister for Culture & Tourism, Government of India, said, “It is time we scaled up opera-tions in the international mar-ket.” The Minister assured that the government will soon come out with “the PR strat-egy” for rebuilding and reviv-ing the image of the country in the foreign markets.

MoT has proposed a “two-pronged strategy” to tackle the issue of safety and secu-rity measures for tourist. MoT

is planning to hold a meeting of state Tourism Ministers to extract their support. The PR exercise will be organised in conjunction with Experience India Society and conducted in four key cities—Berlin, Lon-don, New York and Tokyo.

Naik highlighted the key topics related to the tourist safety, such as the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), and travelling at the state bor-ders. He further urged the pri-vate industry to provide their support to achieve a safe and secure environment for the international tourists.

Acknowledging the issue of Service Tax on foreign exchange earnings of inbound tour operators, Naik assured its redressal in consultation with Finance Ministry.

Ministry of Tourism upbeat about issuing e-visasTourism Minister Shripad Yesso Naik announced that lib-eralisation of visa rules is a pri-ority for the Ministry of Tour-ism (MoT), Government of India at present. He further added that the Tourism Min-istry has asked the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of External Affairs for issuance of electronic visas (e-visas).

India currently offers visa on arrival to nationals of around 12 countries, but MoT wants e-visa facilities to cover a larger

number of countries.“If we liberalise the visa sys-

tem for foreign tourists it will help boost the tourism industry in the country. We have made the proposal of issuing e-visas for foreign tourists,” Naik said.

Anand Kumar IAS, Joint

Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, said, “The e-visa issue has been discussed between the Ministries of Tour-ism, Home Affairs and Exter-nal Affairs. MoT is looking at a system where visa applica-tions received will be consid-ered immediately and the travel authorisation sent directly by e-mail to the traveller.”

Naik is also planning to sug-gest a reduction in visa fees, which when high, discourages the foreign tourist arrivals.

Nations keen to get featured in Indian movies and TV seriesIndia’s Hindi movie industry or Bol-lywood has been targeted by many nations in the world in a bid to show-case their locations through Indian films, such as Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was shot in Spain, Ek Tha Tiger in Ireland and Turkey, Cocktail in South Africa, and Shaadi ke Side Effects in Australia.

Even state tourism bodies are following suit with movies like Dil Chahta Hai showcasing Goa, and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani promoting the hill station Manali.

TV programmes have also jumped onto the bandwagon with Bade Achhe Lagte Hain showing Austra-lia, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi being shot in Switzerland and Pyaar Ka Dard highlighting Victoria.

Tourism boards and NTOs are prompting the Indian film industry to visit them, thus opening the doors of more exotic destinations to serve as shooting locations. Singapore Tour-ism Board has invested $6.3 million

from its ‘Film in Singapore’ scheme that subsidises international film pro-ductions by up to 50%. Mauritius is set to tap Bollywood by increasing film-ing incentives for producers from 20% to 30%.

Tourism Australia, in partnership with Tourism and Events Queensland, collaborated with Pritish Nandy Com-munications (PNC) and Balaji Motion Pictures (BMPL) for the film Shaadi Ke Side Effects, in an attempt to high-light Australia as the perfect choice for romantic holidays.

On the home front, while Utta-rakhand is revealing the destina-tions Binsar, Tehri and Champawat, Maharashtra too wants to showcase itself as the home of Bollywood.

Gujarat and West Bengal have even signed on superstars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan as brand ambassadors, and Jammu & Kashmir has also been wooing filmmakers to come to the state.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 6 • india

IT firm WorthYourHoli-days launched India’s first travel planning engine tripigator.com in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism (MoT), Government of India. The website has been chosen as the official travel planner by MoT and will also be avail-able on Incredible India web-site. It was unveiled by Parvez Dewan, Secretary Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India along with the three founders of the website- Mukul Garg, Piyush Grover, and Karteek Narumanchi.

Expressing his views about this new launch, Dewan said, “With intro-duction of this technology,

travelling to and within India will become easier to plan. The process will be more enjoyable for all tourists, from within the country and inter-nationally.” With the help of tripigator.com, both domestic and international travellers can now smoothly plan their dream holidays by simply fill-ing in the basic information, such as timeline, budget, areas of interest (adventure, roman-tic, nature etc.) and destina-tions of choice. On the basis of the data provided by the user, the website then presents a vast range of travel itiner-aries in few moments and also ranks them as per user’s experience.

MoT launches official travel planning site-Tripigator.com

The Ministry of Tourism ( MoT), Government of India is planning to launch various ini-tiatives to rejuvenate the River Ganga. The proposed action plan combines old traditions with new technologies to ensure that sustainable tourism along the river banks is part of this ambitious venture.

One of the main features of the Ganga River front is the introduction of cruises and floating hotels between Harid-war and Hooghly by the private sector. Short-distance cruises in Varanasi and Patna have already been started. Though the concept is new to India, it essentially is a cruise where visitors can comfortably stay the night with modern facil-ities like bio-toilets to make sure the environment too is not adversely impacted.

The Ministry has also pro-posed the use of apps for smart-phone and tablets to show infor-mation on religious ceremonies

that will be held along the river banks. The information would be available not only in Indian languages- Bengali, Hindi and Gujarati but also in foreign lan-guages. There will be tourism reception centres set up at vari-ous towns to provide assistance to pilgrims and tourists.

Entertainment options have been developed using apps for smartphones and tablets

including sound and light shows at Haridwar and laser shows at Varanasi and Rishikesh. These will be executed through India Tourism Development Corpo-ration Ltd and run by the pri-vate sector. Groups of people will be taken along the ghats on barges and the history of each ghat will be narrated to the tour-ists through the medium of light and sound shows.

MoT: sustainable tourism to be part of Ganga rejuvenation plan

Ministry of Culture to introduce e-ticketing for Indian monumentsTo improve visitor experience and make access to monu-ments and national museums simpler, the Ministry of Cul-ture, Government of India is set to introduce the electronic ticketing system. The Ministry is considering several options for the delivery service includ-ing engaging a private service provider or through already

existing portals such as www.irctc.co.in.

At a function organised by the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) in Delhi, Ravindra Singh, Secretary – Culture has said that inbound tourism into India has a strong cultural aspect and the Minis-try aims to remove any obsta-cles to this. Introducing a

mobile application to access and obtain information about popular cultural events that is set to take place is part of this plan. The ongoing Fes-tival of India programme in overseas markets will con-tinue also according to the Secretary Culture under the common brand of Incredible India.

India elected to UNESCO body for safeguarding cultural heritageIndia has been elected for a second time to the United Nations Educational, Scien-tific and Cultural Organisa-tion’s body (UNESCO), which has the responsibility of safe-guarding the intangible cul-tural heritage. Out of a total 142 votes casts, India won the election by huge 135 votes at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. India has been elected for the next four years from 2014 to 2018.

UNESCO’s Intergovern-mental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) has a

total of 24 members who are elected for a term of four years.

The committee safeguards the intangible cultural heritage and ensures that this aspect for nations, groups and individu-als are given respect. It also spreads awareness about the importance of heritage con-servation at the local, national and international levels.

Intangible heritage includes song, music, drama, skills, cui-sine, annual festivals, crafts, and the other parts of culture that can be recorded but can-not be touched and interacted without an adequate medium.

Govt provides funding to Air India under mega projectThe government has recently provided Air India with `1, 375 crore, as a part of the total $913 million (around `5,500 crore), it promised to the airlines to help it speed up its expansion in Italy and Russia.

“The funds are part of the subsidy the airline has been granted. Part of it has been released early as the airline needed to pay for aircraft and other vendors,” said an Air India official. “The debt-to-equity ratio of the airline,

which currently stands at 3.5:1, will improve to 2.5:1 by end of the fiscal once the entire $913 million is infused.”

Further the government had approved to infuse nearly $5 billion into the airline till

2020-21, to support the com-pany in achieving certain milestones.

Air India is expanding its international network by introducing 27 new Boe-ing Dreamliner 787s, out of which under a dozen Dream-liner 787 planes are expected to join its fleet this fiscal. Air India started Delhi-Rome and Delhi-Milan flights from June 6, providing passengers with direct connections to two key Italian cities.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 7 INDIA •

Odisha’s tourism sector is likely to get support from International Finance Corporation (IFC), the lending arm of World Bank. It is expected that IFC would help in speeding up long-pend-ing projects, namely Shamuka beach project in Puri and Dhauli Peace Park in Bhubaneswar.

“IFC would work as transaction adviser and recommend components that would ensure better tourist foot-fall at these sites. The agency would also arrange for a consultancy to draw project designs and bring in investors. It would also facilitate loans for the inves-tors,” said M R Patnaik, Director Tour-ism, Government of Odisha & Managing Director, Odisha Tourism Development Corporation Ltd.

The massive `200-crore Shamuka project comprises of a chain of star hotels, restaurants, parks, golf courses, street bazaar, convention centres, art and craft museum, hospitality insti-tute and high-end condominiums on a sprawling 3,000 acres of land, facing the sea at Sipasarubali in Puri. However, it has been reported that the IFC has asked the government to scale down the plan to one five-star hotel, three three-star hotels, a museum, a craft bazaar and an amusement park.

On the other hand, for the Dhauli Peace Park, the IFC has suggested build-ing a museum, giving special focus on Kalinga War and its significance. “There will be a retreat centre, gardens and cafe-terias for tourists,” Patnaik said.

Odisha Tourism to receive support from IFC

Chhattisgarh gets `113.5 crore to boost ecotourism

Chhattisgarh Tourism Board is plan-ning to establish the state as India’s biggest Eco-tourism hub. Santosh K Misra, Managing Director, Chhattis-garh Tourism Board stated that the aim is to increase the tourist arriv-als number from 1.5 million in 2012 to nearly 3 million by 2015. Keeping the project in mind, the State Tourism Board has received `113.5 crore from

the Ministry of Tourism (MOT), Gov-ernment of India.

The project includes developing activities such as, showcasing the largest water body in Chhattisgarh, Gangrel Dam as a mega destination, promoting Sirpur- Kodar-Raipur-Tandula as a ecotourism circuit, cre-ating convention centres, develop-ing camping and caravan tourism at key destinations, developing wayside amenities, organising light and sound shows at the 6th century archaeolog-ical site of Sirpur and at Bhoramdeo, also known as the ‘Khajuraho of Chhattisgarh’, highlighting the rural tourism and encouraging fairs and festivals.

Uttar Pradesh (UP) government has taken up an ‘open sky policy’, with an aim to connect important towns in the state, such as Agra, Varanasi, Meerut, Allahabad, Lucknow, Chitrakoot, etc., and promote tourism through air travel. Other major towns and tour-ist spots would also be connected by air. The policy has helped in clearing the path for commercial operation of small aircraft and air taxis in UP.

The state Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav approved the policy to this effect.

Under this policy, the aircraft oper-ators will receive various facilities from the seat, such as seat underwrit-ing, value-added tax (VAT) waiver on air turbine fuel (ATF), free landing/parking facilities at airstrips owned by the state government, etc.

Further, a dedicated online por-tal will be developed and maintained by the airline and UP State Tourism Development Corporation (UPSTDC) for the purpose of operations like tick-eting and seat availability.

Following the guidelines by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the airline will be responsi-ble for maintenance of the aircraft, conforming to applicable security norms and recruitment of pilots and other staff.

uttar Pradesh adopts open sky policy to promote tourism

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Jharkhand plans to build khadi parks, promotes brand JoharWith an aim to promote its han-dloom products and generate employment, the Jharkhand State Khadi and Village Indus-tries Board will set up six khadi parks in the state.

These parks will feature all the manufacturing activi-ties, such as processing of raw material, washing and dye-ing, designing, cutting, stitch-ing, branding and packaging of khadi clothing items, under a single roof.

“The construction work for one such khadi park has already begun at Kharswan, in Seraikela-Kharswan district.

This park is scheduled to be inaugurated on October 2 this year, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Mahatma

Gandhi,” Board Chairman Jainandu said.

The other khadi parks will be developed in Tilaiya (Koderma district), Haz-aribagh, Daltongunj (Pal-amau), and Rajnagar (Seraikela-Kharswan).

“We are producing gar-ments for men, women and kids including some under the brand name of ‘Johar’, which are in great demand in the country,” Jainandu added. He also stated that to achieve a growth in customer base, they are now focusing on proper packaging.

Speaking at a recent press conference convened by the Maharashtra Tourism Devel-opment Corporation (MTDC), Chagan Bhujbal, Minister of Tourism, Government of Maharashtra lauded the efforts of MTDC to once again show-case Maharashtra in all its grandeur, at New York’s Times Square in a bigger, better and more kaleidoscope manner than last year. The event is set to be held on September 20, 2014.

According to Bhujbal, Maharashtra Tourism has taken tremendous strides in opening itself up to the over-seas market. This mega event, like the one held last year would, make a likely posi-tive impact on the number of overseas tourists visiting Maharashtra, making it a 365 – day tourist destination for both regular and corporate travellers. Bhujbal also empha-sised that the event assumes great significance as an esti-mated 4.5 lakhs pedestrians visit Times Square daily and Asian migrants will be par-ticipating in this event, apart

from all Maharashtra Man-dals across U.S.

Nita Bhasin, Chief Execu-tive of ASB Communications, the event managers, spoke highly of Maharashtra Gov-ernment’s initiative towards promoting beautiful places of Maharashtra as tourist desti-nations. Dr Jagdish Patil, Man-aging Director, MTDC also highlighted the various aspects of this mega event.

In true traditional Indian style, a gigantic Digital Diya will light up the Reuters Screen with every tweet sent by Indi-ans from 5.30pm to 6pm when the event will take off. Other cultural events include dances, food, Maharashtrian arts and crafts, fashion show, etc. Some of the most popular names from the entertainment indus-try will also be performing at a concert that will be part of the event.

The event is scheduled in September to ensure that the foreign visitors can plan their visits in October to Maharashtra to soak in the Diwali festivities.

To boost the tourism sector and increase the number of tourist arrivals, Uttarakhand is pro-posing an exemption from ser-vice tax during the tourism sea-son. “As the new government has now taken over in New Delhi, we request the state to approach Delhi on our behalf for relief in Service Tax and repayment of bank loans,” said Sandeep Sahani, President, Hotel and Restaurant Associa-tion of Uttarakhand. According to the report by The PHDCCI, tourism contributes to about 32% of the state GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Members of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Uttarakhand believe that pop-ular destinations, such as Char Dham, Nainital, Mussoorie

and Ranikhet have received less tourists this year and they blamed the media for ‘negative publicity of the state’.

Dinesh Dhan, Minister for Tourism, Government of Utta-rakhand, said, “The govern-ment has planned a series of campaigns to promote brand ‘Uttarakhand’. The government

has announced some measures to help the industry including tax rebate to transporters till 2016. We are mulling ways to accelerate tourism-related busi-ness activities.”

The state government has recently brought down VAT (Value Added Tax) from 13.5% to 5% for the industry.

Madhya Pradesh emerges as a popular domestic tourist destinationMadhya Pradesh (MP) is emerging as a significant domestic tourism destination of India. Associated Cham-bers of Commerce and Indus-try of India (ASSOCHAM) announced that MP has wel-comed a significant annual growth rate (CAG) of 381% between 2006 and 2012 in domestic tourist arrivals. MP is followed by Maharashtra with a CAG of 293% and Tamil Nadu with 215.6%.

There was a huge poten-tial for private investment in the tourism sector in Madhya Pradesh and National Secre-tary General of ASSOCHAM, D.S.Rawat, urged the State Government to come out with clear land bank policies for

improving the physical infra-structure. “There is tremen-dous scope to develop star rated hotels across M.P. to offer qual-ity experience,” he said.

He further stated that there is a need to provide training facilities to people who are engaged in different segments of the tourism industry. Rawat also called for adopting a pub-lic-private partnership frame-work to build and manage tourist facilities.

Maharashtra to be showcased at New york’s Times SquareUttarakhand tourism industry urges for service tax relief

Gujarat implements measures to increase tourist arrivals

Rajasthan focuses on developing wildlife tourism

The U.S. government has recently inaugurated a new commercial office in Ahmed-abad, strengthening the ties between U.S. and India. U.S. Consul General Peter Haas has showed confidence in the U.S.-India bilateral economic rela-tionship and its growth. “Guja-rat is important for the U.S. for a lot of reasons and we will con-tinue to develop ties with the state. The office will help Indian companies seeking informa-tion on American companies and help American companies on their trade mission to India,” said Haas.

Aimed at giving a boost to tourism, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is set to launch a bed and break-fast (B&B) plan, were own-ers can convert their ancient houses into tourists’ dwellings.

Owners can also keep the share of income generated, which will be exempted from income tax. The electricity consumed will be also charged under resi-dential price slab and the own-ers will be given special sup-port for availing bank loans for the property renovation, a step which encourages heritage conservation.

“Tourists, both domestic and international, will get a chance to interact with residents, enjoy Gujarati cuisine and learn about the local culture and tradition. It will be an enriching experience which isn’t possible in a hotel,” a senior official said.

Contributing to the states’ tourism, the upcoming Gujarati film ‘Rasiya Tari Radha Rokani Ranma’ has showcased some of the most beautiful and scenic locales of Kutch.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has stressed on the need to protect the wild-life and to establish a balance between conservation of for-est lands and development through Geographic Informa-tion System (GIS) techniques. She has also asked the tourism department to work along the forest department and ensure that nature tourism is given sufficient attention.

“New tourist spots need to be developed in the state and the experience of tourists visiting

Ranthambhore, Sariska and Taal Chhapar sanctuaries has to be improved,” she stated.

Apart from the popular tourism spots, Raje urged the related departments to pro-mote the veiled destinations including sanctuaries like Kumbhalgarh, Sorsan and Taal Chhapar, the Chambal area, ravines of Dholpur, and Jawai Dam conservation area.

In a new development, for-mer Dungarpur District Col-lector Vikram Singh Chauhan has been shifted to Rajasthan Tourism Development Corpo-ration as the new Managing Director.

The 22nd IT&CMA and 17th CTW Asia-Pacific

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30 September - 2 October 2014 Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld, Bangkok, Thailand

Exhibitors MICE, Luxury Travel and Corporate Travel Buyers MICE, Associations and Luxury Travel

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The 22nd IT&CMA and 17th CTW Asia-Pacific

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Incorporating Luxury Travel

30 September - 2 October 2014 Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld, Bangkok, Thailand

Exhibitors MICE, Luxury Travel and Corporate Travel Buyers MICE, Associations and Luxury Travel

Corporate Travel Managers Conference Delegates Corporate Travel Professionals and Corporate Travel Suppliers Industry MediaScan This QR Code To Find Out More About Participating At The Show

Excellent calibre of speakers

covering relevant topics.Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Australia

Katherine Hopcroft, Travel Management Specialist

The best showwe have participated at with true quality buyersArk Travel Express Inc, PhilippinesMaria Paz R Alberto, President

Good mix of buyer profiles. Genuine buyers, with zero no-showsGo Vacation, ThailandSarinya Holloway, Group & Events Manager

Great platform to explore venues for our

association’s upcoming regional & international congresses.

International League Against Epilepsy, IrelandRichard Holmes, International Director of Meetings

Correct decision makers present. Exhibitors are one of the best in the regionTravel Warehouse, Inc., PhilippinesJaison Yang, General Manager

An excellent event that improves every year.

POP Inc, JapanRobert Cotter, International Editor

We Are All About Results

Strong Business Generation86% of 2013 exhibitors expect

to receive orders over the next 6 to 12 months

Proven Procurement PlatformOver 40% of buyers confirmed

purchases at the event

Quality Exhibitors and Business Appointments

according to 90% of buyers

Fresh Procurement Opportunities60% New Buyers + 47% New

Corporate Travel Managers

Last Call for Registration

Hosting Programme For Buyers, Corporate Travel Managers & Media Available!

Host CountryOrganised By Supported By

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World Travel Market, Senior Director, Simon Presspreviews WTM 2014.

What’s new for WTM 2014?WTM 2014 will be the best yet as World Travel Market celebrates its35th event. This will be marked by extended opening hours to facilitateeven more business deals.

Opening from 9am Monday – Thursday (previously 10am) WTMwill give exhibitors and buyers from WTM Buyers’ Club an extra houreach day to agree business deals.

Furthermore, the event will stay open for an extra two hours to 8pmon the Wednesday evening, giving exhibitors the opportunity to hostWTM 35th event celebrations on their stands.

How much business can exhibitors expect to conduct?WTM 2013 facilitated more than £2.2 billion in industry deals –with Asian, Pacific & Indian Ocean and Indian exhibitorsagreeing contracts worth £264 million. This year we expect evenmore business will be conducted by Indian exhibitors and at the eventin general. One of the best ways for exhibitors to meet new buyers andsign deals is the WTM Speed Networking, which takes place onMonday and Thursday mornings.

What will the event programme look like at WTM 2014?This year sees the introduction of a Spa and Wellness Programme tothe highly successful events programme. There will be more than 100sessions covering a range of topics including aviation, cruise, socialmedia, and responsible tourism. WTM 2013 Events Programme has anattendance of more than 16,000 – a 9.5% increase on WTM 2012.

Which exhibitors should we look out for?VISITFLANDERS - WTM’s Premier Partner - is commemorating the100th Anniversary of the Great War. Brand USA has increased itspresence as part of its aim to hit 100m international visitors.

Where can Asian, Pacific & Indian Ocean and Indianbuyers and visitors register for WTM 2014?Visit www.wtmlondon.com/register

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The cast and crew of upcoming Tamil romantic thriller, ‘Vai Raja Vai’ was recently on board the Royal Caribbean Internation-al’s Mariner of the Seas to shoot some sequences for the film.

Ratna Chadha, Chief Exec-utive, TIRUN Travel Market-ing, India Representative for Royal Caribbean International, said, “We are honoured to have had the crew of ‘Vai Raja Vai’ onboard. The staff onboard the ship were excited at the oppor-tunity to interact with celebrated cinematic figures from the South Indian film industry. We were thrilled to be able to showcase our largest and most innovative ships in Asia and some of her many offerings and look forward

to hosting more such shoots from the film industry onboard our other ships as well.”

The team was offered vari-eties of amenities on board, including the signature Royal Promenade, mini golf, and rock-wall, 17 bars and lounges and entertainment area covering the casino to various theatrical shows on board. Additionally, Mariner of the Seas features 15

decks of activities, first-at-sea innovations, luxurious state-rooms, entertainment and din-ing options.

Starting in November 2014 through March 2015, Mariner of the Seas will homeport at Singa-pore and sail three-to-five-night itineraries, calling at ports such as Phuket, Thailand, and Pen-ang, Langkawi and Kuala Lum-pur (Port Klang) in Malaysia.

Tamil film chooses Mariner of the seas as shoot location

Kerala revitalises tourism campaign with new initiatives

J&K organises adventure sports themed summer festival

Kerala government and state tourism board are introducing several new tourism initiatives to continue attracting the crowd in the state. State Tourism Min-ister A P Anilkumar recently announced that one of the latest initiatives is the hop-on hop-off AC boat service as well as water taxi service at Kochi and Muziris heritage site is expected to start in August. “The hop-on hop-off services will cover places like High Court Jetty, Marine Drive, Bolgatty Palace, Vypeen, Fort Kochi and Mattancherry,” he added.

Anilkumar further said that another major project to be implemented during the next two years is the Spices Route project. Kerala Tourism’s Spice Route project aims to share the heritage among 31 countries along the ancient route.

“Seaplane project, which was abandoned due to resistance

from local fishermen commu-nity, was expected to take off in places where there was no pro-test later this year,” Anilkumar talks about another project.

Kerala Tourism Depart-ment has undertaken a cam-paign, ‘Dream Deals’, to raise the potential of tourist arrivals even during the off-season of peak summer months followed by the monsoons. The discount rate scheme is on from April to September.

“The new campaign is avail-able on the microsite, www.ker-alatourism.org/dreamdeals, for visitors to create their preferred itinerary at an economical rate. The proposed visit plan will be automatically forwarded to five accredited tour operators in the state. They will get back to the applicant with the best rates,” Suman Billa, Secretary, Tourism, and Government of Kerala said.

Jammu & Kashmir Tourism had recently organised a summer festival, which took place from June 21-29, 2014. The festival was laced with the theme of adven-ture sports.

“In order to promote tourism sector, guest houses, hotels, res-taurant and related infrastruc-ture with advance facilities needs to be upgraded, adding that government is formulating a comprehensive programme for up-gradation of tourism

related infrastructure at poten-tial spots to provide much needed accommodation facil-ities to meet out the require-ment of tourist sector in the State,” said G.A. Mir, Jammu &

Kashmir Minister for Tourism.The government is further

exploring the full potential of water adventure related sports and activities in the state and trying to develop their highest potential.

Mir added that in order to attract more number of visi-tors to the valley, the Tourism department is organising four festivals in a year to celebrate spring, summer, autumn and winter seasons.

World Travel Market, Senior Director, Simon Presspreviews WTM 2014.

What’s new for WTM 2014?WTM 2014 will be the best yet as World Travel Market celebrates its35th event. This will be marked by extended opening hours to facilitateeven more business deals.

Opening from 9am Monday – Thursday (previously 10am) WTMwill give exhibitors and buyers from WTM Buyers’ Club an extra houreach day to agree business deals.

Furthermore, the event will stay open for an extra two hours to 8pmon the Wednesday evening, giving exhibitors the opportunity to hostWTM 35th event celebrations on their stands.

How much business can exhibitors expect to conduct?WTM 2013 facilitated more than £2.2 billion in industry deals –with Asian, Pacific & Indian Ocean and Indian exhibitorsagreeing contracts worth £264 million. This year we expect evenmore business will be conducted by Indian exhibitors and at the eventin general. One of the best ways for exhibitors to meet new buyers andsign deals is the WTM Speed Networking, which takes place onMonday and Thursday mornings.

What will the event programme look like at WTM 2014?This year sees the introduction of a Spa and Wellness Programme tothe highly successful events programme. There will be more than 100sessions covering a range of topics including aviation, cruise, socialmedia, and responsible tourism. WTM 2013 Events Programme has anattendance of more than 16,000 – a 9.5% increase on WTM 2012.

Which exhibitors should we look out for?VISITFLANDERS - WTM’s Premier Partner - is commemorating the100th Anniversary of the Great War. Brand USA has increased itspresence as part of its aim to hit 100m international visitors.

Where can Asian, Pacific & Indian Ocean and Indianbuyers and visitors register for WTM 2014?Visit www.wtmlondon.com/register

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Jet Airways Ltd has recently launched a new self check-in service app for mobile devices. The new check-in system operates on a unique platform that provides the guests a number of unique and advanced facilities. It offers upgraded features such as unique system recognising check-in members, interactive seat map, convenient check-in for code-share and interline flights, update their frequent flyer number, etc.

Gaurang Shetty, Senior Vice President – Commercial,

Jet Airways, said, “Jet Air-ways has always been at the forefront of introducing inno-vative products and solutions for the convenience of its guest and this is yet another step in our commitment towards leveraging the use of tech-nology for guests across the globe. Jet Airways is com-mitted to the use of new tech-nology to enhance its guests travel experience throughout their journey. The new self check-in service is smart, easy, and seamless and uses cut-ting edge technology thereby

providing guests with a higher level of convenience.”

Upon successful check-in, guests will receive their e-Boarding Pass (Web and Mobile Boarding Pass) via email. Guests can print or email their e-Boarding Pass and change existing checked-in seats, if necessary.

Jet Airways launches new self check-in service app Mumbai to soon have its first Ritz-Carlton Hotel

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Com-pany, LLC along with Oberoi Realty and Sahana Group entered into a deal to open the first Ritz-Carlton in the commercial capital of India- Mumbai. Expected to open in early 2017, the 238-room Ritz-Carlton will be located in Worli, which is the emerg-ing business district and well connected with the interna-tional airport.

Herve Humler, President and Chief Operating Officer of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Com-pany said, “This site offers everything hotel guests could want—a prime business loca-tion, stylish and contemporary design in this historically rich and vibrant city.”

The hotel will feature an ocean-view bar, two spe-cialty and fine dining res-taurants, a Ritz-Carlton Spa, a banquet hall and meeting spaces for event of every style and size.

Vikas Oberoi, Chair-man and Managing Direc-tor of Oberoi Realty said, “Mumbai is one of the great gateways of the world and by partnering with The Ritz-Carlton; we con-tinue to cement the reputa-tion of the city on the world stage and within the local market. This leading global luxury hospitality brand will resonate strongly with guests both locally and overseas.”

The Retiring Room Applica-tion by Indian Railways has been developed to comput-erise the booking of retiring rooms at the railway stations. Currently, booking of retiring rooms has been computerised at 67 stations. These rooms can be booked on computer termi-nals placed at the stations as well as on internet through the website www.railtouris-mindia.com. Features such as, booking / cancellation, up-gra-dation and extension are avail-able in the retiring room appli-cation at present.

Some of the basic char-acteristics of retiring room

application include, advance booking (up to 60 days) through internet as well as on terminals at stations, facility of booking of retiring room is available only on Confirmed

and RAC tickets and the Rooms can be booked 2 days in advance based on UTS tick-ets, Railway Passes and other travel authorities only on ter-minals at stations.

Computerised booking of retiring rooms on Indian Railways

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Punjab: Virtual tour of the Golden Temple via Google MapsGoogle Maps has offered a vir-tual tour of Sri Darbar Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple, in Amritsar. It is one of the holiest shrines of the Sikhs and witnesses thousands of pilgrims from across the globe every day.

With the help of this new fea-ture, viewers can see inside Sri Darbar Sahib as well as the Akal Takht. Following that they can take a surrounding tour to Gurdwara

Sahib, around the Parkarma just by moving the arrow on the screen in any direction.

The Golden Temple is also famous for the architectural beauty and charm and the golden structure at the center. The exterior wall of the upper floor and the dome is covered with golden plates and the whole struc-ture is covered with beautiful marble sculptures.


Andhra Pradesh (AP), with its vast coastline, has a huge poten-tial to emerge as a tourist hotspot of India. And according to a tourism official, the highest rev-enue earner for the AP Tourism Department is the Visakhapat-nam region.

Vizag Development Coun-cil (VDC) is developing future projects to make the city one of the favourite destinations in the country. These projects include preserving and promoting of the historic sites such as Erra-matti Dibbalu, Borra Caves, etc., introduction of glass coaches on

the train to Araku and a ‘Palace on Wheels’ to connect impor-tant tourists spots of Andhra Pradesh.

The VDC has also suggested setting up of a science museum, planetarium and observatory in the city, and development of golf courses and sports tourism. The council wants to promote the zoo, aquariums, and underwater

rides, yachting and beach tour-ism. Apart from these it has also suggested development of pil-grim tourism and related facil-ities all across Andhra Pradesh, and forming a network connect-ing Buddhist heritage sites.

VDC has urged the govern-ment to form the Visakhapat-nam Tourism Board, improve air connectivity, develop world-class infrastructure at Visakhapatnam International Airport, and commission tour-ism projects on the Visakhapat-nam –Bheemunipatnam mega beach corridor.

Andhra Pradesh promotes Visakhapatnam as a hotspot

Karnataka Tourism moves forward to attain global rating

Himachal Pradesh to construct airstrip in Spiti

Karnataka Tourism wit-nesses success in its efforts and projects in the near future, the tourist attrac-tions of the state will be rated with other bench-marked destinations across

the world. The depart-ment is in talks with six top agencies which judge tour-ism destinations on a set of parameters.

One meeting has been held already and another meeting will be held soon to finalise the guidelines and a broad framework to rate the 314 destinations from across Karnataka. Apart from the 314 destinations, about 20 tourism products such as ecotourism, wellness tour-ism, adventure tourism, health tourism, weekend tourism, rural tourism, as well as Yatri Nivas hotels, etc, will be rated.

The guidelines will be finalised on the basis of modes of connectivity of the tourist destinations, the facilities available, accessi-bility, tourist friendliness etc.

Additionally, the tourism department is also forming partnership with 17 univer-sities across Karnataka to offer appreciation courses for guides, taxi drivers, hotel staff etc. to give an overall boost to the tourism in the State.

The department will also introduce at least one gov-ernment-aided and spon-sored vocational training centre in each major city in Karnataka, which will pro-vide special training to the tourist guides and support staff in housekeeping, front office, reception, etc. across all tourist destinations.

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh announced that the state gov-ernment will undertake a proj-ect of construction of an air-strip in the picturesque region of Spiti to boost tourism in the state.

“I am personally going to pursue the matter pertaining to the construction of an air-strip for Kaza at Rangreek with the government of India. The entire Spiti area would be made more tourism-friendly, both economically and technically, with the construction of the

airstrip,” he stated.During a meeting at the

Kungri monastery in the Pin Valley, Singh further stressed on the importance of conserv-ing ancient monasteries.

“Mudh-Bhawa road would soon be constructed as it would be a shorter route to Shimla for the people of the Pin Val-ley,” Singh added. He also announced the construction of Tangti and Kitnala bridges in the valley.

The Chief Minister has also mentioned significant devel-opment project for the tribal

areas. These projects include better medical facilities for both the patients and the doc-tors, and improving the state of employment for the tribal labourers. “Overall develop-ment of the tribal areas and welfare of its people has always been my priority,” Singh said.

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TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 • 16ASIA

While touring Bhutan, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue of ter-rorism and encouraged devel-opment and tourism between India and Bhutan, saying that ‘Terrorism divides, tour-ism unites’. “India is commit-ted to good relations with its neighbours,” Modi added. He

strongly believes that India’s progress and stability will directly impact the develop-ment of its neighbours.

The Prime Minister empha-sised on strengthening the relation between the two nations. He highlighted his plans on developing satel-lite and space technology for

Bhutan. He also urged hold-ing sports meet between both the nations on an annual basis.

Modi said that Bhutan has immense potential in the tour-ism sector. “Development of tourism does not require large investment but can yield sub-stantial profit and even the poor can benefit from it,” Modi stated.

Modi described the Hima-layas as a shared legacy of the two countries, and urged that the area needs major develop-ment. He declared that India is planning to open a university for Himalayan studies. He fur-ther inaugurated the Supreme Court complex built by India as part of the developmental cooperation.

Modi announced that he is focusing on nurturing bilateral relations, describing them as “B4B-Bharat for Bhutan and Bhutan for Bharat”.

Terrorism divides, tourism unites: Narendra Modi in Bhutan Parliament

Bangladesh Tourism revives various sectors for better tourist inflowWhile attending the recently held three-day fair known as Bangladesh Tourism and Travel Fair (BTTF-2014), Commerce Minister of Ban-gladesh Tofail Ahmed stated that although the country is full of tourism potential, it needs proper campaigning to

attract more tourists. The fair has been organised by Tour Operators’ Association of Ban-gladesh (TOAB) and Eastern Bank Limited to promote the tourism sector.

The government has devel-oped a National Tourism Council (NTC), which will support the country’s tourism industry and attract interna-tional tourists.

Further, Bangladesh Tour-ism Foundation and the spe-cialised Tourist Police will conduct a training session for a total of 699 police personnel to ensure security for local and foreign travellers.

To further strengthen the nation’s infrastructure, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has offered Bangla-desh help in the development project, worth U.S. $15.65 mil-lion, involving four archaeo-logical sites- Bagerhat Mosque Complex, Paharpur Mahavira, Mahasthangarh and Kant-aji Temple. The government

will provide the remaining $3.65 million. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2016.

According to analysts, financial institutions must enter the scenario to promote tourism by offering deposit and lending services to tourists

and tourism-based businesses.“Under tourism banking,

travel and tourist agencies can take loans to renovate hotels, restaurants and tourists spots. Financial institutions can lend to the tourism sector like they do for small and medium enterprises,” said Mokhlesur Rahman, President of Bangla-desh Tourism Foundation.

“Banking services for the tourism sector will help create more jobs and increase the sec-tor’s contribution to the coun-try’s GDP,” he added.

The tourism board is pre-paring to launch the mega project- Visit Bangladesh Campaign-2016 for which the government has allocated Tk10 crore to prepare for the plans by June 2016.

Currently, the country is expected to attract 435,000 international tourists this year, up by 11% from the previ-ous year, according to a study by World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).

Nepal opens 104 new peaks for international mountaineersNepal has unveiled two Himalayan peaks near Mount Everest to international tour-ists for trekking and moun-taineering. The unclimbed peaks, named after Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay are at 7,681 m and 7,916 m, respectively.

Tilakram Pandey, a senior official at the Nepal Tourism Ministry, said, “The peaks, we believe climbers will be attracted to these peaks and help promote mountaineer-ing activities. Many foreign Alpine clubs and climbers have shown interest in the opening of these mountains.”

In total, Nepal has opened 104 new, including the Hillary Peak and Tenzing Peak, for

the mountaineers, with an aim to boost tourism. Climb-ers can now scale a total of 414 peaks in the nation.

“The government has also waived climbing fees — cur-rently $100 for an individual mountaineer — for peaks less than 5,800 m (19,000 feet),” said Senior Tourism Min-istry official Madhusudan Burlakoti.

Burlakoti also said that the government is planning to open more of its over 1,300 Himalayan peaks in future. The autumn season for climb-ing starts from late Septem-ber and goes on till November.

The government also prom-ised the foreign climbers, after their mountaineering

tour, that their climbing per-mits, which usually cost at

least $11,000 a piece, would be extended for five years in

a bid to encourage them back next season.

Ibthishama Ahmed Saeed appointed as the new Maldives Tourism headIbthishama Ahmed Saeed, formally an Associate Direc-tor at the Bank of Maldives (BML), has been appointed as the Chairperson of the state run Maldives Tourism Devel-opment Corporation (MTDC). Highly experienced, she gradu-ated in commerce from India’s Kerala University and holds a master’s degree in marketing and communications from UK’s Westminster University.

Ibthishama has been made the chairperson of MTDC as per the request of President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayyoom.

The President had also requested the former Thima-rafushi MP Ahmed Shareef to be made the Managing Director of the board, while nominating Abdulla Areef to be Maldives

Transport and Contracting Corporation (MTCC) Chair-person, and Abdul Shukoor as

STELCO’s Chairperson. How-ever, no appointments have been made to the posts yet.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 17 asia •

Thailand remains a leading destination for Indian tourists, and especially for tourists and parties coming for incentives and weddings.

The Tourism Author-ity of Thailand (TAT) New Delhi Office announced that between May and September 2014, at least three large incen-tive groups with 1,600 delegates in total and four large wedding groups with more than 1,500 guests have either already vis-ited Thailand or confirmed their trips.

Runjuan Tongrut, Director of the TAT New Delhi Office said, “Large groups such as these bring in revenue and enhance Thailand’s status as a MICE and wedding destina-tion. Incentive groups, wed-dings and honeymoons have become one of the most popular

niche tourist segments of Thai-land’s tourism in recent years, and the Indian market makes up a large percentage of this in terms of numbers of visitors and money spent.”

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has recently announced the names of four happy heart couples, who won the “Dream Honeyteer-ing Contest” and received a

special honeymoon trip. The seven day trip also included local volunteer activities and a honeymoon photography por-trait session. Milton Rebeiro and Anita Rebeiro from India won the Ko Samui trip.

TAT is expecting 1,070,000 Indian visitors to Thailand, generating an estimated 45.8 billion baht in tourism rev-enue in 2014.

Thailand targets wedding and incentive tourists from India

Thailand Tourism partners with Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways

Amazing Thailand Grand Sale launches first Shopping Challenge

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is to collab-orate with the Middle East’s three big airlines- Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways- to maintain a steady flow of visitor arrivals from these Gulf States.

TAT Governor Tha-watchai Arunyik and an executive team held back-to-back talks with the officials of the three airlines. Tanes Pet-suwan, Executive Director of the Europe, Africa and Mid-dle East Region, said, “The TAT team personally visited all the airline pavilions to meet their senior executives and find ways of helping each other. All the airlines told us that Bangkok was one of their

most important points in Asia, and that it was impor-tant for them to maintain their route profitability.”

Tanes further announced that TAT and the Gulf air-lines are planning to under-take a series of familiarisa-tion trips for media and travel agency representatives in the Gulf countries to help them see the situation for them-selves and make their own decisions.

“Our main focus contin-ues to be on the niche mar-kets; such as, health and wellness, weddings and hon-eymoons. Gulf visitors are among the highest spenders per capita with an above aver-age length of stay.”

The annual Amazing Thai-land Grand Sale launched its first “Shopping Chal-lenge” on June 18, 2014, in the famous shopping districts – Ratchaprasong and Siam – and at Bankok’s most pop-ular shopping malls – Siam Paragon, CentralWorld and Gaysorn.

Fifteen teams consisting of celebrities from 11 Asian countries, including Malay-sia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan participated in the challenge.

The team which com-pleted all the given tasks in the shortest time was declared the winner and rewarded with a cash prize of 100,000 Baht.

Thawatchai Arunyik, TAT Governor said, “Now that the world knows that it’s ‘business as usual’ here in Thailand, they will be look-ing forward to coming back and taking advantage of the kingdom’s wonderful shop-ping. So we are opening our arms to tourists from all over

the world to come here and lose themselves in a shopping paradise.”

“More than 15,000 shop-ping malls, department stores, brand-name out-lets, and restaurants in seven major tourist destina-tions: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Hat Yai, Pattaya, Hua Hin and Ko Samui are offering irresistible special deals and bargains for tour-ists, making the next couple of months the best possible time to come to Thailand,” Arunyik added.

Curfew lifted in Thailand, tourism activities run normallyThailand’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has recently lifted a night-time cur-few from 12 am to 4 am in pop-ular tourist locations, includ-ing Pattaya, Phuket and Ko Samui. The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has praised this decision and encouraged the lifting of curfew.

Thawatchai Arunyik, TAT Governor said, “The lifting of the curfew in Pattaya, Phuket and Ko Samui is welcome news. This latest develop-ment announced by the NCPO should help reassure everyone coming for a holiday in Thai-land that it’s very much busi-ness as usual and that there’s no reason for anyone to change

their plans.”Further, The Ministry of

Tourism and Sports has pro-posed the NCPO to lift the nationwide curfew at eight more tourist areas, including Krabi, Phang Nga, Trang, Hat Yai, Ko Chang, Cha-am, Hua Hin and Chiang Mai soon.

TAT Governor added, “There is no military presence

in popular tourist areas and of course no danger to travellers going out of their hotels and guest houses in the evening.”

Tourists and travellers who need to travel to and from inter-national airports can travel when necessary. All airports remain open and airlines con-tinue to operate flights to Thai-land as normal.

All tourism-related busi-nesses and services through-out Thailand, including Bang-kok, Ko Samui, Pattaya, krabi, etc. are open and operating as per normal. Telephone and internet services continue to be available round-the-clock and tourists can continue to apply for visa as usual.

Sri Lanka promotes Hambantota as an emerging MICE destinationThe 16th World Conference on Youth recently concluded in Hambantota at Sri Lanka’s new-est convention facility, Magam Ruhunupura International Con-vention Center, attended by 1,500 delegates from 196 countries.

Sri Lankan officials believe that the event will help boost Sri Lanka’s image as a MICE desti-nation as well.

Tourism authorities are pro-moting Hambantota as the new-est conference and exhibition destination in Sri Lanka with several sightseeing opportuni-ties, which gives ample oppor-tunity for both, MICE and lei-sure tourism.

The biggest conference centre with nearby hotels is the Bandaranaike Memorial

International Conference Hall in Colombo that seats up to 1,500 and has additional rooms catering for groups between 50 and 100.

Expected to open and be operational within the next five years, Sri Lanka’s largest hotel

operator, John Keells Group, has begun construction on a $650 million integrated project in Colombo which includes an 800-room luxury hotel and a convention centre to accommo-date 2,500 pax, the nation’s larg-est conference hall.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 18 • asIa

Korean Tourism Organization (KTO) and Jeju Tourism Orga-nization have entered into a Memorandum of Understand-ing (MoU) along with Cathay Pacific Airways, Kim’s Travel and a consortium of ten Indian travel companies, to promote Jeju Island as a MICE destina-tion in India.

Jeju Island is located 130 km off the coast of South Korea and is blessed with subtropical for-ests, lava caves, sandy beaches, craters and the Halla Mountain. Jeju’s eco-style accommodation, nature-based tours, and the fact that it does not require a visa from Indian travellers for a stay of three months make it an ideal choice for MICE travel.

Moon Kyeong-Ho, Director-Marketing Business, Jeju Tour-ism Organization said, “For

incentive groups, we offer a wide range of team building and leisure activities such as horse-back riding, golfing, scuba div-ing, amusement parks, yacht-ing and wind surfing. We are looking forward to welcoming over 20 million tourists to Jeju Island in the coming year. We are looking at our partners to promote the destination in India

and make it a preferred choice among Indian travellers.”

Lee Jae Sang, Director, KTO – New Delhi Office, said, “Jeju is a world-class destination. Jeju Island witnessed over 2.3 million inbound arrivals last year. This year, we expect more than 24,000 Indian arrivals and over 300 incentive groups from India.”

Korea promotes Jeju Island as new MICE destination for Indians

Vietnam encourages domestic tourism for overall travel growthAmong the ASEAN coun-tries, Vietnam is highly capa-ble of transforming itself into a leading tourism hub, but to achieve the goal, it is important to encourage domestic tour-ism. With a population of 90 million, Vietnam has the larg-est population of all ASEAN nations with the exception of off-shore Indonesia and the Philippines.

Travel companies reported that domestic tourism is gaining momentum and as trips to Hue, Danang, Hoi

An, Nha Trang and Phu Quoc are packed. Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Associ-ation Deputy Chairwoman, Nguyen Thi Khanh, stated that demand exceeded supply as domestic tours became more competitive.

Domestic tours attracted 35 million buyers in 2013 and it is already 13.7 million buy-ers in the first quarter of 2014, expecting to attract around 37.5 million buyers in total.

According to the Vietnam Tourism Association, due to competitive prices, a large number of Vietnamese also bought outbound tours. They enjoyed the domestic tours over the last few years and this is driving a boom in out-bound tours to neighbouring countries.

Tourism associations have pledged to work with each other to create publica-tions introducing local tour-ism potential and promote regional connectivity to sup-port domestic tourism as a vital tool to introduce travel.

According to a senior execu-tive, AirAsia Bhd. is set to invest an additional $20 million in its Indian airline venture this year. The Malaysian low-fare carrier has already invested $10 million in AirAsia India.

The airline is currently spending $30 a minute and will open its balance sheet with a total cost of $5 million on its books, the executive further added.

Mittu Chandilya, CEO, AirAsia India, stated, “It will

offer fare 35% lower than the average fare of its competitor. At

the same time, it aims to break even in four months.”

Ezfly extends 14 year long partnership with TravelportTravelport, the leading dis-tribution services and e-com-merce provider for the global travel industry, and Ezfly, one of the largest and fastest growing online travel agen-cies (OTA) in Taiwan, have entered into a new multi-year

deal extending their 14-year partnership. Thus, Travelport will continue to provide Ezfly with the latest travel technol-ogy and travel content as they expand their operations.

“We truly value the work-ing relationship we have established with Travelport for the past 14 years. They

have provided us with valu-able expertise and insights and really understand the needs of our business. In turn this has enabled us to grow and be successful,” said Ming Chen, General Manager, IT, Ezfly.

Amber Lee, Country Manager, Taiwan, Travel-port, said, “We are extremely pleased that Ezfly has cho-sen to work with us time and again. This renewal is a tes-tament to our commitment in delivering unrivalled con-tent, service and technology for our customers.”

AirAsia to invest additional $20 mn in Indian airline venture

China encourages Red Tourism industry

Chinese government is encouraging “Red Tourism” in the nation and working towards developing tourist sites related to the Chinese revolution. Last year, the central government had ear-marked 487 million yuan to support the red tourism. Civil affairs department had also invested 2.8 billion yuan on constructing memorial sites. China’s transport depart-ments have provided 1.5 bil-lion yuan to improve the roads

connected to the revolution-ary sites.

North China’s Shanxi Province is specially trying to highlight the historical credentials of revolution-era bases to attract more num-ber of tourists and witness a faster growth.

Last year, two million visi-tors took a trip to the themed cultural park, set up by Wux-iang government, and gener-ated more than 2 billion yuan (around $300 million).

“At present, there are unprecedented opportuni-ties for red tourism in China,” said Wang Shumao, a member of the country’s coordinating group for this sub-sector of tourism. “We have included this into our national develop-ment plan, and will introduce policies to support it,” he said.

It is estimated that, by 2015, red tourism sites around China will welcome 800 mil-lion tourists per year and earn revenue of 200 billion yuan.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 • 19OCEANIA

Last year, New Zealand wit-nessed an arrival of 29,936 tour-ists from India, thus the tour-ism sector is now expecting a double digit growth in Indian tourist arrivals for the next three years. “India is among the top 10 largest source markets for New Zealand with regards to tourist arrivals. Our CY 2013 performance from India is very positive with total arrivals at 29, 936,” Tourism New Zealand Regional Manager – South and South East Asia – Mischa Man-nix-Opie said.

“With New Zealand co-host-ing the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2015, it will create awareness and make our country a pre-ferred destination for Indian travellers in the upcoming months,” she added.

The young travellers and honeymooners from India love

to visit the nation from Octo-ber- December window while the families and groups visit usually over April-June quarter.

“This makes the India mar-ket very attractive to the New Zealand tourism industry par-ticularly during the low season of the latter quarter,” Mannix-Opie said.

“Our research reveals that

there are approximately 3.7 mil-lion active considerers of New Zealand in India mainly from cities like Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru,” she added.

Tourism New Zealand describes India as one of three “emerging markets” where they want to invest to build demand and form a long-term position for the tourism industry.

New Zealand expects double digit growth in Indian arrivals

Australia already issued 100,000 tourist visas to Indians in FY’14Patrick Suckling, Austra-lia’s High Commissioner to India announced that during the last financial year 2013-14, Australian Tour-ism has issued 100,000 tourist visas to Indians, which is the highest ever in a single finan-cial year. Last year, India was Australia’s 11th largest inbound market for visitor arrivals and total expenditure. Currently, the total number of Indian inbound to Australia is 173,000 in FY14, marking a 10.3% rise over FY13.

“Tourism is a vital part of the bilateral relationship between India and Australia, and we expect these numbers to keep increasing,” said Suckling.

To celebrate this achieve-ment, Suckling organised a brief ceremony, where he rec-ognised New Delhi resident, Manoj Saraogi as the recipi-ent of the 100,000th tourist visa for FY14 and gifted him two Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb vouchers.

Suckling stated, “I’m sure Mr Saraogi and his family will have a wonder-ful time in Australia. They will not only get a chance to enjoy Sydney’s iconic sights, but will also be able to relax on the Gold Coast’s stun-ning beaches, and explore one of the world’s greatest living treasures, the Great Barrier Reef.”

Fiji has been promoting itself as an ideal wedding destina-tion to boost the number of tourist arrivals. Tourism Fiji‘s Director of Global Market-ing, Ken Freer said, “Exhibi-tors actively seeking wedding business is just one example of Fiji’s strong potential in the sector. Weddings are a part of our mix that is definitely grow-ing. Many of our key resorts are holding upwards of 100 weddings per year, and report-ing capacity for increasing that number.”

Adding to the efforts, events such as the Fijian Tour-ism Expo are also showcasing more wedding-related ser-vices, including resorts, plan-ners, photographers and hos-pitality businesses.

“Weddings held in Fiji have increasingly extended beyond short-stay ceremonies and celebrations, to also incorpo-rate the pre-wedding gath-erings and honeymoons,” added Freer.

After the opening of the Denarau Island Convention Centre, the scope for wed-ding planners and patrons has increased significantly. It added variety in the range of indoor and outdoor ven-ues designed to cater for weddings.

“These efforts of Tour-ism Fiji as key drivers in the move to boost tourism, with a growth in demand of wed-ding-related services just the beginning of the trend,” con-cluded Freer.

NSW’s Jhappi Time campaign becomes a massive hitDestination NSW’s Jhappi Time campaign is gaining popularity since its recent launch among the Indians in Australia, who want their families from India to visit New South Wales and Syd-ney. The campaign features sev-eral short Bollywood-style video ads that encourage the relatives to visit Australia and give their families a jhappi, or a hug.

“Given that the Indian dias-pora is one of the fastest grow-ing communities in Australia, and familial ties one of the main motivators for Indian tourists visiting Australia, the campaign aims to leverages these connec-tions,” said NSW’s CEO, Sandra Chipchase. “The campaign has been officially released across all the Indian cities – we are on cin-ema, online and print. We can see that Indians in Australia are really responding well to this because our website can track that many of them are emailing and sending the links to their family and friends in India.”

“We have tied up with travel agencies (with presence in India) like Yatra, Easytogo and Kuoni Travel who would offer travel packages and destina-tion advice, and now we are in the talks with a number more because it is important to extend the reach,” Chipchase added.

The campaign further offers

travellers an array of Jhappi Time Deals, including to Hunter Valley, Blue Mountains and Syd-ney and the South Coast.

“Indians are among the top 10 international tourists for the state, among the top 10 for visitor nights and among the biggest spenders,” Chip-chase concluded.

Qantas Frequent Flyer reaches 10 million markAustralian airline Qantas has recently announced that its frequent flyer programme has reached 10 million members. With this milestone Qantas has now reached almost half of the total households in Australia, and the airline company claims redemption rates of points have increased by 14% in the year to March.

To celebrate, Qantas is giv-ing away 10 million points to the programme members. To win this offer, members have to fill out the entry form and describe in 200 words how one million Qantas Points could make a

difference to your life or some-one else’s.

“We are committed to ensur-ing our regular flyers, as well as our members who rarely fly but who are savvy at earning Qan-tas points across other chan-nels including through credit cards, hotels and grocery shop-ping, remain loyal to the Qantas

Frequent Flyer programme by continuing to deliver increased value and benefits through new partners, benefits and innova-tions,” Lesley Grant, CEO of Qantas Loyalty.

Meanwhile, Qantas is encouraging the passengers to get creative and doodle on their sick bags, boarding pass or nap-kins and then share the images using the hashtag #qantas-blankcanvas. Winners will be receiving a double Qantas Club pass – valid for entry into Qan-tas airport lounges, as well as priority check-in and extra bag-gage allowance.

Fiji highlights its wedding destinations

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 • 20middle east

Gulf Arab states’ decision to scrap the travel warning for citizens who are planning to visit Lebanon is expected to improve the relation between the states and the new Leba-nese government.

Due to the political tensions in Lebanon, the Gulf Cooper-ation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – had asked the cit-izens last year not to visit the country.

“Unofficially it has been lifted. When people talk to the authorities they tell them: ‘You can go to Lebanon’,” Lebanese Tourism Minister Michel Phar-aon stated. “Now we’re waiting for the (official) green light.”

“The government is really tight on security, with strong international support for stability in Lebanon. This is new, so they’re observ-ing and making sure this is something which is holding,” added Pharaon.

lebanon to gain tourism flow after GCC scraps travel warning

Oman launches blogging contest to attract Indian tourists

Ajman starts second phase of major tourism projectEngy Mounir, Head of Classi-fication Section, Ajman Tour-ism Development Department (ATDD) has announced the launch of the second stage of a project on the classification of tourism establishments in Ajman.

“The second stage will come out with official classification

standards for resorts, travel agencies, restaurants, trans-portation and car rental sec-tors,” she said.

“A comprehensive survey will be immediately conducted with representatives of the five sectors, along with local and international benchmarking. A mechanism would be followed

to get the feedback from Ajman visitors,” she added.

Mounir further stated that reviewing current licensing and classification processes, legislations, rules and regula-tions; new standards will be developed and an action mecha-nism would be adopted for each sector.

“Field operations, interviews with stakeholders and surveys will also be part of the second stage of the project, at the end of which a report of recommen-dations would be submitted to decision-makers, the head of ATDD’s Classification section,” Mounir concluded by saying that the deadline of this stage would be the end of the third quarter of 2014.

Understanding that in today’s world internet strongly influ-ences a person’s decision to choose the next holiday desti-nation, Ministry of Tourism, Oman is planning and execut-ing an effective digital market-ing strategy as one of the tools to attract tourists from India.

Under the campaign, which is a tie-up with Indiblogger, Oman Tourism has launched a month long contest to attract bloggers to write about what they would like to experience in Oman and 3 bloggers will get a chance to win a trip to Oman.

“This is the first time Oman has tried to directly connect with the rapidly increasing blogging community in India. We chose bloggers because they have very high credibility, lot of followers and trust among their readers making them the most

influential community in the online space,” Lubaina Sheer-azi, India Representative, Min-istry of Tourism, Oman said.

“We hope this campaign will not only benefit Oman Tour-ism in promoting it as a tour-ist destination but also create excitement, understanding and awareness about Oman and all that it has to offer amongst the growing outbound tourist

population from India,” said Anoop Johnson, Director of Marketing, IndiBlogger.

Other digital market-ing strategies through which Oman is showcasing itself broadly are Facebook and Ins-tagram. “Besides this, online advertising is also a medium that we will be aggressively exploring in the second quar-ter of 2014,” added Sheerazi.

Syria restarts tourism campaign with high hopesInspite of the recent polit-ical turmoil Syrian minis-try is very optimistic about the development of tourism in the region. Syria’s Tour-ism Minister, Bisher Yazigi, announced that the minis-try is committed to develop human resources and make use of the capacities and

experience of the workers in the tourist sector. “The min-istry is working to docu-ment the damage wrought to archaeological sites in Syria due to terrorist attacks so as to have them converted into gains during the upcoming phase,” said Yazigi.

During a visit to Wadi

al-Nasara area and Krak des Chevaliers Citadel in Homs, Yazigi mentioned that these two sites are ready to wel-come a positive tourist sea-son ahead as the ministry has planned a number of tourist-centred activities at the two sites during the summertime.

Yazigi met with the direc-tors of tourist facilities at the Cultural Center in Marmar-ita and promised to set up a tourist programme there. He urged that proper co-opera-tion is needed to make Wadi al-Nasara area a leading tour-ist attraction.

Homs Governor, Talal al-Barazi described Wadi al-Nasara as a “tourist area par excellence,” and Ministry of Tourism has already out-lined plans for replenishing tourism in the area. Al-Barazi also mentioned that Homs has a “tourism week” coming in Palmyra and another one in Wadi al-Nasara.

Etihad Airways expands its code-share pact with Jet AirwaysEtihad Airways has recently announced a significant expansion of its codeshare agreement with Jet Airways. The expansion is said to offer the passengers an enhanced connection throughout India, and linking India with even more destinations worldwide. The total number of services in their codeshare agreement thus reached to 71.

James Hogan, President of Etihad Airways, said, “As one of the world’s fastest-grow-

ing travel markets, India has become increasingly impor-tant to Etihad Airways. Our current network of Indian destinations, consisting of Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kozhikode, Mumbai, New Delhi and Trivandrum, is further supported by the

relationship we have devel-oped with our equity alliance partner Jet Airways.”

“In addition to placing our ‘EY’ code on domestic flights within India for the first time, the agreement now covers all six of Jet Airways’ services to Abu Dhabi. Jet Airways’ guests also benefit from seamless connections to more destinations glob-ally, with the airline’s ‘9W’ code placed on almost 20% more Etihad Airways routes

than previously offered,” he added.

Furthermore, Jet Airways has strengthened its offer-ing to the U.S. and Europe by code sharing on addi-tional Etihad Airways routes between Abu Dhabi and Chicago, New York, Dublin and Milan.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 21 middle east •

CEO and President Frits van Paasschen stated that Star-wood Hotels & Resorts still has much space to expand in major cities around the world, including Dubai.

“Looking around the world at large cities, we still have a long way to go before we reach saturation. Take Dubai, where we now have 15 hotels and another five on the way or Shanghai, where we have 11 open and four on the way,” said Paasschen.

During the first quarter of 2014, in Africa and the Middle East, Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) was up 2.1% in constant dollar terms and up 1.1% in actual dollar terms to $140.34. This compared to a worldwide system wide RevPAR increase of 6.3% in

constant dollars (5.0% in actual dollars) to $116.43.

Speaking about this RevPAR growth in the Mid-dle East region, van Paasschen added, “Egypt, with 11 hotels

for us, continues to be a drag on the region. We’re hopeful that this year’s elections will bring stability, but our outlook for the year does not reflect a dramatic change there.”

“Elsewhere in the region, we saw improved perfor-mance in Saudi Arabia and strength in Qatar offset by mixed results in the Emirates.”

Occupancy rates in Africa and the Middle East have also increased to 65.5% during the period, up from 65.3% in Q1 2013. Meanwhile average daily rates were up 0.7% in actual dollars to $214.19.

Dubai presents fun-filled events for all age groups this summerAs the temperature rises, Dubai really does turn up the heat with several events to look forward to this summer. With Mickey Mouse and a number of other Disney favourites set to ice skate into the desert, the remarkable city is preparing for their arrival with a Ramadan to remember – including a world premiere exhibition of the world’s most downloaded app, Angry Birds.

Ramadan in Dubai will be celebrated at various venues through June 29 to July 27. A sig-nificant and fascinating period, the city comes to life during the month-long observance of Ramadan, as it hosts a series of events celebrating the very best of local culture and heritage. Special events will include Iftars at Atlantis The Palm Dubai and Ramadan Night Market at Dubai World Trade Centre.

Showcasing the art and sci-ence of the global phenome-non, Angry Birds Universe touches down in Dubai’s fam-ily entertainment destination, Modhesh World, from July 27 to September 8, featuring a ‘body-on’ interactive journey.

Music lovers can look for-ward to the Dubai Music Week from September 17-20, at the

World Trade Centre. Some of the world’s finest and foremost speakers in the field of music will come to Dubai to talk about

how to make it big.For sports fans, the 2014

FIBA U17 World Champion-ship for Men will be held on August 8-16 at the Hamdan Sports Complex. Having begun in 2010, it is a bi-annual sport-ing event inviting the world’s most skilled and talented junior basketball teams to challenge each other on the court.

‘Disney on Ice’ will be held from September 10-13 at the Dubai World Centre mean-while allowing the opportu-nity to meet up with popu-lar Disney characters. These would include classics and the latest hits including The Lit-tle Mermaid, Brave, Tangled

and the Beauty and the Beast. Tickets are available online at www.virginmegastores.ae, priced in five tiers.

Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo too unveiled its latest addition bringing in a special treat for their visitors, one of the world’s largest rep-tiles- King Croc.

“Catering to a mix of East and West, Summer to Sep-tember in Dubai represents an amalgamation of world-renowned music and enter-tainment, along with events to celebrate rich local cul-ture. Combined, these pro-vide an unrivalled destination for summer holiday trav-ellers”, said Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation of Tourism and Commerce Mar-keting (DCTCM).

Starwood Hotels & Resorts eyes Middle East for expansion

Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou announced Egypt’s decision to sell more coastal land in order to attract tour-ism investments from Gulf Cooperation Council states.

Zaazou further stated that Egypt seeks to sell land on a 65 km (40-mile) stretch of the Mediterranean coast near the town of el-Alamein. The gov-ernment wants to finalise the deals with the investors by the end of the summer to increase the number of hotels rooms in the area to 15,000 from

7,000 in five years.“I want to target big com-

panies,” Zaazou said. “I don’t want to mention names, but some of them are Gulf com-panies, and they’re interested. This area is fantastic, it has pure white sand, and you feel like you’re in the Caribbean.”

“Tourist revenue is set to grow to $9 billion this year from $5.8 billion in 2013, Zaazou said. The government is targeting 25 million tourists and $25 billion in revenue by 2020,” he added.

Egypt plans to sell white sand beaches for tourism investment

Jumeirah Group has announced its mega vision to build 4,300 hotel rooms spread over 11 countries glob-ally by 2017, with a dedicated war chest of eight billion Emir-ati dirhams or U.S. $2.2 billion.

The hotels which are cur-rently under construction include hotels and resorts in Guangzhou, Sanya, Hangzhou (two properties) and Macau, Mumbai, Bali, and Bangkok.

The group will soon com-mission Jumeirah Dubai Tow-ers in Doha, Qatar; Jumei-rah Marrakech Golf and Polo Resort in Morocco; and Jumeirah Gamsha Bay Resort, Egypt. Additionally, it will also complete the Madinat Jumei-rah’s final phase of expansion

by 2016. The expansion project comprises a five-star hotel, F&B outlets and a shop-ping mall.

Apart from this Jumeirah Group has also undertaken a deal to manage a luxury hotel in Saint Petersburg in Rus-sia, located within Wavelberg

House, which was built in 1912.Gerald Lawless, President

and CEO of Jumeirah Group, said, “Jumeirah’s hotels and resorts in Dubai have always been so popular with Russian visitors that we are delighted now to be able to bring the brand to Russia itself.”

Jumeirah announces mega expansion of projects by 2017

Emirates connects Brussels with the world via Dubai air portThis September, Belgian capital city of Brussels will be finally connected with Dubai via Emirates and then through Dubai with the rest of the world; thus filling the last of the major gaps in Emir-ates’ European destination network.

Emirates will commence flights from September 5, 2014

onwards using a Boeing B777 in the usual three class config-uration for their daily flights. With this premium passengers can now avail the journey to

Brussels in their accustomed way as Emirates becomes the first Gulf based carrier to actu-ally offer a First Class option on their flights.

The daily service leaves DXB at 07.50 am and reaches Brussels at 1.15 pm while the return flights from BRU will head out at 2.45 pm and land back in Dubai by 11.25 pm.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 22 • middle east

Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) unveiled its latest tourism offer-ing for the ongoing season- Abu Dhabi Summer Season from June 5 till August 31, 2014.

Bejan Dinshaw, Country Manager – India, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Author-ity said, “Abu Dhabi Summer Season is an excellent oppor-tunity to promote the destina-tion among a diverse and large set of Indian target consumers as there’s much more to do in the Emirate this summer. The programme boasts of events ranging from international performances to local sport-ing challenges, mall activations and the best summer deals around for hotels and attrac-tions. I appreciate and wel-come our joint promotion part-ners for joining hands with TCA for this initiative to enhance

Abu Dhabi’s appeal as a family destination.”

Some 18,790 Indians checked into the Emirate’s hotels in April– 35% more than the same month last year. They accounted for 70,835 guest nights, which is up 24% on last year and they stayed, on average for 3.77 nights.

“Abu Dhabi is a very well-known tourist destination among Indians. This year, after

a lot of market research, we are more focussed on our tar-get segments – families, cou-ples, groups etc. We have a sep-arate marketing plan set up for the trade and the consumer. We want to target both as they are equally important for increas-ing footfall into the destination. TCA Abu Dhabi will also up their marketing activities in tier II and III cities in India,” Din-shaw said.

Abu Dhabi Tourism unveils special tourism offerings for the summer

Bahrain plans to revitalise the tourism sectorBahrain’s luxury hotels want to offer the Bahrainis and res-idents, who all are smart card holders, a 20% discount in an attempt to increase the rate of room-occupancy. Assistant Under Secretary for Tourism Shaikh Khalid bin Humood Al-Khalifa has met the repre-sentatives of 55 five and four-star hotels to further discuss about the promotion.

The initiative is known as “I Love my homeland”, which aims at encouraging internal tourism, boost hospitality revenues and promote Bah-rain as a tourism destination.

Meanwhile, Shaikh Kha-lid bin Humood Al-Khalifa has also announced another initiative which includes launching a hospitality and event management degree. The Ministry of Culture will endorse the project along with Bahrain Polytechnic and Finland’s largest busi-ness polytechnic school, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences (Helia). Under the initiative, each hotel will offer at least one Bahraini student a scholar-ship and guarantee him a job on his graduation.

Data released showed that tourist arrivals in Israel took a big leap after last month’s papal visit. “A record-break-ing 32% more Americans arrived in Israel in May

2014 than in May 2013. An increase of 32% is stagger-ing–it’s the largest monthly increase in U.S. tourism to Israel that I can recall,” said Haim Gutin, Consul and Israel Tourism Com-missioner, North and South America. In total, Ameri-can tourists’ visit in Israel increased by 14% for the five-month period, January-May.

“An increase of these pro-portions is proof positive that

the Ministry of Tourism’s U.S. promotional efforts in terms of public relations, marketing, social media and advertising are succeeding,” he added.

On the global front, Israel Tourism officials claimed that the worldwide tourism to Israel was up 17% in May 2014 over May 2013. Central Bureau of Statistics recorded 382,000 visitors entered Israel this May, while 1.5 mil-lion visited between January and May this year.

Israel remains a popu-lar destination for tourists, entertainers, researchers and diplomats alike.

Jordan focuses on tourism sector as visitor arrivals growMinistry of Tourism and Antiq-uities (MTA) released data that from January to March 2014, Jordan attracted 3.1% more single tourists and 4.7% more group arrivals as compared to the same period last year. Tour-ism revenues for the quarter crossed the $1 billion mark, marking a rise of over 11% on corresponding figures for 2013.

The MTA statistics fur-ther indicated that visitor arrival numbers rose signifi-cantly from many Asian coun-tries, such as Pakistan (64.2%), Bangladesh (48.8%), Malaysia (42.2%) and India (13.5%).

New campaigns and proj-ects has been applied to the emerging sectors of medi-cal and religious tourism, to expand the leisure tourism diversely and to tap grow-ing niche markets like con-ferences, exhibitions, yoga, adventure and ecotourism.

The nation has also pro-moted the sectors of ecotour-ism and “volun-tourism” and their related activities, know-ing that the sectors may not generate big revenues, but the positive experiences will encourage trekkers and other younger travellers to return in the future with spouses and children.

Adding to Jordan’s tourism achievements are the recently held first Dead Sea Mud Festi-val and announcement of “the Porto”- a new complex that will include hotels and spas, as well as dedicated shopping, dining and entertainment neighbourhoods, and on-site health facilities designed to attract medical tourists.

Unified visa to be launched soon for GCC touristsThe Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is planning to introduce a unified visa, which will allow the tourists to visit all six mem-ber-countries – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.

“The next meeting of the commission, with members of a consultative committee, will approve the final recommenda-tions, which will then be sub-mitted to the GCC leadership for ratification at the summit in the Qatari capital,” Najeeb Al-Shaamesi, Director General of the Higher Advisory Commis-sion at the GCC.

A study recently investi-gated the economic and tech-nical viability of such a visa and recommended that the GCC summit approves it. Once approved, it would allow a

tourist to use the visa issued in one GCC nation to visit all the others. High-ranking busi-ness leaders and travel and tourism experts welcomed the proposal.

“This will be like a Schen-gen visa that allows a trav-eller to visit most of the

European countries with a sin-gle visa,” said Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, a Shoura Council Member and former Chairman of the Asharqia Chamber. “It is a welcome step and will ease

tourist travel across the region. It will provide a much-needed boost for the tourism industry.”

Israel breaks tourism records during FY’14

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 • 23europe

Polish Tourist Organisa-tion (PTO), the national tour-ism agency of Poland, along with the Poland Convention Bureau, has recently organ-ised a three-city road show in India, conducted in Mumbai, Bengaluru and New Delhi.

“India has a vast popula-tion with an ever increasing disposable income, and this is a huge advantage to any coun-try whose focus is promot-ing tourism. We recognise the importance of this mar-ket and want to position our-selves as a must-visit busi-ness and leisure destination,” Emilia Kubik, Project Leader, Department of Marketing & Planning, PTO said. “The roadshow is a part of PTO’s product marketing and brand-ing campaign, ‘Polska – Come and Find your Story’, and is targeted towards promoting business and leisure tourism.”

Kubik further stated that

Poland is expecting a signif-icant rise in the number of tourist arrivals from India by 2015, which will bring the total number to 100,000 arrivals from Asia.

Kubik also announced the vast potential of Poland in the sector of MICE tour-ism. “Although the coun-try is famous for its heritage and culture, the added infra-structure, including the new upcoming additions – the two multi-functional confer-ence and exposition venues this year, namely ICE Krakow and Expo Krakow in the her-itage city of Krakow, will add a modern edge to the country and help in increasing MICE arrivals,” she said.

With Emirates and Qatar Airways beginning their operations to Warsaw, PTO witnessed a major improve-ment in inbound tourism from India.

Poland focuses on boosting MICE arrivals from India

Bengali movie Bachchan films three songs in Portugal

Indian Director Zoya Akhtar’s film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD), with an ensemble cast was shot in Spain and it showcased the nation so beautifully that ZNMD has now been included as a case study for a course in marketing manage-ment there. The marketing course gives example of Spain as a product and calculates how the film has increased the tourism by 65%.

The movie has been described as a brochure of Spain which gave a boost to tourism in Spain post the release. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara starring Farhan Akthar, Hrithik Roshan, Katrina Kaif, Abhay Deol and Kalki Koechlin was shot in beautiful picturesque regions across Spain and brought the Spanish culture, lifestyle, tra-dition, history and the famous Tomatina festival to India.

Turkey wants to increase air connectivity with India

Dr. Burak Akcapar, Ambas-sador of the Republic of Tur-key has recently arranged

a meeting with Minister of Civil Aviation, P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju.

The Ambassador urged that there is a major need to increase the air connectivity between Turkey and India by increasing the number of flights operating between the two countries. He fur-ther added that connectivity must be provided to different states in India for the promo-tion of trade and tourism. The Minister agreed to look into the matter and further study various issues raised by the Ambassador, and mutually resolve them after detailed discussions.

As Indian cinema has always been a medium of destination awareness and desire, Tur-ismo de Portugal is actively reaching out to the segment to further enhance Portugal’s image as a top-end leisure destination and lure in more tourists.

Recently, Turismo de Por-tugal, along with All Around Globe Services Pvt Ltd and ‘Cinemate’-Portugal’s leading line services company, brings the first ever Bengali (Eastern India) movie, “Bachchan”, to film three of their songs in the beauty of Portugal. The songs were shot in the picturesque city of Lisbon and Porto and shows the natural beauty of Algarve, Aveiro and Ericira.

Amit Jumrani, Producer of the film “Bachchan”, com-mented, “An important thing to know about movie making is to bring new and

unexplored locations around the world to the Indian audi-ence. We are happy to find them here in Portugal.”

Rengarajan Jaiprakash, Director of All Around Globe Services Pvt Ltd, said, “We find Portugal is the most shooting friendly country and people are very happy to welcome us. We find Portu-gal very cost effective and effi-cient to shoot small budget and regional movies. After

the great success of ‘Balupu’ which we shot last year, we managed to get Bachchan to Portugal. With Bachchan we open the gates of Bengali film industry to Portugal. We man-aged to shoot 3 songs (music video) in seven days, thanks to ‘Cinemate’ our local part-ner. We will have many proj-ects coming here in the near future. We look at spend-ing over €100,000 per movie in Portugal”.

New visa scheme to allow Indians to travel between Ireland and UKA joint visa initiative, The Brit-ish Irish Visa Scheme, has been introduced, so that Chinese and Indians can travel to and around the Common Travel Area (CTA) between Ireland and UK on a single Irish or UK visa.

Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald said, “The scheme, which was jointly initiated by the Irish Nat-uralisation and Immigration

Service of her Department and the UK Home Office, will make it easier and more attractive for visitors to visit Ireland and the UK and is expected to provide a major boost to tourism and busi-ness visitors. China and India will be the first to benefit from this groundbreaking scheme and I look forward to the suc-cessful implementation of the new arrangements in respect of

both of those countries.”Tourism Ireland encouraged

this visa initiative. “The launch of the British Irish Visa Scheme is really good news, making it easier than ever for the visitors from emerging tourism markets like China and India to visit the island of Ireland,” said Tour-ism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons. “It is a significant step in help-ing us to grow visitor numbers from these markets – whether they wish to travel to Ireland for sightseeing, golf or as busi-ness tourists.”

“Given that visitors from these markets are travelling a considerable distance, and often want to include more than one destination on their itinerary, it makes sense to make it as easy as possible for them to visit both Ireland and the UK, including Northern Ireland, on a single visa. We will be working closely with our colleagues in VisitBri-tain, to leverage the benefits of the new scheme in both India and China,” Gibbons added.

ZNMD to become a part of Spain’s college syllabus

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 24 • EUROPE

Lufthansa announced the launch of services by its flagship Boeing 747-8 between Mumbai and Frankfurt, making it the third city in India with this fea-ture after Delhi and Bengaluru. Services will be effective from July 15, 2014.

Wolfgang Will, Direc-tor South Asia, Lufthansa, said, “We are very pleased to announce the launch of B747-8 service to Mumbai. The intro-duction of the Queen of the Skies to Mumbai underlines our commitment to provide Indian customers with the best Lufthansa experience world-wide. The B747-8 sets new stan-dards of comfort and efficiency. Our customers will be able to experience Lufthansa’s lat-est in-flight products, such as a sophisticated new Business Class seat featuring a 6.5 feet long full-flat bed with vastly improved sleeping comfort and

greater privacy.”The new B747-8 is to provide

the passengers a maximised in-flight comfort and the best travel experience. Lufthansa’s latest in-flight products, such as the 5 Star ranked First Class, the sophisticated new Business Class and a comfort enhanced Economy Class with 5-7 cms more legroom and 52 cms wide seats has taken the benchmark of comfort to a new level. The

storage area, head space and the in-flight entertainment sys-tem have also been upgraded in all three classes.

The B747-8 builds upon the Boeing 747 series. The signifi-cantly improved aerodynamics of the wings, newly developed wingtips and GEnx-2B engines achieve a 15% improvement in fuel efficiency and CO2 emis-sions per passenger and a 30% reduction in noise emissions.

lufthansa announces daily Mumbai-Frankfurt flight

Denmark promotes Copenhagen through badminton tournamentBadminton Denmark along with Sport Event Denmark, Visit Denmark and Wonder-ful Copenhagen has brought an amazing offer for this year’s BWF World Champi-onship, scheduled to be held in Denmark from August 25-30 at Ballerup Super Arena.

Travellers were given a chance to avail a dream hol-iday to Denmark through a special competition and expe-rience the stunning Copenha-gen and special Danish atmo-sphere. To participate, writers were asked to either write an article about Denmark or The BWF World Championship. After that the writers needed to get the article published in their respective media and also send a copy of the arti-cle to Badminton Denmark- [email protected]. before June 30, 2014.

The winner will receive 2 plane tickets to Copenha-gen, 3 days hotel and tickets for the World Badminton Championships in Den-mark. The announcement of the winner was on July 1, 2014.

Copenhagen, the tour-ist friendly capital of Den-mark is always prepared to welcome guests with open arms. Famous for its rich historical and cultural back-ground, unique Danish cui-sine, eco-friendly environ-ment and lovely people, travellers are bound to have a beautiful and refreshing holiday experience.

Tirol is a federal state in west-ern Austria, where nature and culture are balanced beauti-fully to offer a unique insight into Central European life. Picturesque valleys, rugged rocks and green pastures,

sparkling mountain lakes, and breathtaking glaciers attract over 8 million visitors annually and more than 70 Indian films have been shot in Tirol- the Heart of the Alps.

A magnificent tourism spot in Tirol and one of the most successful attractions in Austria- Swarovski Kristall-welten (Swarovski Crystal Worlds) – is all set to undergo a major expansion venture. The total area of the site will be doubled from the current 3.5 hectares to 7.5 hectares.

Explaining about the expansion plans, Manag-ing Director of D. Swarovski Tourism Services Gmbh, Ste-fan Isser stated, “The exist-ing Giant will be rejuvenated. We will also be creating new

crystalline atmospheres in the exterior area, and in doing so, we will create an exciting symbiosis between the interior and the exterior, between the monitored and the unmonitored, between the

artificial and natural, between the densely packed and the broadly sweeping. We want to carry on being an incom-parable venue for the senses and for surprises, indoors and outdoors, day and night, throughout the year and on special occasions.”

“In particular, the crystal-line park landscape will be more closely geared to fami-lies and children, to comple-ment the underground Cham-bers of Wonder. We want to appeal to the Giant’s young-est visitors, namely children, by offering multi-dimensional play experiences. The Giant will be livelier and more active in future, offering different moments of wonder through-out the year,” he added.

Relais & Châteaux opens 5 new properties worldwide

Celebrating the Relais & Châ-teaux spirit and its values, the group has recently launched 5 new properties worldwide; offering a special and thrilling experience to the guests across five continents. The new prop-erties include Hotel Bevanda (Croatia), Restaurant Agli

Amici (Italy), The Louise (Aus-tralia), Awasi Patagonia (Chile) and Soneva Fushi (Maldives).

The iconic Soneva Fushi in Maldives is an eco-hotel highlighting the ‘Slow Life’ philosophy through its crystal clear waters and captivating coral reefs.

The incredible Awasi Pata-gonia in Chile takes the guests on an adventure of exploring the Sarmiento Lake, the vir-gin forests and the plentiful wildlife.

Meanwhile, The Agli Amici Restaurant, founded in 1887, in Italy celebrates the soul of fine dining and wine along with another branch- The Louise, situated in Barossa Valley, Australia; a legendary wine-growing area with an international reputation.

And finally to enjoy the contemporary Mediterranean art of living and the stunning view of blue sea stretched ahead, Hotel Bevanda in Croatia is a paradise for every tourist.

Hi-tech convention center opens in SwitzerlandA revolution is coming to the sector of convention centers where every architect is try-ing to bring out something which can be easily termed as an art piece rather than sim-ply a meeting place. Switzer-land has joined the list recently with the new $255 million Swiss Tech Convention Center open-ing in Lausanne. The center fea-tures an aggressive knife-edge wedge profile designed like the facets of a diamond. It is situ-ated at the Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL).

“The 1,000-¬ton metallic titan holds a 3,000-seat amphi-theater that is fully modular, and as such, it will become a smart conferencing lab aimed at

developing new tools for shar-ing scientific knowledge,” says Olivier Mathieu, Congress/Meetings Manager at Laus-anne Tourisme. “The Swiss Tech Convention Center is also the first large scale convention hall to use dye-sensitised solar cells, called ‘Grätzel cells,’ [par-tially] developed at EPFL.”

Grätzel cells are used to

convert dye into electricity thus making it less expensive and more flexible than silicon panels. Designed by Richter & Dahl Rocha Architects, based in Buenos Aires and Laus-anne, the Swiss Tech Conven-tion Center is one of the only international convention cen-ters located directly on a large scientific campus.

Swarovski Crystal Worlds in Tirol to undergo massive expansion

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 25 EUROPE •

A perfect destination to spend a luxurious and relaxing vaca-tion with family, Monaco boasts of its principality, beau-tiful weather, rich heritage and culture, sumptuous cuisine, exciting nightlife, rejuvenat-ing spas, beautiful surround-ings, spectacular landscapes and exciting activities like For-mula One Grand Prix, casino gaming, land and water sports.

A dream destination for all the family, whether it’s the chil-dren, teens, adults or old; the principality never fails to make an impression.

Hotels like Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort, Novotel Mon-teCarlo, etc offer luxurious family rooms for a memorable stay. The group can get a pan-oramic view of the tiny yet gor-geous country with a thrilling experience in a flight with Heli-Air Monaco. Monaco also has Azur Express Tourist Train in Monaco-Ville (the Old Town).

Adults can also try their luck in the grand casinos, such as the The Monte Carlo Casino or be in touch with creative side at the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo, an opera and bal-let house.

Both sea-facing Saint-Mar-tin Gardens and the Larvotto Beach are beautiful places to relax. Travellers can also enjoy fine dining in restaurants like Le Vistamar, Cafe de Paris,

Nobu, Yoshi, etc.Monaco houses a num-

ber of museums and aquar-iums, and historical places like Prince’s Palace and Saint Nicholas Cathedral. Fami-lies can also spend a day full of shopping and a rejuvenating spa afterwards at the health spas and beauty centers in Monaco, the most famous one being the Thermes Marins de Monte Carlo.

Monaco offers luxurious family vacation packages

Trafalgar releases special autumn, winter and spring itinerary to EuropeTrafalgar has released some special benefits for the tour-ists who are choosing to travel to Europe and Brit-ain during the idyllic holiday periods of October to March, with the launch of Trafalgar’s 2014/15 autumn, winter and spring itineraries.

All Trafalgar itinerar-ies that will operate during Christmas and New Year will include festive celebrations in it, such as mulled wine, Christmas markets, local cul-tural performances and the scent of freshly baked stollen.

While travelling with Tra-falgar, travellers will get to enjoy exclusive ‘Be My Guest’ dining experiences whereby a local family will host guests at their home and prepare a delicious meal made of local produce.

While on the go travellers may also find themselves receiving some ‘Hidden

Treasures’, such as where to go for the best gelato, or how to visit the home of noted Swedish physician Dr. Axel Munth, known to provide free medical treatment to the poor.

For this off peak season, expect to save up to U.S. $224 per person with their early bird discount of 7.5%. Book prior to August 29, 2014 and by planning ahead save hun-dreds of dollars or more, especially if travelling with a group or family of 5.

The Swiss National Park celebrates Centenary

The Swiss National Park cel-ebrates its 100th anniversary this year. It is the largest pro-tected area of the country, and established in 1914 it is the oldest national park in the Alps. Swiss National Park aimed to keep a piece of Switzerland’s moun-tain landscape and it was left to develop absolutely naturally.

Any changes, if necessary,

in the area has to be the sub-ject of scientific observation and research only. This experi-ment has given rise to one of the most significant “field laborato-ries” in the world providing a unique reference area for scien-tific research.

To mark the milestone, an official ceremony will be held on August 1 in Zernez, which will

be broadcasted all over Switzer-land, and an open-air theatre in Zernez in July and August.

Both packages, including or excluding open-air theatre, consist of 2-7 nights accommo-dation plus breakfast, admis-sion to the National Park Visitor Centre, free use of the moun-tain railways and cableways in the Upper Engadin, 50% dis-count on tickets for the moun-tain railways and cableways in the partner regions- Samnaun and Scuol, and free travel on public transport in the Upper and Lower Engadin, as far as Mals and Nauders.

The open-air theatre can be booked only from July 11 until August 16 and it provides admission to a “Laina Viva” open-air theatre performance.

Manchester transforms into a Smart City to attract touristsTo build a strong tourism base and grab the attention of for-eign travellers, Manchester’s civic, business and cultural leaders have spent the last 15 years modeling an all-encom-passing redevelopment plan to build a ‘smart city’ of the future anchored around one of Europe’s most integrated and innovative urban renewal strategies.

Keeping up with the plans for redevelopment, a massive revit-alisation and land reclamation project, Salford Quays has now become home to MediaCityUK. The self-contained, high-tech hub and media/design commu-nity is situated by the BBC North headquarters and the Univer-sity of Salford. “MediaCityUK

has completely transformed the landscape at Salford Quays, which has both reinvigorated the city’s economy and thrown the spotlight on Manchester as a major international hub for cre-ative industries,” says Anthony Cassidy, International Sales Manager for Visit Manchester.

Manchester’s tourism num-bers are emitting a positive result, with hotel ADR (average daily rate) for March this year going up 13.2% over 2013.

“Manchester defined the urban industrial age, it was the original modern city,” says Cassidy. “In its reinvention as a contemporary metropolis, Manchester continues to break the mold, combining historical importance, award-winning

architecture and rich culture. We are the very definition of the post-industrial city made good.”

Looking ahead, EuroSci-ence named Manchester the European City of Science for 2016, which includes hosting the EuroScience Open Forum 2016—the largest general sci-ence symposium in Europe. Cassidy says, “In the next cou-ple of years we’ll be doing lots of activity around that to pro-mote Manchester as a commer-cial science city.”

Czech Castles exhibition opens in Leh

Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, NN Vohra and Delhi-based ambassador of Czech Republic Miloslav Stasek inaugurated an exhi-bition on “Czech Castles” at Leh Palace. The 87-day exhi-bition will be in Leh until September 7. The exhibition is a part of the Czech Embas-sy’s cultural project, “2014-The year of Czech Culture in India”.

The exhibition showcases stunning pictures of 37 his-torical castles and chateaux of Bohemia and Moravia, which are rich in architec-tural, artistic and historical value.

Appreciating the rich his-tory and cultural wealth of the Czech Republic, NN Vohra said, “India and the Czech Republic had shared excellent relations for

centuries past and hoped that the valuable relations would deepen in the coming years.”

“Ladakh offers a most wonderful opportunity to all visitors and tourists to gain firsthand experience of the centuries old Buddhist culture and traditions, bor-der and adventure tourism along with the added attrac-tion of the unique topograph-ical features of the region,” Vohra added.

The Governor further praised the Ladakh adminis-tration’s decision to relax the Inner Line Permit System and asked the Chairman and councillors of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Devel-opment Council to develop world-class infrastructure including all-weather roads in the entire region to boost the tourism.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 • 26americas

Rio de Janeiro Tourism Board announced that the traditional visits and guided tours to the iconic Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will not be available during the FIFA World Cup 2014, until July 20. Visits and tours will resume on Monday, July 21.

The Maracana Stadium is one of Rio`s most iconic tour-ist spots, well worth a visit, and this tour is quite a good service that showcases the stadium to visitors and talks about this mythical place for footballers.

Maracana stadium: Visits and tours to resume after FIFA World Cup

Royal Caribbean, Coca Cola announce FIFA cruise party

U.S. expects tourism boost due to bipartisan bills

Royal Caribbean has announced a partnership with Coca-Cola to bring the spirit and passion of the 2014 FIFA World Cup games to its cruise ships, with ‘The Coca-Cola Party at Sea’. The party by the cruise line will broadcast the games entirely at the official watch party hosted by Coca-Cola. And the touch of Brazil will be brought onboard by the samba dancers.

Royal Caribbean Inter-national is always focussed on offering the best-in-class entertainment options which will feature match broad-casts in public viewing areas and in-stateroom. Along with that, the guests can also enjoy

additional family activities, Adventure Ocean activities, giveaways and more– free of charge. Limited edition Coca-Cola soccer themed souvenir cups will be available with the purchase of any all-inclusive soda beverage packages.

“Royal Caribbean is proud to partner with The Coca-Cola Company to host their Party at Sea,” said Nick Weir, Vice President, Entertainment, Royal Caribbean Interna-tional. “We know how impor-tant this event is to our guests and we are certain that even casual soccer fans will enjoy the experience of watching the competition onboard our fam-ily of ships.”

Hawaii tourism is looking for-ward to benefit from the three bipartisan bills, introduced to expand public and private travel-promotion efforts and help the U.S. attract millions more inter-national visitors annually.

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) introduced the bills after a committee hearing titled “The State of U.S. Travel and Tourism: Industry Efforts to Attract 100 Million Visitors Annually.”

“The new Honolulu Airport

officers are part of the 2,000 additional CBP officers at air, land and sea ports funded in the fiscal year 2014 omnibus appro-priations bill,” announced Schatz.

“This is great news for our local economy. More CBP offi-cers in our state means faster processing and a better travel experience, which will help attract international visitors to the state and boost our visitor industry,” he added.

Schatz is further planning

to back the Hawaii tourism by introducing his latest policy package, which includes:

• The INVITE Act is a legis-lative effort aiming to improve entry by expanding the Global Entry programme to enable U.S. Customs and Border Protection to process international travel-lers faster.

• The NATIVE Act would make tribes and tribal organ-isations eligible for inclusion in national tourism promotion efforts. It also would provide Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native and American Indian communi-ties with access to resources and technical assistance needed to build sustainable recreational travel and tourism infra-structure and capacity, spur economic development and cre-ate jobs.

• The Explore America Act would potentially provide Pre-serve America Communities like Maui County, Kauai County and Honolulu’s Chinatown additional funding for heritage tourism and preservation.

World’s skinniest, longest theme park in FloridaIn the middle of the Interna-tional Drive in Florida, a mas-sive 400-foot-tall observation wheel is being constructed, while a few blocks north, redevelopment work contin-ues on the Wyndham Orlando Resort. Further developers are planning to build a $200 mil-lion entertainment center,

anchored by the world’s tall-est roller coaster, just across the street from that.

Going along the I-Drive, travellers will reach the new Artegon Marketplace, a $70 million redevelopment project.

Creating hundreds of jobs, these projects, representing

half a billion dollars in spend-ing, will bring bustling activi-ties and tourist arrivals once completed. There are high chances that these projects can radically alter the face of the tourist district and, possi-bly, change its personality.

“There has been a huge resurgence on I-Drive,” said Maria Triscari, who heads the International Drive Resort Area Chamber of Commerce. “It’s amazing everything that’s happening.”

“Potentially, this sort of extends the theme-park expe-rience out onto the Drive,” said Michael Terry, a tour-ism consultant and instruc-tor at UCF’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management. “It makes the ‘stay experience’ more fun.”

The projects may not threaten the popularity of Dis-ney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld, but they could help the corridor become its own destination — the world’s longest, skinniest theme park.

Amtrak plans to offer high-speed Wi-Fi on busiest routeAmtrak has declared its plans to upgrade its on-board Wi-Fi service along the well-travelled Washing-ton to Boston route.

The aim of this initiative is to develop a wireless net-work that provides “a true broadband experience,” which would close coverage gaps and drop restrictions on streaming media and large file downloads.

“We know that our cus-tomers want a consistently reliable and fast on-board Wi-Fi experience – some-thing we cannot guarantee

today on our busiest trains when hundreds of custom-ers want to go online at the same time,” said Amtrak’s Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, Matt Hardison. “We want to make that possible.”

“Amtrak would be far better off pitching this job to Google as a giga-bit-fiber experiment. And, frankly, Google would do well to entertain the idea if it did. Certainly, it would be cheaper than hiring lob-byists in D.C., bankers in N.Y. and recruiters in Cam-bridge,” Hardison added.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 27 americas •

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Com-pany is planning to launch 15 new hotels by 2016, thus taking its global footprint to 100 hotels and resorts. The new range of upcoming hotels by Ritz-Carl-ton promises travellers unique experiences in both established and emerging destinations.

“This prolific period of growth underscores the rising demand for The Ritz-Carlton in additional locations around the world. Travellers are increas-ingly curious and venturing beyond their traditional vaca-tion spots to explore cultural and life-style capitals in Asia, Europe, Middle East and the Americas. In tandem, we have also earmarked the Middle East, Asia, Australasia and the Indian Sub-continent as key develop-ment regions in the post-2016

period to maintain our growth momentum. Given the rising number of visitors and exciting developments in infrastructure, we anticipate strong business and leisure tourism potential in these markets and look forward to keeping up the momentum,” said Bob Kharazmi, Global Operations Officer.

The Ritz-Carlton has prop-erties scheduled to open in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Indo-nesia, and the People’s Repub-lic of China and Panama by 2016. Further, The Ritz-Carlton will add five new hotels in the Asia-Pacific region with further development planned in Malay-sia and India.

Ritz-Carlton to reach global footprint of 100 hotels by 2016

Kuoni launches travel packages under travel brand - Brite Spokes

Kuoni is attracting travellers with customised and detailed itineraries in a budget friendly package under its new travel brand, Brite Spokes.

Mark C Morello, CEO of Brite Spokes, commented, “Brite Spokes experiential vacation packages have been created with current and developing travel trends in mind as well as ongo-ing feedback from our frontline researchers who test-run all of our itineraries to ensure seam-less and exciting vacations.”

“With a millennial mindset comes a travel brand focused

around the kind of trips clients dream about and would plan if they had the time, as well as vacations other people actually want to hear about when travel-lers return home.”

Brite Spokes itineraries cover a vast range of topic and themes, keeping in mind the demand and needs of the tar-geted travellers.

For example, Brite Spokes’ package for fitness fanatics will stress on healthy eating and basic workout routines, along with special Fitness programmes taking place in

beaches of Miami, the canyons of the south-west or farmlands in the north-east U.S.

On the other hand, culinary tourism packages will take the holidaymaker to iconic U.S. cities to experience the best of the culinary and cultural tour. In this case the package can include cooking classes and tastings, historical site and museum tours, and local music performances.

Brite Spokes can also cus-tomise or create an itinerary for MICE planners highlight-ing the teambuilding options.

Three Disney theme parks- Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park at the Disneyland Resort in California, and Magic King-dom Park at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida- have recently organised a fun and frolic event this summer travel season with a contin-uous 24-hour event- a coast-to-coast celebration that invited guests to “Rock Your Disney Side”.

On each coast, guests were encouraged to spend the next 24 hours laughing,

screaming, dancing and embracing their own fun and playful Disney Side.

Disney pirates, prin-cesses, villains and other popular characters stayed in the parks all day and all night, inviting guests to dress up for the occasion, too. Sev-eral guests joined the party dressed in costume, perhaps as their favourite Disney Hero or Villain. The 24-hour celebration of summer also featured much other special entertainment in all three parks.

Two of the world’s busiest airports, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson and Chicago O’Hare recently introduced the bio-metric Automated Passport Control (APC) kiosks. Accord-ing to Maxine Most, Principal at Acuity Market Intelligence, “APC kiosks offer a cost effec-tive and rapidly deployable

means of reducing conges-tion at international arrivals. These announcements reflect a decisive global trend towards expediting international air-port passengers through rapid adoption of automated border control technology.”

According to Acuity Market Intelligence’s latest research ‘The Global Auto-mated Border Control Indus-try Report: Airport eGates and Kiosks’ North American and European airports will drive a global APC Kiosk market of

nearly 8,000 units and more than $550 million in revenues by 2018.

“Currently, less than 400 APC kiosks have been deployed in 13 airports in the U.S. and Canada,” added Most, “APC kiosk numbers will grow rapidly as they migrate glob-ally to Europe, Asia, and the

Middle East. Though North America currently represents 100% of the APC Kiosk mar-ket, by 2018 Europe will dom-inate with 42% market share, while Asia at 24.4% will exceed North America at 16.6%.”

Via APC kiosks, travel-lers can clear their passport control smoothly by entering their own immigration infor-mation. The facility is said to decrease international arrival wait times by as much as 80% for kiosks users and 50% for all passengers.

VIA Rail Canada appoints new President & CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano has been recently appointed as the new President and CEO of VIA Rail Canada Inc. Prior to this, Desjardins-Siciliano was the Corporation’s Chief Corporate & Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary.

“As Directors of VIA Rail Canada, we are delighted that the Government has chosen to lead Canada’s national passen-ger railway, someone whose career demonstrates a breath of experiences and exper-tise, an intimate knowledge of

our largest markets, an abil-ity to develop new value-cre-ation strategies and, a keen

understanding of public policy. He can count on our full sup-port,” said Paul G. Smith, Chair-man of the Board.

“It is an honour and a priv-ilege to be given the opportu-nity to serve in this capacity, I am proud to work with the outstanding people that make VIA Rail, an iconic Canadian brand. The task ahead is to ensure that inter-city passen-ger rail continues to play a key role in the economic pros-perity of Canada,” declared Desjardins-Siciliano.

Disney Parks organise Rock your Disney Side event

Atlanta and Chicago airports introduce biometric APC kiosks

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 28 • americas

Concur, provider of integrated travel and expense manage-ment services, is planning to grab a much bigger share of the $3 billion Indian online travel market. The company has recently negotiated with Sher-palo Ventures and Kleiner Per-kins to acquire additional stake in the Indian online travel startup Cleartrip. Together, Sherpalo and Kleiner had around 25% stake in Cleartrip.

Three years ago, Concur had invested $40 million in Cleartrip, to tap into India’s booming online travel book-ing market.

“Cleartrip continues to

have a strong set of investors (which include Concur) that are aligned in building the best travel experience for all our customers. We continue to grow the business well despite a challenging market environ-ment in both our core India and Middle East operations on the back of very strong perfor-mance, from both our Mobile and Hotel businesses,” said a Cleartrip spokesperson.

Concur plans to delve deeper into the Indian online travel market

CruiseTrends and Cruise Index reports reveal the hottest trends

Yahoo redesigns Yahoo Travel as an immersive digital magazine

CruiseTrends and Cruise Index reports for May 2014 have been released, giving a broad picture of what is in demand currently, includ-ing the top ships, lines and travel dates for premium, lux-ury and river cruising. The CruiseCompete Cruise Index for May 2014 is 148.

Under the sector of Pre-mium/Contemporary, Carni-val Cruise Lines; for Luxury sector, Oceania Cruises; and under River cruising, Viking River Cruises bagged the title of ‘Most Popular Cruise Lines’.

The ‘Most Popular Cruise Ship’ honour went to Allure of the Seas from Premium/Contemporary sector, Queen Mary 2 from Luxury sec-tor and MS AmaPrima from River cruising sector.

Caribbean from Premium/

Contemporary sector and Europe from Luxury and River cruising sector has been named ‘Most Popular Cruise Regions’.

‘Most Popular Cruise Departure Ports’ award went to Fort Lauderdale, Fl. for Pre-mium/Contemporary cruis-ing, Istanbul, Turkey for Lux-ury cruising and Amsterdam, the Netherlands for River cruising.

While under the title of ‘Most Popular Cruise Ports Visited’, names like Cozu-mel, Mexico (Premium/Con-temporary), Santorini, Greece (Luxury) and Vienna, Austria (River) appeared boldly.

Bahamas for Premium/Contemporary, Greece for Luxury and Germany for River cruising stood out for ‘Most Popular Countries Visited’.

Yahoo has recently refur-bished and relaunched Yahoo Travel as an “immersive dig-ital magazine”. The site now contains lots of light and inspirational editorial con-tent, and plenty of sponsored content, including stories and video, along with the tagline- “Feeling Inspired? Book it.”

The booking side has been redesigned for a better expe-rience. While previously it was offered flights, hotels, car rentals cruise and vaca-tion rentals, sometimes dis-played clumsily, the current

site design sticks with just hotels, flights and car rentals for now, at least.

“Yahoo Travel offers the same seamless native adver-tising, with sponsored arti-cles and videos that are just as engaging as the stories around them,” Yahoo com-mented on Yahoo Travel.

Google video about navigating the self-driving cars through city streetsGoogle has released a video teaser about its most intrigu-ing “moonshots”, the driverless car and its ability to manoeu-vre its way through a busy city street. Google claims that it has upgraded the car’s software “so it can detect hundreds of dis-tinct objects simultaneously—pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn.”

In a blog post about the topic, Google announced that its cars

have “logged nearly 700,000 autonomous miles” in total. “We still have more work to do,” Google said, “but it’s fun to see how many situations we can

handle smoothly and naturally.”Google’s driverless car proj-

ect first got its start at Stan-ford in the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge.

Travelocity bags the top position in customer satisfaction surveyJ.D. Power customer satisfac-tion survey revealed that Trav-elocity tops the charts when it comes to satisfying the custom-ers and providing the best expe-rience as an online travel agency.

A total of 2,673 people

participated in the survey and shared their experience of buy-ing a travel product in the last year. J.D. Power measured the end results on protocols, such as whether the site is meeting cus-tomers’ expectations on price,

how well the website met cus-tomer expectations, etc.

On a 1,000-point scale, Trav-elocity scored 804. Expedia.com ranked second at 798 and Book-ing just a point behind with 797. Hotwire and Priceline followed with 795 and 792, respectively. They are followed by Cheap-Tickets.com and, Hotels.com (both 783), Orbitz.com (779) and CheapoAir.com (774).

The survey further stated that customers look to those online travel agencies for a com-petitive price, and mostly they search for hotels and flights while a third of them are look-ing for vacation packages and 31% for rental cars.

St. Petersburg earmarks $700,000 for tourism marketing budgetRick Kriseman, Mayor, St. Petersburg, Florida along with his top staffers intro-duced a detailed report on how they are planning to manage the $216 million oper-ating budget for fiscal year 2015, which begins Oct 1.

“This budget will be a reflection of the city,” Krise-man said. “In it you will see our priorities, and our values.”

The key points of the

reports include an additional $700,000 for marketing the city for tourism, economic development and showcas-ing the area’s arts and culture, salary increment of employ-ees, an $100,000 for business recruitment, an $50,000 for small business assistance, and an additional $350,000 for housing initiatives in the city’s southern neighbourhoods.

The budget report received positive reviews from the

council members as they hope to see a boost in the city’s mar-keting, economic and neigh-bourhood efforts.

“I want to applaud the administration for walking the walk instead of just talk-ing the talk,” council member Charlie Gerdes said. However, Gerdes suggested that some of the $700,000 earmarked for marketing should be shifted towards the economic devel-opment side.

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 • 29AfricA

The three island countries of Southern Africa, namely Mau-ritius, Madagascar, and Sey-chelles, are continuously gain-ing popularity among the travellers. The pristine beaches, beautiful coastlines and the enchanting scenic beauty always rejuvenate the travel-lers who are in search of relax-ation and those who love water adventures, like diving, kayak-ing, jet skiing, motor boating, parasailing, windsurfing or even simply fishing.

Mauritius is home to some of the most popular beaches, such as the Baie du Tamarin, Flic-en Flac, Cap Malheureux, Blue Bay, and the Belle Mare and the famous peninsula-Le Morne Brabant.

On the island of Madagascar, the coral reef along the coastline of Ifaty is nearly 100 km long and forms the ideal setting for a plethora of aquatic sports.

In Seychelles, two beaches that can be singled out among the hundreds of stunning beaches are the perfect tropi-cal paradise beach- Anse Lazio on Praslin Island and the most photographed beach in the world-Anse Source d’ Argent on La Dique Island.

The Regional Tourism Orga-nization of Southern Africa (RETOSA) is a Southern Afri-can Development Community

(SADC) institution respon-sible for tourism growth and development. It works towards increasing the tourist arriv-als through sustainable devel-opment initiatives, improved regional competitiveness, and effective destination market-ing. The organisation func-tions together with Member States’ tourism ministries, tour-ism boards, and private sector partners.

Mauritius, Madagascar, seychelles witness higher tourism demand

South African Airways introduces social check-in featureAfrica’s leading airline, South African Airways (SAA), has introduced a new online check-in feature called Social Check-In. It is a unique method through which pas-sengers can now easily manage an online check-in through their Facebook pro-files. After checking in, the Social Seat Selector allows the guests to view their fel-low guests’ profiles and select seats next to a preferred co-passenger.

Throughout the whole process the guests remain in complete control over the details they want to share and the ones they don’t on their profile.

“South African Airways is known for its highly rated in-flight service including comfortable seating, award winning wines, gourmet cuisine and a wide range of

entertainment. Social Check-In rounds off this experience by allowing passengers to enjoy their journey and expe-rience, seated beside some-one they are comfortable with while also giving them a chance to meet and socialise with like-minded people,” said Sajid Khan, Country Manager – India, South Afri-can Airways.

Social Check-In is avail-able for guests travelling on all flights of South African Air-ways connecting Mumbai to Johannesburg. They can also make use of this feature when travelling on other domestic and international routes cov-ered by the airline.

The Seychelles Tourism & Cul-ture Minister, Alain St.Ange, formally launched the Sey-chelles Tourism Board’s latest offering-“Seychelles: Unex-pected Treasures,” a coffee table book promoting Sey-chelles as a diving destination through a series of stunning photos. Many of these spectac-ular photos were taken on and around the UNESCO World Heritage site of Aldabra.

The man behind the beau-tiful images in the book is the

upcoming professional pho-tographer, Imran Ahmad, famous for his innovative technique.

“This book is a collector’s item and is destined to grace the homes of diving aficiona-dos the world over,” claims co-author Glynn Burridge. “It will do a great job in promoting Seychelles both as a dive des-tination and as a place to visit. It has also given us the idea of producing a similar edition on the destination in general,

using the same approach.”“The book today stands tall

among any collection of dive books. We are proud to have collaborated to bring out such a selling tool for Seychelles. We, of course, thank Imran Ahmad for the use of his most stunning photographs. Today, because of this great coffee table book, more people than ever before can appreciate the underwa-ter world of Seychelles,” added Alain St. Ange, who is also another co-author.

Kenya Tourism undertakes major recovery plansIn order to lure in more inter-national travellers The Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) is court-ing existing, new, and emerg-ing markets. Recently KTB announced that the Magical Kenya Travel Expo will be held on October 8-10, 2014 at the Kenyatta International Con-vention Centre. In this premier international tourism fair, KTB is planning to invite around 150 top-rated buyers from the key markets supporting Kenya’s tourism industry, along with selected international media houses, travel magazines, and travel publications. Around 120 exhibitors are expected to sign up for the event.

Further KTB is all set to spend Sh200 million in the sec-tor’s recovery plans. The plans include a global online repu-tation management campaign where they will push nega-tive press past the second page

in search engines and replace them with positive press for six months.

KTB Managing Director Muriithi Ndegwa stated that the campaign will be run by a UK firm at a cost of Sh10 mil-lion and it will be implemented in markets, such as UK, U.S., Canada, Australia, South

Africa, India, Nigeria, Ghana, Russia, etc.

KTB is planning to make domestic tourism more afford-able and increase domestic tourism’s contribution. Along with that the board is also plan-ning to influence the markets through Kenya’s sportsmen and women.

Indian Ocean Vanilla Islands gets new PresidentThe President of the Regional Council of La Reunion Island, Didier Robert has been elected as the new Pres-ident of the Indian Ocean Vanilla Islands, replacing Alain St. Ange, the Minister of Tourism and Culture of the Seychelles.

Two other candidates apart from Robert were com-peting for the presidential seat- Michael Sik Yuen, the Minister of Tourism and Leisure from Mauritius and Benjamina Ramanantsao, the Minister of Tourism from Madagascar.

Under the rotational pres-idency system, President Didier Robert will pass the responsibilities on to Min-ister Benjamina Ramanant-sao of Madagascar during the Festival Liberte Metisse of La Reunion in December

2014. After that, Minister Michael Sik Yuen of Mauri-tius will become the Presi-dent of the Vanilla Islands in August 2015 during the Cultural & Gastronomic Festival of the Comoros. In May 2016, during the Interna-tional Tourism Fair of Mada-gascar, Comoros will assume the Presidency, and in May 2017, again at the Tour-ism Fair of Madagascar, it will be the turned over to Mayotte to lead the Indian Ocean Vanilla Islands Regional Organization.

New book promotes Seychelles as a diving destination

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 • 30CAribbeAn

Jamaica’s tourism industry is gaining a significant boost and it is expected that this growth will continue to be the case for the rest of 2014 and in future.

Tourism Minister Dr Wyke-ham McNeill has said that the industry is robust and in a healthy situation at the moment. He further added that Jamaica recorded a two percent increase in stopover arrivals for the 2013 winter tourist season and fur-ther projected growth for the summer season. Dr McNeill cited that there is an increase in occupancy rate and average daily rates for the rooms as well.

In 2013, occupancy rates across all categories of accom-modation increased 9.1%, with European visitors being the key reason behind the boost.

“We had a talk with our larg-est tour operator that brings persons to Jamaica and they

are saying the average daily rate of rooms has gone up between 13%- 15%, which is really good news for us,” Dr McNeill stated.

Jamaica has recently held its annual Ocho Rios Jazz Festival from June 8-15, 2014. Attended by renowned international as well as Jamaican and Carib-bean Jazz musicians and art-ists, the event is celebrated with some great music and superb

entertainment.The festival also organises

community concerts, exhibi-tions and boasts of Youth Pro-grams. It has established Jazz Hall of Fame Awards to honour Jamaican and Caribbean musi-cians. The festival also offers the unique cultural cross-fertil-isation of musicians, painters, artistes, Jamaican art & crafts and jazz for the youth.

Jamaica expects significant tourism growth this season

Barbados promotes sports and heritageAbout sports tourism, Adrian Elcock, Chairman, Barbados Tourism Author-ity, strongly stated that the sector is “vital” for Barba-dos’ economy, highlighting the recently held Top Gear Festival and West Indies-England cricket series. He further expects that the upcoming Caribbean Pre-mier League cricket tour-nament will have a “ripple effect” on the economy.

“These sporting events are important on many dif-ferent fronts. You have the short-term benefits as it relates to the employment of temporary persons and the vending opportunities,” he said. “There are also long-term benefits such as the branding that you get out of these events and the media rights. When Barbados is transported on international cameras around the world,

which is almost free pub-licity for Barbados. If struc-tured correctly, it could have untold benefits as it relates to long-term business in the future.”

Meanwhile, according to country’s Tourists Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth, Stephen Lashley, Barbados will soon have much more to offer to the visitors, espe-cially those who are inter-ested in heritage tourism. Barbados’s heritage is stun-ning and already drawing visitors, but more steps must be taken to give the heritage an international promotion, like the designation of His-toric Bridgetown and its Garrison.

“This is going to be some-thing that will grow very well in the future as we continue to move forward with our heritage tourism offerings,” he added.

The Nevis Tourism Authority (NTA) has recently announced the launch of its revamped and fully featured website for tour-ism marketing. The website has been designed to provide the visitors detailed informa-tion about travelling to Nevis. It now features an improved Structure and Navigation, a comprehensive overview of the island, extensive content, and better spacious layout.

The website’s focus is on activities, beaches, dining, ecotourism, sport, accom-modations, transportation options, latest events and cur-rent photographs.

“NevisIsland.com users are engaged and loyal trav-ellers. We listened to the requests of our community and

redesigned our site to provide them with a better online expe-rience. The result is a fresh, new look with streamlined navigation and more travel content. Now users accessing Nevis travel information are able to easily navigate through the expanded rich content,” said NTA, CEO, Greg Phillip.

“In line with the current global efforts to promote tour-ism and increased competi-tion, we want to also showcase the very best of Nevis. Conse-quently, the new website pro-vides information regarding each element that relates to a visitor vacationing with us and gives them with the easi-est way of accessing compre-hensive information about our island,” he added.

British Virgin Islands to set up shark sanctuaryThe British Virgin Islands is constructing a sanctuary for all shark species in its territo-rial waters. Kedrick Pickering, Deputy Premier and Minis-ter for Natural Resources said, “The loss of sharks disrupts the

predator-prey balance, compro-mising the health of oceans and reefs and the survival of other marine creatures. The best way to manage their populations is to let them fulfill their ecological role as apex predators.”

The idea of a sanctuary has been much appreciated by Rich-ard Branson, CEO and Founder of the Virgin Group of Compa-nies, who has been urging the Caribbean governments to introduce protection measures for marine environments, espe-cially for sharks and rays.

Caribbean Tourism Orga-nization announced that The British Virgin Islands marked a growth of 10.7% in stay over arrivals in the January and Feb-ruary. It also welcomed 76,393 total stopover arrivals in Janu-ary and February. Along with that, this year the British Virgin Islands has also witnessed a sig-nificant increase in cruise visi-tors, with a 21.5% boost in 2014 compared to 2013.

Honduras launches Banana Coast cruising in the CaribbeanHonduras, blessed with an extraordinary natural, cultural heritage, national parks, pristine beaches, all-inclusive resorts and magnificent coral reef, is emerg-ing as a must-visit site for every tourist visiting the Caribbean. This year the country launched its Banana Coast operations, the new cruise ship port located in the port of Trujillo, a place rich in history and having much tour-ism potential.

Trujillo has been chosen as the location for this operation because it successfully satis-fies technical requirements and can accommodate the huge Post Panamax-class ships that will be arriving and has a vast rich his-tory as well. Trujillo is the first place where Christopher Colum-bus set foot in the Americas in 1502. It was the scene of battles

between Spaniards and English pirates, and the famous American writer O. Henry spent some parts of his life in Trujillo. Apart from the historical significance, the place is also famous for its white sand beaches, turquoise waters and tropical forests that are part of the second largest forest in the Americas after the Amazon.

As the demand of visiting

Trujillo rises, several cruise lines are scheduled to dock in Trujillo this year bringing with them an estimated 80,000 pas-sengers. Honduras offers three cruise ship ports in the Carib-bean, two of them located on the island of Roatan, a natural para-dise with a stunning marine and equally beautiful picturesque scenic beauty.

Nevis Tourism Authority launches fully featured website

TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST | July 2014 • 31EVENTS

A majority of buyers (aver-age score of 4.36 out of 5) who attended the Thailand Travel Mart (TTM) Plus between June 4-6, 2014, stated that they are extremely satisfied with the outcome. They further added that they are very happy as the event helped them to find the kind of niche products and services they were seek-ing to maintain their competi-tive edge in a rapidly changing trading environment.

Tourism Authority of Thai-land Governor Thawatchai Arunyik thanked all the buy-ers and media who supported the event and completed all their appointments. “Dur-ing these challenging times for Thailand, we need to enjoy the confidence of our many friends and support-ers. We were happy to see such an overwhelmingly pos-itive response and hope that all our foreign guests will go back and spread the word that the situation in Thailand

is normal and safe,” he said.The top five categories of

sellers most sought by buy-ers were Hotels & Resorts followed by Tour Operators/Travel Agents, Weddings & Honeymoons, Ecotourism, Entertainment Venues, and Health & Wellness.

A total of 343 buyers attended the event, which was organised under the theme of “Experience with Us” at Impact Muang Thong Thani Convention and Exhi-bition Centre. Amongst the sellers, the event was attended by representatives of 399 organisations, mark-ing an increase of 1.27% over the TTM Plus 2013. Most sell-ers were from Southern Thai-land and Bangkok (38.48% and 34.18%, respectively), followed by the Northern, Central, Eastern, and North-eastern regions. Sellers from the GMS countries com-prised 4.05% of total number of sellers.

Buyers give TTM Plus 2014 high satisfaction rating

ITB Asia 2014: 93% buyers from 2013 expected to return

WTM 2014 introduces Blogger Speed Networking

The organiser of ITB Asia, Messe Ber-lin (Singapore) will close the registra-tion for this year’s Hosted Buyers pro-gramme on August 4, 2014. Registration for first time buyers looking to apply for the fully hosted programme opens on July 1, 2014.

“Our Hosted Buyers programme has been an integral part of ITB Asia’s ongoing growth and success; helping to bring together the key regional buy-ers and decision makers. Once selected, our hosted buyers are carefully matched to exhibitors using complex algorithms to ensure high-quality and productive meetings during the show,” said Nino Gruettke, Executive Director of ITB Asia.

“The programme has proven increasingly successful year-on-year and continually attracts top quality buy-ers. Interest from MICE and corporate buyers in particular has been strong.

Showcasing over 800 exhibitors from over 70 countries, ITB Asia is the ideal platform to gain insights and generate business leads,” added Gruettke.

In an independent post-ITB Asia 2013 survey, 97% of buyers said that they would recommend the Buyer Pro-gramme to professional colleagues or business partners while 93% indicated that they intend to visit ITB Asia again in 2014.

This year ITB Asia will showcase educational sessions on business travel management. The event will offer the attendees the latest Business Travel Index Report and detailed insights into corporate travel trends for Brazil, Rus-sia, India and China (BRIC).

ITB Asia, the Trade Show for the Asian Travel Market will take place from October 29-31, at Sands Expo and Convention Center, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.

The leading global event for the travel industry, World Travel Market 2014 is introducing Blogger Speed Networking as a further addition to its hugely popu-lar Blogging Programme.

The Blogger Speed Networking ses-sion will further facilitate relationships between bloggers and exhibitors. The event will help exhibitors achieve extra coverage through the world’s leading travel bloggers, while offering those bloggers unrivalled contacts and ideas for articles. The Blogger Speed Net-working session will take place in the A Taste of ILTM at WTM Lounge on November 6.

World Travel Market, Senior Direc-tor, Simon Press, said, “The Blog-ger Speed Networking is a natural

extension, which will significantly help exhibitors improve their return on investment from exhibiting at WTM, by giving them the opportunity to expand the knowledge of their produce around the world.”

Furthermore, WTM 2014 will also host the Family Holiday Association’s annual conference for the first time on November 6. Every year, the char-ity helps more than 2,000 UK families who are in extreme poverty experience a holiday.

“I am delighted WTM is able to host the annual conference of the Family Holiday Association. The charity does great work giving families a holiday they otherwise would not be able to afford,” Press added.

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