Tourism Malaysia, along with Sarawak Tourism Board, invites the Indian outbound travel trade to attend an exclusive webinar on discovering Sarawak – the Gateway to Borneo and the Land of the Hornbills – on May 21, 2024 at 3pm. Participate in the quiz and win exciting prizes! For more information, write to jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or 9650196532.

Demand for travel is strong, says Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General, adding, “That means making urgent progress to resolve supply chain issues and for airports and air traffic management to be fully staffed and operating at maximum efficiency. While airlines are prepared for customer care and assistance when operational issues arise, they are fed-up of bearing the cost when delays and cancellations are the result of poor preparation in other parts of the value chain.”

On 1 May, German taxes on flying increased by 19% to between EUR 15.53 and EUR 70.83 per passenger, depending on the route. The tax will make Germany less competitive in key economic areas such as exports, tourism, and jobs. It will further affect Germany’s air transport recovery from the pandemic, which is one of the slowest in the EU. Germany’s international passenger numbers, for example, are still 20% below pre-pandemic levels.

Speaking about how India’s hospitality sector is leading the charge for sustainability, Pradeep Shetty, President, HRAWI, says, “This shift towards sustainability is driven by the sector’s acknowledgement of its environmental impact. The hospitality industry is responsible for 1-2% of global carbon emissions, a figure expected to rise. Therefore, it has become imperative for hotels and resorts to take action to mitigate their footprint. The sector aims to reduce emissions by 66% per room by 2030 and 90% by 2050 to prevent emissions from surging.”

Speaking about how TCS has affected bookings, Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, Jagsons Travels, says, “Indians in tiered cities are taking frequent holidays now – often twice a year – and they are travelling not just within India but also taking international trips. Therefore, I would say that the much-dreaded TCS has not impacted business, but it has complicated it.” He added that the recovery he was expecting by 2025 was fast-tracked and happened by 2023, and most agencies in these smaller cities have seen this growth. Jagsons has also seen a four-fold jump in FY 2023-2024 in its sales turnover as compared to 2019. One of the reasons is that the number of players in the market have gone down, more people are travelling, plus the overall travel expense has increased by about 40-50%. That also added to its turnover.

The performance of the Indian hotel sector in 2023 mirrored optimism, with key performance indicators witnessing significant growth. The sector closed calendar year 2023 with a nationwide occupancy rate in the range of 63-65%, up 3-5 percentage points (pp) from the previous year and nearly reaching the pre-pandemic level of 65-67% in 2019. The ARR for 2023 reached an impressive INR 7,400-7,600, which surpassed the figures from 2022 by 21-23% and 2019 by 24-26%, highlighting the sector’s ability to push rates driven by the buoyant demand. The growth in average rates helped RevPAR to reach INR 4,662-4,940 in 2023, indicating a significant increase of 29-31% from 2022 and 19-21% in 2019.

According to data by NLB Services, with the continued growth momentum, the tourism sector is all set to add 58.2 million jobs by 2033 throughout the country. Post the pandemic recovery tenure, this was one of the sectors that saw the quickest recovery. Talent demand in tourism recorded a 44% spike in August 2023, and 1.6 million additional jobs were expected to be added within CY 2023. The growing synergy of the sector has led to steadfast employment generation across the country both in Tier I and Tier II locations.

NS Rathor, Chairman, IATO Western Region, says, “We are facing a lot of problems with the cruise guide rates. We have a lot of international cruise liners coming into Mumbai. For cruise passengers we have to negotiate rates locally with Tourist Guides Association (TOGA). They are asking us to pay 15-20% more than the current rate negotiated with TGFI! We have not yet agreed on that. We have offered them 10%. We will discuss this issue with our members and offer TOGA this rate. We hope they will agree with this.”

Feeling relieved, Mahendra Vakharia, Executive Committee Member, Immediate Past President – OTOAI & MD, Pathfinders Holidays, says, “Finally a long pending wish list of both the Indian travel trade as well as the Indian traveller is becoming a reality! This should have been done immediately post Covid to take full advantage of the upsurge in holiday demand to Schengen countries. But as we say, better late than never’! Indian Nationals can now apply for a multiple entry Schengen visa with longer validity.”

According to CAPA India, Delhi Airport is the largest airport in India and one of the ten-largest in the world, handling 74mn passengers in FY2024. The airport has the potential to become a major hub given its extensive terminal and runway infrastructure, well-developed airport hotel capacity, and favourable geographic location. Delhi is an asset of GMR Airports, the longest established and largest private operator in the country by passengers handled, whose portfolio includes four operating airports and one under development in India, as well as overseas projects in Greece, Indonesia and the Philippines.