Tripura Tourism Minister Pranajit Singha Roy said that a MoU will be inked between the state tourism department and Bangladesh tour operators to introduce conducted tours to the neighouring country during the second edition of Indo-Bangla Paryatan Utsav. The three-day tourism event will begin on April 17 and a 75-member strong contingent from Bangladesh will also be there. 

India is planning to issue e-passports to its citizens starting from the financial year 2022-23. Union minister of state for external affairs V Muraleedharan said in the Rajya Sabha. The MoS informed that the e-passport will be a combined paper and electronic passport. It will have an embedded Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip and antenna as an inlay in the back cover. The critical information of the passport will be printed on its data page and stored in the chip as well.

Vinutaa S, Assistant Vice President and Sector Head, ICRA Limited, said, “ICRA expects the hotel industry to clock ~60% of pre-Covid revenues in FY2022, despite almost four months of impact because of Covid 2.0 and Covid 3.0. Further, the industry is also likely to report operating profits in FY2022 aided by improved operating leverage and sustenance of some of the cost-optimisation measures undertaken in FY2021”. 

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal recently said that the services exports has touched an all-time high of around USD 250 billion (about Rs 19 lakh crore) in 2021-22. “We have achieved the USD 250 billion target despite the fact that sectors like tourism and travel was hit by the COVID pandemic” he said at a briefing. The previous highest level was USD 213 bn (Rs 16 lakh cr) in 2019-20.

Suprio Banerjee, Vice President & Sector Head, ICRA recently said, “Domestic passenger traffic for FY2022 is estimated at 84 million, YoY growth of 59%, marginally higher than our estimate of 80-82 million, although it is 40% lower than pre-Covid levels. For March 2022, the average daily departures were at 2,588, higher than the average daily departures of 2,308 in March 2021, and notably higher compared to 2,023 in February 2022. The average number of passengers per flight during March 2022 was at 132, against an average of 135 passengers per flight in February 2022. Elevated ATF prices aggravated by geo-political issues will remain a near-term challenge for the industry and will be a key determinant of profitability for the industry.” 

Tourism Australia has set a target to achieve pre-Covid levels in terms of tourists arriving from India. The tourism agency has lined up a series of campaigns to attract traveller from India and has pinned hopes on the ICC Twenty-20 World Cup scheduled to be held in Australia later this year that would further aid the tourism sector, Tourism Australia Country Manager Nishant Kashikar said.

Union Minister for Tourism, Culture and DONER G. Kishan Reddy inaugurated the Conference of Amrit Samagam. During the inaugural day of the 2 days’ Amrit Samagam Conference,  G. Kishan Reddy also launched the Utsav Portal. The Utsav Portal website, a digital initiative launched with the aim to showcase all the events, festivals and live darshans across India to promote different regions of the country as popular tourist destinations worldwide. 

After a gap of two years, Kerala Tourism organised its first B2B meet in the Spanish capital Madrid and the Italian city of Milan, showcasing a range of its new tourism initiatives and popular destinations before the leading stakeholders of tourism and hospitality industry in the two European cities. Kerala participated in BIT Milan Trade Fair to build confidence in the market and include the state back in the itineraries of tourists from the European continent 

Tourist arrivals in India are expected to be 4.5 Lakh by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics. In the long-term, the India tourist arrivals is projected to trend around 6 lakh in 2023 and 6.5 lakh in 2024. The study further revealed that the tourist arrivals in India averaged 4 lakh from 2000 until 2022, reaching an all-time high of 12 lakh in December 2019 and a record low of 2820 in April 2020. 

According to Expedia® data, August is the cheapest month to fly, with average ticket prices (ATPs) nearly 10% lower compared to July and 5% cheaper than June. While the most expensive day to fly is July 1st, when average ticket prices are 25% higher than average for summer months. Between June and August, the highest ATPs are generally found on Fridays and the cheapest tend to occur on Tuesdays.