In the APAC region, while Northeast Asia has taken the major brunt of the crisis with bookings being down by 83%, South Asia has been significantly less impacted and most of the countries in the region on an average 50 to 60 per cent behind 2019 levels, reveals ForwardKeys.

Manoj Saraf, MD, Gainwell Travel, has said that the company has been badly hit owing to COVID-19 and the Gainwell Sports division saw a setback with cancellation of ICC T20 World Cup in Australia this year. However, during the lockdown period, they have also tied up with AMITY university and taking online classes for hospitality as well as travel & tourism students, to give them knowledge on selling certain products and how to be employable. Apart from that someone in their company is also teaching Spanish, as learning a new language is an added advantage.

Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), a statutory body under railways ministry, has invited proposal to appoint a consultant to redevelop Bhuj railway station in Gujarat. The station will be redeveloped under public private partnership (PPP) model. The consultant will have to conduct feasibility study, finalize a detailed master planning, urban designing, engineering and preparation of a detailed project report for redevelopment of Bhuj railway station. The last date for applying for participation in the bidding process is 12 August. RLDA is redeveloping 62 stations across the country in cooperation with the government’s smart city project.

The Enterprising Travel Agents Association (ETAA) will conduct an exclusive webinar on July 24 with the Regional Ministry of Tourism Office to demonstrate to its members how they can get a ‘Ministry of Tourism Recognized Service Provider’ stamp. Presentation will be done by Venkatesan Dhattareyan, Regional Director (West & Central India), Indiatourism Mumbai, Ministry of Tourism.

IATA has reported that intra-EU passengers have used many vouchers, issued since mid-March 2020 in lieu of refunds, to pay for travel between 15-Jun-2020 and 15-Jul-2020. Airlines are now incurring the deferred cost of transporting these passengers against limited or zero new revenues. IATA stated, “Whilst the issuance of vouchers helped decelerate cash burn a few weeks ago, their use will now accelerate cash burn in the coming months’. The data is based on IATA’s Billing and Settlement Process, which underestimates the use of vouchers because it does not record vouchers as exchanges in all cases.

Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has set up a single-window clearance mechanism to expedite various investment proposals in the domestic aviation industry. “MoCA has an Investment Clearance Cell (ICC) for prompt assistance and clearance,” the ministry mentioned in a tweet recently. According to MoCA the setting up of the ICC was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in 2020-2021 Union Budget in February this year. The cell was also set up following an order from the Department of Promotion of Industry (DPIT) on July 1 in this regard. The 10-member ICC will be headed by Amber Dubey, Joint Secretary, MoCA. The ICC has been mandated to serve as a single-window system for attracting investment and its terms of reference include accelerating investments, bringing projects to the Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) which require special incentive, policy interventions, expeditious clearances and systematic references, among others, the MoCA order said.

After the recent news of Regional Transport Office (RTO) warning travel agents in Uttar Pradesh to obtain registration licenses within 10 days, Siddharth Yadav from the Assistant RTO (ARTO) Enforcement Office in Lucknow has clarified that this license is required only by those travel agents who are into car and bus rentals. Air ticketing agents do not fall under their purview. Interestingly, registration of travel agents and tour operators is part of the tourism policy passed by Uttar Pradesh but which is yet to see the light of day.

Prahlad Singh Patel, Union Minister of State (I/C) for Tourism & Culture, along with Chief Minister of Gujarat Sh. Vijaybhai Rupanion, joined the inauguration of project ‘Development of Pilgrimage Amenities at Somnath, Gujarat’ under the PRASHAD scheme. Sanctioned under the PRASHAD scheme in March 2017, the project has been successfully completed with the cost of Rs. 45.36 crores. High quality world-class facilities for parking, tourism amenities centre and solid waste management have been developed under the project.

The average lead time, i.e. the number of days between booking date and travel date (how far in advance travellers book their trips), for long- haul travel to South Asia is 73 days, according to ForwardKeys.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) recently organised a one-week online contest to stay connected with Indian social media influencers encouraging them to create a nice video or photo story from their stock of materials of a fond #ThrowbackThailand memory.  Initiated by TAT New Delhi and Mumbai Offices, the contest represented a token of gratitude that TAT wanted to convey to Indian social media influencers. In a normal situation, they would usually travel to various parts of Thailand and share their experiences during the year. But this year, making trips to Thailand has not been possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vachirachai Sirisumpan, Director, TAT New Delhi Office, said the activity was conceptualised with the Millennials in mind, considering that they would be the early travellers once the situation returned to normal. “We would like to thank all participants for joining this online event and keeping the spirit of travel and tourism moving during this challenging period,” he said. Taking place during the last week of May 2020, the online contest attracted over 100 high-quality unique entries, including many top award-winning ones. The contest was a huge success in terms of reaching out to the public through India’s social media influencer community, achieving more than 2.4 million impressions across the country. After a very careful selection process considering both quality and engagement, the winners were picked by the appointed committee. Out of the hundreds of participants, five were selected as Grand Winners and each received a GoPro Hero 8 Sports and Action Camera while 10 were chosen runner-up winners who also received gifts. Cholada Siddhivarn, Director of the TAT Mumbai Office, extended her warmest congratulations and appreciation to all social …