Category Archives: Agents

The Globus family of brands – Globus, Cosmos, Monograms and Avalon Waterways – has launched a completely new online travel specialist programme for 2020. Titled Globus Family of Brands University, the specialist programme offers three different courses for Avalon waterways, Globus & Cosmos and Monograms. To encourage and inspire travel agents, Globus family has announced a gift voucher of Rs. 500/- to all the agents who complete the modules successfully before 29 February 2020. Upon successfully finishing the programme, travel agent partners will receive a host of benefits including a Certificate of Completion and getting showcased on the Globus & Cosmos websites as experts. “We have noticed, on average, about 30 per cent increase in sales from agents who have completed our specialist programmes. If an agent or agency is serious about increasing their revenue, specialising in selling the Globus family of brands increases their knowledge of our vacations manifold and makes them extremely profitable,” said Varesh Chopra, Globus family of brands’ Regional Director, India, South Asia & Middle East.

Arabian Travel Market 2020 (ATM) has appointed Nijhawan Group to assist with the process of identifying premium quality hosted buyers from India and the Middle East region. With over 40 years’ experience in India as a leading travel conglomerate, Nijhawan Group has been sourcing hosted buyers since 2017. Commenting on the partnership, Danielle Curtis, Exhibition Direct ME, Arabian Travel Market, said: “With extensive experience of the Indian and Middle Eastern travel markets, Nijhawan Group is the perfect representative to assist with this year’s hosted buyer programme and to help ensure the recruitment of key, quality players from top source markets such as India. Ankush Nijhawan, Managing Director, Nijhawan Group, added: “We are delighted to partner with ATM for the upcoming travel showcase in Dubai. Over the coming months we are committed to ensuring a high standard of quality buyers who will benefit from meeting with sellers in a focused and organised environment.” ATM 2020 will also work with Nijhawan Group to create content on the outbound travel trends emerging from the Indian market ahead of the launch of a new series of buyer forums and networking events at this year’s showcase which will focus on India, as well as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and UAE.

Bus Big Tours, the leading operator of open-top sightseeing bus tours in the world has announced that Los Angeles-based East West Marketing (East/West) will serve as its partner in India. East West will oversee business-to-business development and serve as the in-market sales agency for Big Bus product training and solutions from February 2020. “The Indian market is of major importance to us, and we’re excited to leverage East West Marketing’s vast trade network to expand our presence in India.” Said Omid Golshan, EVP Global Growth, Big Bus Tours. “The Big Bus digital transformation has allowed its trade partners to integrate faster,” said Rati Dhodapkar, CEO, East West Marketing India. “With these new tools and efficiencies, we’ll be able to bring the Big Bus brand to new partners in India and introduce more customers to the great cities of the world through its iconic hop-on, hop-off sightseeing tours. It’s invigorating to launch this new partnership in India.”

Under the Swachh Bharat Mission, the Ministry of Tourism (MOT) has identified 180 tourist sites for organizing Swachhta Action Plan (SAP) activities during the year 2019-20 to create Swachhta Awareness amongst the tourists, students of schools/colleges and stakeholders across the country. Besides, Swachhta Pakhwada and Swachhta-Hi-Seva activities have also been undertaken by MOT at several locations across the country. Facilities like drinking water, toilet, interpretation centre, wi-fi, illumination, ramps, pathways, publication sale counter etc. are provided at the World Heritage and Ticketed monuments. Further, existing facilities are upgraded as per requirement and its up-gradation is a continuous process.

Online travel company MakeMyTrip on Tuesday reported the elevation of Rajesh Magow as the Group Chief Executive Officer while founder Deep Kalra will take up the role of Executive Chairman.“We believe that separating the roles of Group CEO and Executive Chairman will allow us to focus more on long-term strategic opportunities within and outside India, while maintaining our market leading position in our existing businesses,” MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra said.

Elaborating on the series of holidays,  Naveen Kundu, MD, EbixCash, Travel and Holidays says, “With these new offerings, Ebix Cash brings right to the doorstep of every Indian household, aspirational travel to destinations of their choice. Destinations like Europe, Amarica, Africa and Australia, are aspirational not affluent anymore and  we make them affordable. EbixCash, India’s largest financial exchange, is making them affordable, bringing to your doorsteps and available at easy installments. So, I invite you all to Chalo Europe, Chalo Africa, Chalo America and Chalo Australia.”  

Forwardkeys analysis of international departure data has shown that International outbound departures are down 18.5% from India in the period 13th Jan – 25th January vis-à-vis the same period last year. Around Jan 13th the virus outbreak issue started spreading and departures to SE Asia and Hong Kong are most impacted. The 18.5% decline is in comparison to the month of December 2019 where International departures from India saw a 2.5% decline.

Travel Nevada will host a webinar for travel agents on 24th January. For registration and more details on the event, please contact, Ritesh Ahluwalia at ritesh.ahluwalia@buzzindia.in or +91 9818576755. Over 500 agents from across India are expected to participate. Through this, agents will learn about the key highlights of the destination and will be educated on what makes Nevada an ideal destination for Indian tourists.

EbixCash, a fully owned subsidiary of Ebix, has announced a strategic travel technology partnership with Amadeus to grow its footprint across the Asia-Pacific region and UAE and become a one-stop shop for travel. The partnership will provide EbixCash’s online websites, travel agents and corporations in Asia-Pacific and UAE with greater access to the unrivalled breadth of content offered by the Amadeus Travel Platform , enabling EbixCash to better serve its customers. Robin Raina, Chairman of the Board, President & CEO, Ebix, said, “Our vision is to build an end-to-end travel solution for the industry. We want to empower travel agents and travellers alike. EbixCash today is the largest end-to-end financial exchange in the Indian sub-continent, besides its parent company Ebix being the largest insurance exchange in the world. We are always looking for new ways to stay ahead of our competitors. Partnering with Amadeus gives us access to innovative technology that will allow us to further expand our footprint across the region, especially in India, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where we see the greatest potential. Our growth strategy is built on the premise of having an unrivalled ‘phygital’ presence in the region – combining our physical distribution outlets in Southeast Asia with an omnichannel digital presence that allows our seller partners to have access to extensive real-time data and ecommerce solutions across all digital channels. Amadeus’ technology empowers EbixCash to deliver this and truly become a one-stop shop for travel.”  

Indonesia and Maldives expert U & I Holidays has announced that it will soon go online with a dynamic portal. Sharing more details, Ashish Indulkar, Director, U & I Holidays said, “We will start this new decade on a different note. We have been working on our online portal for some time and it is now in pilot stage. It will offer our trade partners faster service and turnaround time, rate parity, and live inventory and quotations. This should be ready by February 2020 and we encourage all our partners to get a login for this.” The company also completes 10 years of operations. It is currently busy conducting a seven-city roadshow in India with its partners from Indonesia.