In a recent webinar, Kimarli Fernando, Chairperson, Sri Lanka Tourism, revealed that the island nation has launched a US$12 (Rs890) mandatory insurance for a policy of US$50,000 (Rs37 lakh) valid up to one month. “We are using this opportunity to shift gears in tourism. Despite COVID, 2021-2030 has been declared as the tourism decade for Sri Lanka and we see this as a time to do things we did not do in the past. We are creating a strategic development plan.”

The Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI) is organising a webinar titled ‘The Great Indian Outdoors at the threshold’ today at 11am. Guest speakers include Dr. V Venu, Additional Chief Secretary, Tourism, Government of Kerala; Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General, Ministry of Tourism; and Brig Ashok Abbey, President, Indian Mountaineering Foundation. The webinar will focus on how the sector can keep up with the growth, and guidelines and regulations that need to be implemented to curb accident rate.

The Indian Railways has recently started two Vistadome train services in Assam and North Bengal. The Vistadome tourist special trains will run between Guwahati and New Haflong in Assam and New Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar Junction in North Bengal. There are jungles, wildlife and tea gardens on the route between NJP and Alipurduar, thus providing a tourist with the opportunity to view the natural beauty of Dooars during their travels.

On his recent visit to Nepal, Sadhguru met Dhananjay Regmi, CEO, Nepal Tourism Board, and shared his experience of Kailash Darshan from Nepal. He said, “Nepal can be Switzerland of Asia for its natural beauty while all kinds of diversities add further value and importance as tourist destination,” and stressed the urgency of earmarking Nepal’s tourism industry as a prioritised sector by the government. Regmi also updated Sadhguru about NTB’s efforts of promoting Nepal in Indian markets as spiritual destination, and the destination for the holistic health of body, mind and soul.

Air Tanzania has announced the resumption of its services between India and Tanzania. The first flight out of DAR was on 30th August, 2021 and return from Mumbai was on 31st August 2021. To start with, this will be a bi-weekly service every Tuesday and Saturday out of Mumbai with convenient departure timings of 05.50 hours arriving in Dar es Salaam at 09.20 hours. It will operate B787-800 new Dreamliner aircraft. Once the situation normalises, the flights are likely to increase to thrice a week.

The Karnataka Chapter of TAAI, in collaboration with the MSME Development Institute, conducted a virtual workshop to educate members about various schemes of Ministry of Micro, SME. This is part of the series initiated by TAAI at pan-India level to educate its members about the benefits and reliefs extended by the Ministry of MSME. Gopinath Rao, Deputy Director, MSME Development Institute, Bengaluru shared various schemes and initiatives of MSME and explained how it can benefit businesses at large. He specifically mentioned the schemes which attendees may avail finance, both at micro and macro levels.

In a recent awareness session conducted on the opening of Sri Lanka for Indian traveller, Sanath Ukwatte, President, The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, said “Sri Lanka is now open for Indians. We are getting about 1,000 requests a day for visas from Indians which is a huge surge.” Indian travellers travelling to Sri Lanka should have the Indian government approved vaccination certificate that is the mandatory guideline issued by Sri Lanka.

Switzerland Tourism will conduct a webinar on Friday, 9th September 2021, focusing on Swiss Travel System (STS), Switzerland’s public transport network. STS offers comfortable, convenient, and scenic travel across Switzerland by rail, bus or boat. This webinar will highlight STS’s various products and services for the Indian market, as well as showcase the hassle-free booking experience of these offerings on RailEurope’s distribution network. To register, contact jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or 9650196532.

Global hotel employee travel program, hotelemployeerate.com, has appointed IndiJo Consulting as its representative in India. IndiJo activities will include market outreach through sales, marketing, and PR initiatives on behalf of hotelemployeerate.com. The programme which offers exclusive hotel employee rates for hoteliers, their friends, and families. With an ever-expanding collection of hotel companies, branded properties and independent hotels around the world joining the Hotel Employee Rate Travel Program, hotels in India signing up can now offer their teams the unique benefit of employee travel rate. Hoteliers in the programme can add up to 10 friends and family. Additionally, hotels benefit with commission-free incremental bookings over low demand periods from its global base of leisure travellers booking through the hotelemployeerate.com travel programme. Joseph Fernandes, CEO, IndiJo Consulting, said, “We are excited to represent Hotel Employee Rate which we believe has the potential to do exceedingly well in India, by offering hotels dual benefit of providing their employee with an additional perk, and at the same time opening up a new platform of attracting leisure guest.” Lara Sidhu, Director Business Development -APAC, Hotel Employee Rate said, “While India is a new market for us, we see immense potential and we’re eager to showcase India’s beautiful hotels and locations on our global platform. As we see travel resume, hotelemployeerate.com will help mitigate the current issues in hotel employee satisfaction and retention rates.”

To say that virtual events will take over is a myth, feels Sandeep Nagpal, VP & Head of Marketing, Cvent India. He says, “Virtual will go hybrid. While physical events will happen, the same events will be viewed by thousands virtually. That is an opportunity both for planners as well as hotels. There are a lot of venues in the world that are transforming themselves into hybrid venues.”