Tag Archives: CEO

Saudi Arabia will be extending its e-visa facilities for Indian tourists soon, revealed Fahd Hamidaddin, CEO, Saudi Tourism Authority (STA). Hamidaddin said that Saudi is home for nearly 5 million Indians, and the proposed e-visa facility will help in unlocking the huge potential that exists for Visit Friends & Relatives (VFR) from India to Saudi Arabia. “You can expect the good news soon,” he said. The STA CEO has said that the eVisa has proved to be quite successful for Saudi Arabia and around 5 lakh travellers have used the facility since its introduction to visit the country.

Kapil Kaul, CEO, CAPA India, has suggested that leadership and governance will be essential in making structural changes in tourism. “Since tourism is going to be very dynamic going forward, we may require a specialised Tourism Administrative Service, which has policymakers on the lines of IAS. Since tourism covers so many aspects, unless we have policymakers who specialise in tourism, institutional foundations can’t be fed. There is also a need for a legally empowered tourism council on the lines of GST council, which can comprise of union minister of tourism, state tourism minister, secretaries and all other experts whose job should only be focused on policy and regulatory effectiveness, competitiveness, ease of doing business, financing, education and training,” he recommended.

The first Virtual PATA Travel Mart (PTM) 2020 opened to a massive number of attendees. Addressing them through a virtual message, Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA, said, “Virtual PTM is the perfect place to begin, with Asia Pacific predicted to be the leading force of global tourism recovery from COVID-19, as both inbound destinations as well as robust source markets. As PATA acts as a catalyst for the responsible tourism development to, from and within the Asia Pacific region, we understand that both the public and private sectors must work together in order to build a more resilient, responsible and sustainable global travel and tourism industry, and hopefully Virtual PTM provides such a platform for the industry. In addition, there are buyer-seller meetings where I encourage delegates to take part in various networking opportunities. One can gain further insights into the travel and tourism industry during the PTM forums, quick-fire presentations and group chats. At the 2020 PATA Gold Awards Presentation, we will celebrate, recognise and support outstanding achievements in Asia Pacific travel and tourism.”

Kapil Kaul, CEO, CAPA India, has said that Indian travel and aviation industry can use COVID for structural changes or reforms. “Indian travel and aviation industry must not push for tactical changes, but push for structural changes,” he said at the CAPA India webinar titled ‘Designing a Strategy for the Revival of Indian Inbound, Outbound & Domestic Tourism’.

Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA, has said that travel will never be the same after the COVID crisis. “Some of the protocols that have been devised for travelling now, will not be limited through the crisis, but will carry on afterward as well,” he said while speaking at the PATA India Chapter’s webinar titled ‘Tourism the economic PowerHouse in an evolving landscape’.

PATA India Chapter is all set to conduct its next informative webinar ‘Tourism the economic PowerHouse in an evolving landscape’ will have international speakers –Dr. Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA and Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys. The webinar is aimed at offering a global perspective on the evolution of tourism policy being adopted by various countries, as well as, an analytical view on the reorganisation of global tourism with focus on India & South Asia, Emerging Trends, future opportunities, the new normal business practices and source markets efforts to inspire travellers’ confidence. The webinar promises to be engaging, educational and practical from the perspective of travel professionals and tourism industry stakeholders.

Jyoti Mayal, President, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) and Vice Chairperson, FAITH, met Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, on July 2 and discussed the concerns and challenges faced by the members. Some of the major issues discussed in the meeting were airline refunds; challenges faced to retain employees, their salaries and avoid unemployment in the sector; moratoriums and reliefs to trade due to COVID-19 lockdown and loss of business; allowing accredited travel agents to book Vande Bharat flights for Air India and also informing foreign carriers undertaking such flights to permit the same; revival challenges and long-term facilitation for the trade with airlines; protection of the agents from airline defaults and suspension of services; direction from government to airlines on remuneration for promoting the airlines; direction seeking travel agent corporate credit cards to be used for airline ticketing; reduction of credit card merchant fee by banks to below 0.75% so as to promote Digital India for aviation, travel, tourism and hospitality sectors as a whole. Seeking support from the government, Mayal requested Kant to ensure the same and assist in guiding the trade, enable creation of demand for growth, and opportunities for all travel and tourism-related activities.

Addressing a webinar organised by CAPA India on ‘Reinventing the Airline Business Model in India’, Kapil Kaul, CEO, South Asia, CAPA, said that there is a need to structurally reshape the Indian airline industry – both internally and externally. He also said that post-COVID, the industry may see another round of market exits, this time inflicting more permanent damage on the industry and economy. In the past, the system was largely aware that Kingfisher and Jet Airways were likely to fail, but there was no visible course of correction or action.

Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, CEO, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), has said that after the resumption of flights from Delhi Airport, the percentage of business and Visiting Friends & Relatives (VFR) travel is same as pre-COVID levels. Elaborating further, he said, “According to pre-COVID data, 15-20% of travellers from Delhi were business passengers and 34-35% were VFR, while the balance were passengers travelling for holidays. In the current scenario, we have seen that ‘holidaying’ has been replaced by people who are doing ‘distress travel’, which means those who are stranded are travelling. A good sign is that business travel is back at the percentage level at which it was in the pre-COVID era, and VFR is also back at that level. That shows the confidence that passengers are showing in the SOPs that MoCA has come out with after consulting with all stakeholders.”

The Empowered Group 6 (EG 6) constituted by Government of India and chaired by Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, held a meeting with business leaders from the aviation industry and Ministry of Civil Aviation to discuss possibilities for strengthening operations and augmenting the recovery of the aviation sector under the new normal. The meeting was also attended by Pradeep Singh Kharola, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation; Secretary, Department of Financial Services (DFS), which covers the functioning of banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and the National Pension System; and representatives of airlines such as IndiGo, SpiceJet, GoAir, AirAsia, Vistara and Air India.