Tag Archives: General Manager

Booking.com has partnered with Air India to offer the airline’s customers access to over 28.9 million accommodation listings, including everything from homes, apartments, villas to world-class hotels and resorts from the Air India website. Stewart Jones, Regional Director – Strategic Partnerships, APAC, Booking.com said, “Air India makes it the perfect partner for us to showcase our global online accommodation offering to their domestic and international customers. As India is poised to become the third largest aviation market by 2020 with its fast-growing outbound travel market, we are happy to combine our strengths with Air India’s to deliver the best travel experience to travellers across the country.” Madhu Mathen, General Manager – Sales and Marketing, Air India said, “Booking.com’s global reach and unique accommodation offerings is a key reason we chose the online accommodation platform as one of our first accommodation partner. As a member of the world’s largest airline alliance – Star Alliance, Air India has passengers that are globe-trotters. Partnering with Booking.com enables us at Air India to provide our customers a broad & unique variety of accommodation options in any city we fly them to.”  

Air France-KLM has appointed Jean-Noel Rault as the new General Manager of the Indian Sub-Continent. Noel, who will assume his office on August 1, 2018, will be responsible for accelerating the growth and strengthening the presence of Air France-KLM in the Indian Sub- Continent. He will also drive the consolidation and extension of the company’s partnerships in the same geography. Prior to being appointed the GM – Indian Sub-Continent, Jean-Noel was heading Air France-KLM’s business in Canada as the Vice President and General Manager. During his assignment he opened two routes, Amsterdam to Edmonton for KLM and Paris to Vancouver for Air France. He also reinforced the company’s joint venture with Delta Airlines and partnership with West Jet. Jean-Noel started his career with KLM in 1987 and joined Air France in 1989. Over three decades of his career, he has held decisive positions as Station Manager, Commercial Director, Country Manager and General manager in Constantine, Bucharest, Prague, Riyadh, Noumea, Abidjan and Montreal. While he was stationed in France, he was assigned the role of Route Manager for the Middle East and Africa, Head of Direct Sales and Services Policy, as well as the Director of Customer Contact Centres and Social Media Servicing. Succeeding Max Smits, who was at the helm of Air France-KLM’s business in the region since 2015, Jean-Noel will be a part of a strong and successful India team that has provided seamless service to its customers and partners.

Kuldeep Bhartee, General Manager (Area Manager – West) ITC Hotels, and General Manager, ITC Maratha, was elected unopposed as the President of Skål International, Bombay Club in its recently-held 62nd Annual General Meeting at the West End Hotel in Mumbai. More than 80 members attended the event. Bhartee gave a presentation on his vision and goals of the club along with the roadmap which lay ahead. He said, “Mumbai has witnessed a tremendous growth in international and domestic tourist arrivals in 2017. This strong momentum is expected to continue in the coming years. Being an elite club, the management committee of the club will rise to the occasion and will work closer with all stakeholders to ensure it benefits every member.” The new Skål Club of Bombay committee members are Kuldeep Bhartee as President, Sunil Chopra as Vice President, Vaibhav Kedia as Vice President, Sunil Acharya as Secretary, Kunal Sampat as Jt Secretary and Arvind Tandon as Treasurer. The Committee Members are Suresh Gulrajani, Rosita Haribal, Jyot Jhaveri, Vinayakk Laud and Sujata Mariwala. The Co-opted Members are Rakesh Marrott and Jason O’Conner.    

Renaissance Hotels, part of Marriott International, has announced the opening of Renaissance Bengaluru Race Course Hotel, the brand’s first hotel in South India and the fourth in line to join the Renaissance Hotels India portfolio. Reinforcing the brand’s global commitment to design, the hotel features horse-inspired design motifs given its locale; setting the stage for guests to experience unconventional travel. “The hospitality sector is moving forward at a very fast pace and India is a strategic growth market for us right now. Bengaluru as a market is witnessing phenomenal growth, its booming tech scene makes it one of the country’s most dynamic cities with exceptional economic growth and strong business activity,” said Neeraj Govil, Area Vice President – South Asia, Marriott International. “With the debut of the Renaissance Bengaluru Race Course Hotel, guests can experience a global, lifestyle hospitality brand that seeks to inspire, and encourages spontaneous discovery when travelling, be it for business or pleasure,” he said. With 276 modern and artfully designed rooms, the Renaissance Bengaluru Race Course Hotel offers an unsurpassed view of the Bangalore Turf Club. “With a distinct effort to present local experiences in an unusual manner, the Renaissance Bengaluru Race Course Hotel will always have that unexpected surprise waiting for its guests.” said Firoz Jangaria, General Manager, Renaissance Bengaluru Race Course Hotel.

Air China and Shandong Airlines has recently organised a summer/autumn product seminar and agency awards ceremony to celebrate partnership with its agents. Highlighting the growth and performance of both the carriers, the event felicitated the airlines’ partners for commendable business output. Talking about stable flight frequency and increased connectivity, Xia Baohui, General Manager-Delhi, Air China said that the company has experienced handsome growth in India while Wang Shuai, General Representative-India, Shandong Airlines briefed about the new routes of the airlines. After the seminar, Air China’s travel partners like MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, Riya Travels, Akbar Travels and others were awarded for their outstanding performance.

Gokulam Grand Hotel & Spa Bangalore has been accepted as a member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts brand that represents more than 700 hotels, resorts, residences, and unique hotel groups across 85 countries as the newest experience available within the Preferred Hotels & Resorts Lifestyle Collection. Baiju Gopalan, Executive Director, says “As we step into one of India’s most dynamic and competitive hospitality/travel markets, we understand that we need strategic partnerships to leverage international travel markets, distribution systems and loyalty programmes. Preferred Hotels and Resorts was the ideal choice for us to go global.” Akash Gupta, General Manager, says, “We are excited to be in Bangalore to take the erstwhile MSR Hotel and Spa with its existing service and brand standards and market recall to newer heights. The hotel has grown from strength to strength, and with the new management team coming in, a new growth phase for the hotel is being charted out. In keeping with the international brand presence the hotel once enjoyed, we have judiciously decided to partner with Preferred Hotels and Resorts to connect with the overseas market. This strategic alliance is the first step for us to initiate and strengthen our brand presence globally, and benefit from the global sales, marketing and distribution network of Preferred Hotels and Resorts.” Gokulam Grand Hotel & Spa has 182 rooms and suites with three F&B outlets, a pool, Sohum Spa and a gym.

To promote the flights to Amsterdam, together with CSIA Mumbai, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has installed an experiential activity at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport targeting the international flyers. The installation is made so thematically that the flyers can have a taste of ‘Mini Amsterdam’ during their transit time and before they board the flight from Mumbai. As Holland is known to be the biking capital of the world, KLM India has installed a cycling activity, which is a nice way for passengers to spend time while waiting to board their flights. The activity also gives a chance to the flyers to win goodies, airline discount vouchers, food coupons and much more. It is communicated via social media and will be live until end of June. From Mumbai, passengers fly on KLM’s latest Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, which has 30 World Business Class seats, 45 Economy Comfort seats and 219 Economy Class seats. Speaking about this activity, Max Smits, General Manager, Air France – KLM, Indian Sub-Continent said, “We are happy to collaborate with MIAL (Mumbai International Airport Limited) regarding this activity to boost the KLM presence out of Mumbai and inspire flyers to choose KLM for travel to Amsterdam and beyond. KLM started its direct service from Mumbai to Amsterdam last year during winter 2017 with three weekly flights. For the winter schedule of 2018, we will be adding another flight making it as four weekly flights from Mumbai.”

Manoj Mathew, General Manager, Vivanta by Taj has been recently elected as the new president of SKAL International Bangalore. He will lead Skal Club for the next two year years and succeeds Rajendra Singh Bhati. Mathew is an established leader in the hospitality space and brings over three decades of professional experience, all of which has been with Taj Hotels, Resorts & Palaces in overseas destinations and in various properties in India. SKAL International Bangalore is a professional organisation of tourism leaders around the world, promoting global tourism and friendship. It is the only international group uniting all branches of the travel and tourism industry. Its members, the industry’s managers and executives, meet at local, national, regional and international levels to ‘Do Business among Friends’. It has over 15,000 members in 83 countries. SKAL International Bangalore will be hosting the SKAL International Asia Congress 2019 in June 2019. Over 200 international delegates are expected to participate in this Congress. It will be a great opportunity to showcase tourism in India especially for Karnataka.

Hahn Air is set to operate a weekly flight from Düsseldorf (DUS) to Palma de Mallorca (PMI) with one of its business jets, a Cessna Citation Sovereign starting May 2018. Flights to the new destination will be scheduled for 19:15 every Friday throughout the 2018 summer season, with the return flight at 16:45 on Sundays. “We’re proud to be adding another European destination with Palma de Mallorca and thereby, offering our passengers another attractive holiday destination,” says Daniel Rudas, General Manager & COO, Hahn Air Lines.  

In an effort to use sports as a communication tool to celebrate the spirit of partnership and healthy competition, Turkish Airlines brought eight travel agencies and 24 players together for its annual bowling tournament in Mumbai. In India, this is the sixth year of the tournament, but is the first ever edition to be held in Mumbai. In addition to Turkish Airlines’ passenger agencies in India, over 1000 agencies and 3000 players from all around the world will participate in the tournament. Ibrahim Hakki Guntay, General Manager – West and South India said, “I would like to thank all of our travel agency partners who made Turkish Airlines Bowling 2018 a huge success in Mumbai. Learning about team members and understanding team dynamics in an engaging manner can go a long way in improving productivity and building relationships beyond work.” This year’s Turkish Airlines Bowling Tournament saw participation from top travel agencies. The team from American Express Global Business Travel- Team GBT won the tournament and will stand a chance to represent India in the Turkish Airlines Bowling Grand Finale to be held in Istanbul. The Champion of the Grand Finale will win a flight ticket and a vacation in Antalya.