July 2011

Outbound 03International 07Aviation 11Transport 13Corporate 15Cover Story 17

India 21Niche 24Hospitality 26Technology 28Monuments 29Food&Beverage 31D

ige

st

Ne

ws

Tra

ve

l

Approving the annual plan out-lay for West Bengal for 2011-12, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahl-uwalia said West Bengal needed to accelerate growth, focus on devel-opment initiatives such as health, education and employment gen-eration, improve social and physi-cal infrastructure, and emphasise on improving revenue generation. Responding to the call, Chief Minis-ter of West Bengal, Mamata Baner-jee, also echoed the sentiments, add-ing that her government would be focusing on faster and inclusive growth on sustainable basis.

Starting from its election

manifesto, Trinamool Congress has shown its intention to make tourism a forerunner of develop-ment. Although the Chief Minis-ter’s comment that Kolkata could be London (Digha could be Goa and Darjeeling could be Switzer-land) has drawn both positive and negative responses from the indus-try, it indicates Banerjee’s recogni-tion that West Bengal has not fully explored its tourism potential.

However, a beginning has been made with a focus on the overall development of North Bengal and the allocation of funds. West Ben-gal Tourism Minister Rachhpal Singh also emphasised recently

that tourism development has been put on a priority mission.

That West Bengal’s geographi-cal diversity almost mirrors that of India’s (except for the desert) could be the primary USP of promoting the state’s tourism potential. Cou-pled with its position as an impor-tant gateway to the North-Eastern region and Sikkim, connectivity with Nepal and Bangladesh, land its eminence as a cultural, educa-tional and medical hub, its tour-ism potential is immense. What is required is a well-planned and integrated strategy and sincere implementation.

New face of tourism in West Bengal

25 new sites in World Heritage List +30

In-room technology +26

Great deals through summer +11

ISSUE

1

Riding on the wings of change, tourism in West Bengal is set to enter a new era of development that promises to make the state one of the most attractive destinations in the country. by Uttara Gangopadhyay

Continued on page 2...

2 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 SPECIAL FEATURE

Showcasing the multifarious attractions, creating awareness of facilities and easing the process of advance bookings, are some important points to start with. An initial plan on the anvil is the development of an informative and user-friendly tourism portal. “One of our foremost tasks is to overhaul the tourism department’s website so that it can provide information and services to both domestic and global travellers. The website will be linked to call centres. Though we will try to make the website exhaustive, each caller is unique and may require more details, which will be provided by the call centre,” Singh said.

The state tourism department is also looking into fi lling the gap of accommodation and day-centre facilities. According to Singh, “The tourism department’s lodges are not always adequate for the num-ber of people travelling. So we are in talks with the various government departments – irrigation, road, forest, public works department, public health engineering, fi sher-ies – to open up their rest houses for day travellers. This will enable accommodation to be freed up, and the departments will also earn considerable revenue. Visitors will get to visit places that they always hoped for but could not, for lack of infrastructure.”

Supporting the state govern-ment’s initiatives is the central government’s tourism ministry. “While tourism is a state subject, we are always ready to help with

directions and guide-lines for e v e r y state,” said S u l t a n A h m e d , Minister of State for Tour-

ism. “As any tourism develop-ment requires the convergence of al least fi ve to six ministries, we have instructed the states to bring various representatives from these departments on board to develop a destination,” he added. Ahmed said he was confi dent West Ben-gal was catching up fast with other states. Already the blueprint for developing areas along the Ganga and Dooars are in the process of being submitted to the Planning Commission by the current govern-ment. “Special development pack-ages are being designed for the Sunderbans and Sagar islands.The state tourism department has been advised by the Centre to seek advice of leading consul-tants, and formulate the Detailed Project Report.

Since West Bengal as a whole is a priority, planning and strategy is being done on a need basis. They include upgradation of present tourist spots as well as identifying new areas. “We will be encourag-ing local private hoteliers to pro-vide clean and comfortable accom-modation in these places. We might consider putting their contacts on our website and may be enable

online booking. We will encourage as well as introduce more half day and full day tours,” adds Singh.

Vishnupur, with a heritage of terracotta art and other arts includ-ing baluchari saris, shell handi-crafts and painted scrolls are being looked at as the new areas of pro-motion. The state government is considering approved homestay facilities that will have quality norms. Visitors will get an oppor-tunity to watch the artists at work from close, and participate in craft workshops.

Rural tourism is being planned for areas like Bankura and Purulia’s forest and tribal belt (Jungle Mahal). The central gov-ernment has advised to keep social and cultural lifestyles of the eth-nic population in view while fram-ing tourism development plans. According to Ahmed, “these areas are ideal for developing rural tour-ism. The department can also con-sider developing tourism parks in places like Santiniketan and Nadia, which are known for their handi-crafts and handloom.” Although sporadic eff orts were made earlier to introduce Ganga Heritage Cruise in South Bengal and Tea-Tourism in North Bengal, the ideas never really caught on with private entrepre-neurs, who cited lack of infrastruc-ture, adequate accommodation and transportation costs as the major drawbacks. Private operators say, it is time the state government does a rethink on these projects.

Kolkata, as the capital of West Bengal, is also the cultural capital of

India, and one of the primary thrust areas for the state tourism depart-ment. Plans are afoot to get the Archaeological Survey of India to declare more of Kolkata’s heritage buildings as protected monuments. Protecting the city’s colonial heri-tage will defi nitely draw connois-seurs of art history, say enthusi-asts. The strand and the river bank along the Ganga (now partly beau-tifi ed with the Millenium Park) is one of the potential attractions that needs a cosmetic uplift. Although there have been enough seminars to promote the golf clubs in Kolkata (the Royal Calcutta Golf Club being the oldest club in the world out-side Great Britain), little has been done by way of global promotions. According to some private spon-sors, the main problem in hosting international class tournaments is the paucity of accommodation and travel facilities to and from these clubs. Besides, there is a big job on hand to dispel the global image of Kolkata as a city of paupers.

The devel-opment of West Bengal as a premier tourist des-tination in the country is a daunt-ing task. “ M a k i n g West Bengal a tourist friendly and attractive state is not unat-tainable and we are going to do it to prove the point,” says Rachhpal Singh.

Continued from cover page

For more on Beautiful Bengalgo to page 17

The SITA/Airline Business Airline IT Trends Survey, an independent poll of senior IT personnel work-ing within the top 200 passen-ger carriers, says airlines carrying 57% of the world’s passenger traf-fi c have reported a real increase in IT and Telecommunications (IT&T) expenditure.

Airlines are ready to spend big on passenger mobile

services and other transformative

technology.“I see IT spend as the

b a r o m -eter of o v e r a l l

air transport industry confi dence. Passenger numbers and revenues are picking up, so we are seeing airlines focus precious investment funds on the areas that really make a strategic diff erence – like IT,” said Paul Coby, Chair of the Board, SITA.

“The air transport industry has been quick to capitalise on the mobile computing evolution which started three years ago with the arrival of the fi rst 3G-enabled smart phones. The number of airlines actively selling tickets on mobile phones has almost doubled from last year and we see clear plans now to off er richer functionality in the form of ticket upgrades and modifi -cations,” added Francesco Violante, SITA CEO.

IT TRENDS - mobile functionality, a key• Passenger mobile service

off erings from airlines are set to explode in the next three years with 91% of responding airlines planning to invest in mobile device-based services for passengers over the next three years.

• 85% of airlines either already sell (33%) or plan to sell (52%) tickets through mobile phones by 2014, and most plan to extend mobile functionality to include ticket modifi cation/upgrades and sales of onboard services. Cloud computing is going to be critical for both IT effi ciency and managing cost.

• Survey respondents spoke of success in pushing more

traffi c and sales through their websites with correspond-ing improvements in ancillary sales and up-selling.

• Airlines continue to increase the proportion of tickets sold via their directly controlled distribution channels.

• 80% of airlines either already have or plan to have some pres-ence on social networks and using social networks for “Pro-motion of products and ser-vices” has the highest level of implementation to date (41%).

Major Observations of the Survey:by Neelam Mathews

Editorial DirectorSanjiv Agarwal

Editorial ConsultantNeelam Mathews

EditorialJune Mukherjee

Dipannita Paul MajumdarDebasree Banerjee

Suranjana Ghosh DastidarMayuri Bhattacharjee

NeelakshiAbhilasha Bahadur

ContributorsUttara Gangopadhyay

Kathakali Jana

DesignSubrata Jana

Debasree BanerjeeAnjan Pal

Tulika SahaHirak Roy

Ritam MaityRanjita Bedi

Marketing

G IbrahimNitesh Ambuj

Tarique IbrahimR Mahesh

Raj Kapoor SinghFatima D’CostaHarsh AgarwalSriram Suresh

Y C AnilArif Siddique

Purbita GhoshTania Das Chowdhury

Pratiksha RajapureRanjeeta Bose

Subhojit ChakrabortyShruti AggarwalGayatri Punetha

Philomena D’SouzaSoumya S Chatterjee

Ishika MukherjeeStarina J DomingoMadhusmita DasSonia Sengupta

Tania DasTulika Paul

Finance

Rajiv AgarwalUma SurekhaSanjeev Gupta

TND is published by:Fairfest Media Ltd.

216A/1, Gautam Nagar, Gulmohar Park,

New Delhi 110 049.

Printed at Anderson House EN-11, Sector V, Salt Lake City,

Kolkata 700091.

Tourism to UK over the last few months has fallen by almost 20-30% as delays in issuing visas were proving to be a deterrent to tourists.

Already there were large num-ber of trip cancellations to the UK as tourists were fed up of waiting for their visa clearances, caus-ing huge losses to travel agents. To avoid such a scenario, travel agents were now suspending trips to the UK altogether.

Travellers, who were ear-lier used to leveraging the cheap flight tickets to the UK and then going on a tour of Europe, were now hard pressed as the delays meant a wait of anything up to two months. According to Ama-rjit Lidder, Chairperson of the Pune chapter of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), sev-eral travellers were now opting to route through Paris instead of the UK. The logistical problems were also prompting tourists to turn to Germany and Switzerland as pre-ferred destinations during the summer months.

Since April 15, visa applica-tions were subject to tighter scru-tiny, resulting in the delay. How-ever, those who had travelled to the UK or Europe in the past three years were not facing these prob-lems as their visas were being approved within two weeks.

Meanwhile, Shireen Mis-try, Head of Communications

and Public Affairs, British Dep-uty High Commission, Mum-bai, claimed that the unprece-dented rush for visas was mainly

responsible for the delay, add-ing that travel should be planned adequately in advance to avoid problems.

UK visa delay affecting tourism

Tibet has been closed to foreign visitors for the second time this year, purportedly to prevent unrest ahead of celebrations marking 90 years since the founding of the rul-ing Communist Party in China.

In the wake of China’s move to enforce the ban until July 26, tour-ism agencies are having to cancel thousands of reservations. Busi-ness is bound to be aff ected as summer is the best time for travel to the autonomous region.

China issued the ban in early June in a bid to prevent riots, mainly blamed on followers of the Dalai Lama, seeking to separate Tibet from China. Moreover, the commu-nist nation is wary of foreigners in its ethnic minority border areas.

Travel agents were disap-pointed as they were having to lose a lot of money, but hoped that the restrictions would be eased in time for important Tibetan festivals in August.

In a bid to capture a larger share of the Indian outbound incen-tive market and leisure travel, the Chamonix Mont Blanc Tour-ist Board is endeavouring to train the travel trade. The Board is try-ing to promote the region as an all year destination. It also wants to tap the rapidly growing FIT and MICE segments in India. With this end in view, the Board recently appointed Avant Garde Consultancy, headed by Sheetal Munshaw, as their representa-tive in India.

Apart from picturesque nat-ural surroundings, Chamonix Mont Blanc, which is a French

Alpine town, is of strategic impor-tance as it is accessible to three key European hubs of France (Paris), Italy (Milan) and Switzer-land (Geneva). As part of its strat-egy to increase visibility in the Indian travel trade, the Board is planning to conduct offl ine train-ing programmes for travel trade in India from August 2011.

“The training programmes will be conducted in Mumbai and Delhi. FAM trips for agents are also on the agenda. Apart from this, we will also be participating in the French Tourism road shows in Mumbai and Delhi in Septem-ber 2011,” Munshaw said.

Tibet ‘closed’ to foreigners till July-end

Chamonix Mont Blanc Tourist Board to capitalise on India outbound growth

OUTBOUND

Thailand promotes itself as wedding destination for Indians

With the affl uent sections increas-ingly opting for exotic foreign locales to conduct their marriages, Thailand is going all out to promote the country as an attractive wedding destination for Indians.

The Tourism Authority of Thai-land (TAT) recently invited 11 wed-ding planners/organisers from various parts of India to visit Bang-kok, Hua Hin and Phuket so that they could experience fi rst-hand

all the facilities being provided by the country. Several hotels show-cased their cuisine, traditional Indian decoration, themes and fl ower arrangements for weddings and other celebrations.

Morever, this year, the TAT will sponsor couples who plan to get married in Thailand in the form of incentives. The first 50 couples will get this enviable offer from September 2011 onwards on

a first-come-first-serve basis.According to one of the wed-

ding planners, the concept of hosting a wedding in a spa resort was extremely unique, and it would lure Indians into hosting marriages in Thailand. Another reason for Thailand’s popularity was its value for money propo-sition and its close proximity to India which make flight options conducive.

India-Africa progressing from traditional allies to business partnersThe recently concluded Africa India Forum Summit in Ethiopia rightly looks to leverage the soft presence of India in Africa, and in the process, lay the foundation for a more productive engagement between the peoples in the com-ing decades.

The emergence of India as an economic powerhouse places the country in an even better position to build on this goodwill and enhance ties. While China’s rapidly expand-ing presence is being watched with apprehension, it is in contrast to India’s benign presence which is not seen as a threat.

As the African continent reju-venates itself, businesses the world over are now looking to tap into its potential. With this objective, the Indian government held the Second

Africa India Forum Summit in Addis Ababa in May 2011. The two-way trade between Africa and India is expected to hit the US $75 billion mark in just four years from US $46 billion at present.

China is also not far behind as it is investing US $50 billion every year in African railways, ports and airports, while almost US $5 billion is being pumped into the African agriculture sector. But China has not been able to generate a high amount of goodwill, unlike Indi-ans, who are being welcomed with open arms.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has even gone on to term the Indian way as an “agenda free approach.” The Indian government had committed a US $5.4 billion line of credit to African countries in its

Delhi summit in 2008, and added another US $5 billion this year.

As regards the private sector, almost 500 Indian companies are already in Africa and some of them have committed to invest over US $4 billion in the continent. Worth noting among those are Bharti Air-tel’s US $10.7 billion acquisition last year of Zain Telecom, and the Tatas, Maruti and Mahindra looking at major expansion plans in Africa.

India is also being promoted as a health tourism destination. Apollo Hospitals is planning to build global health facilities in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. African students are also making a beeline to pursue higher studies. India has promised to raise the existing 3,500 scholar-ships for students from the conti-nent to 13,500.

Egypt Air trying to woo tourists post political unrestIn the wake of the recent politi-cal turmoil in Egypt, which has taken a toll on tourism, Egypt Air has decided to double its baggage allowance for both international and domestic passengers.

Passengers will now be allowed to carry two checked-in bags free of charge on both its international and domestic sectors. The move is part of Egypt’s eff orts to woo back tourists to the country.

The airline suff ered heavy losses following the recent politi-cal unrest as tourists opted to avoid

the entire Middle East due to the lurking uncertainty. Egypt Air is hoping such a unique incentive will encourage people to travel to Egypt, as not many airlines give such baggage allowance.

It is also planning to increase the number of fl ights from Mum-bai to Cairo. Besides improving airline connectivity, both domestic and international, to Cairo, Luxor, Sharm el-Sheikh, Alexandria and Aswan, Egypt Air is off ering other benefi ts for travellers like reason-able airfare.

4 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 OUTBOUND

July 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST 5OUTBOUND

Greece tourism has apparently remained unaff ected despite its eco-nomic woes and widespread discon-tent within the country, the United Nations World Tourism Organiza-tion (UNWTO) has revealed.

As many as 15 million inter-national tourists visited Greece in 2010, thus earning the country close to US$13 billion in tourism receipts. Secretary General of the UNWTO, Taleb Rifai, opined that-tourism could be a vital source of employment and economic growth for the country.

Greece has seen an increase of around 5% in the fi rst four months of the year. Moreover, most Euro-pean countries have now relaxed travel restrictions to the country. The United States and New Zea-land, though, admitted that there

could be some security risk in Greece due to the threat from ter-rorism and civil unrest.

However, austerity programmes in Europe could exert tough eco-nomic pressures in the second half of the year. Overall, the Arab upris-ing, the Japanese tsunami/nuclear disaster and a new ash cloud in the Pacifi c had a cumulative negative impact on travel demand.

To overcome these obstacles, the tourism sector should go for a cost-controlled, product-streamlined, targeted marketing mode, as well as capitalise on the coming economic boom from sustained growth from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) nations. Notwithstanding these bottlenecks, tourism fl ows to Greece are not expected to suf-fer in the long term.

Greece tourism outlook bright despite unrest

Oman Air’s First Class passengers will now get the exclusive privilege of being driven to the Muscat Inter-national Airport in a swanky and stylish Audi A8.

A fl eet of chauff eur-driven Audi A8s will whisk passen-gers from Oman Air’s new First Class airport lounge to their air-craft. The new lounge-to-aircraft

limousine service follows Oman Air’s introduction of First Class cabins to its fl eet in October 2009. These First Class cabins are an epitome of luxury, with just six seats, a lounge area and dedi-cated fl ight attendants, and can even be converted to extra-long fully lie-fl at beds. Other irresist-ible attractions include a huge

23-inch seatback monitor and à la carte dining. The Muscat Interna-tional Airport also boasts brand new First Class and Business Class lounges where passengers can enjoy fi ne dining and compli-mentary massages.

Wattayah Motors is Oman Air’s Offi cial Vehicle Partner off ering the Audi A8 limousine service.

Air Canada is contemplating oper-ating daily fl ights to India by the end of this year, and is looking for suffi cient business travel to justify the route.

The North American country has of late been taking huge inter-est in India, and dozens of Cana-dian companies are poised to move into India. This is testifi ed by the

fact that there were about 20 dif-ferent Canadian tourism events held in India last year.

Presently, Jet Airways oper-ates direct fl ights to Toronto from India. It also fl ies to Edmonton and Vancouver. The national car-rier Air India, however, is not seen as a threat to Air Canada as it is in a fi nancial crisis.

Hong Kong-based outbound travel agents can now heave a sigh of relief as they no longer have to shell out fees refunds to customers from their own pocket in case of reasons beyond their control, such as politi-cal unrest or natural disasters.

The Board of Directors of Hong Kong’s Travel Industry Council (TIC) has ruled that agents will not

be compelled to refund airline, train and cruise booking fees in full to con-sumers on cancellation of package tours if their suppliers refuse to coop-erate. The recent spate of incidents/disasters caused heavy losses to tour agents’ businesses as they were forced to absorb costs after suppliers like airlines, hotels and groundhan-dlers refused to return the money.

Agents lost more than HK$2 mil-lion (US$257,000) in the wake of the political turmoil in Egypt earlier this year as local hotels and groundhan-dlers refused to return the depos-its. Airlines, however, eventually relented and forked out the refunds. In view of the new policy, Hong Kong travellers are now more likely to “avoid unstable countries”.

Air Canada to operate daily flights to India

Hong Kong travel agents not required to refund booking fees

Oman Air’s First Class customers to enjoy new Audi A8 limousine service

Tourism New South Wales (NSW) has organised two new campaigns to popularise Sydney and NSW among wealthy Indian visitors who are now increasingly looking to overseas destinations for holi-day experiences.

Key Indian cities like Mumbai and Delhi are being covered by the campaigns, which comprise both

print advertorial and magazine, while the ‘Quintessential Sydney & Surrounds’ campaign is promoting luxury experiences in Sydney and Surrounds for Indian travellers.

NSW draws more than half (50.2%) of all Indian visitors to Australia. It could be a signif-icant source of revenue for the region. Indian outbound tourism

to Australia, which is set to grow at an average annual rate of 8.9% with the number of visitors reach-ing 318,000 in 2020.

The campaigns have been organised in collaboration with Tourism Australia, Qantas Air-ways, and travel website Make-MyTrip.com, at a cost of AU $85,000.

Tourism NSW comes up with two new campaigns

Birding tourism can emerge as a thriving niche tourism sector in India as the country abounds in rare birds, making it an extremely excit-ing proposition for bird watchers and ornithologists the world over.

India boasts of as many as 1,224 out of the total 9,895 bird species extant in the world, largely due to such a wide variety of habitats within one country, from dense forests to hills and moun-tains, large lakes and grasslands. Realising the business potential of this relatively new area, several speci-alised travel operators have now come up, having in-depth knowledge of the remote forests which abound in rare birds. These tour operators are indeed a blessing to bird enthusiasts as they not only arrange for accommodation there, but also assign knowledgeable and experienced trackers and guides. Being locals, they are very familiar with the roosting and nesting hab-its of these birds. Moreover, some of them can even draw out an elusive species by imitating its call.

One such travel company is the

Kolkata-based East India Birding, that organises tours to the bird-rich forests of north Bengal, Sikkim and the North-east. The company points out that 90% of its clients are Brit-ish while the rest comprise Ger-mans, Swedes, Australians and Americans.

The Northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh is home to more than 450 species. Eaglenest

Wildlife Sanctuary houses Bugun Liocichla, a new species discovered in 2006, which has now become its star attraction. Kaziranga National Park, Dibru-Saikowa Wildlife Sanc-tuary, and Nameri Tiger Reserve in Assam; and the Dirang, Sangti Val-ley, Tawang, Mishmi Hills and Nam-dapha Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh are some of the other hotspots. The East India Birding

organises tours during the birding season from end-October to mid-May, which last 17-21 days, costing between US $100 and US $200 a day.

North India also has rich fl ora and fauna in the reserve forests of Bharatpur, Ranthambhore, Cor-bett and others while the western Himalayas are extremely bird-rich. The Delhi Bird Group claims that it gets around 2,000 foreigners during the birding season which lasts from October to March. Indians have also been taking a lot of interest lately in bird photography.

Gujarat is home to a “critically endangered” bird species called

the Great Indian Bustard. South India has endemic species such as the Nilgiri Wood Pigeon, which is not found elsewhere.

This sector also has large special-ist companies, such as the London-based Bird Quest, which brings in tourists. India has now become so popular in the bird-watching circuit that large number of keen birders from abroad come back frequently to do diff erent routes. To cater to the demand, several “birding” lodges such as Camp Forktail Creek in the Corbett National Park, Northernhay in Madumalai, Junglelore in Pangot, etc. have come up.

India attracting bird-watchers from world over

SOTC has come up with an exclu-sive 7-day Israel package for Israel, off ering travellers a com-plete experience of the Mediter-ranean country, including shop-ping, exploring historically and archaeologically signifi cant sites, and enjoying the lovely beaches and a dazzling nightlife.

The Jewels of Israel holiday package comprises guided tours

to all the important destinations of Caesarea, Haifa, Acco, Rosh Hanikra, Jerusalem, Dead Sea, Eilat, Tel Aviv and Jaff a. A spe-cial attraction of the package is a chance to unwind in the Dead Sea - the lowest health spa in the world. In addition to all this, travellers can experience the sun, beaches, exotic corals and marine life of Eilat, nightlife in Tel Aviv, and the

magical mysteries of Jerusalem.A discount of Rs 25,000 per

family is being off ered on advance booking for the package which includes return airfare, hotel accommodation, extensive sight-seeing and meals as per itinerary, all transfers, travel insurance and services of an SOTC Tour Man-ager. Besides, there are custom-ised tour packages to Israel.

SOTC’s 7-day package to explore Israel

A new Mobile Recharge ser-vice from the stable of Arzoo.com enables travel agents to earn good commissions when they directly recharge their cus-tomer’s mobile phone. The pay-ments can be made from their deposits with Arzoo, or Debit or Credit Cards. Arzoo has tied up with several telecom opera-tors, including Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Aircel, BSNL, TATA Docomo, Uninor and Virgin Mobile, for the service.

Travel agents can earn through mobile recharge

Private hotels near wildlife parks to pay cess

IN BRIEF

Private hotels within 5km of national parks and sanctuar-ies in India will henceforth have to contribute for the upkeep of these wildlife hotspots by pay-ing a cess. The Union Environ-ment Ministry has directed state

governments to decide what per-centage of the annual turnover of the hotels should be charged as cess and notify it by the end of this year. There is also a proposal to ban tourists from core areas of national parks and sanctuaries.

6 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 OUTBOUND

Business event arrivals from Asia to Australia have shown a double-digit percentage increase, with India top-ping the list with a 56% jump.

Maggie White, General Manager South/South East Asia & Gulf Coun-tries, Tourism Australia, termed the business out of South-east Asia as “fabulous”. Singapore registered a

45% rise while China sent 26% more business tourists to Australia last year. Similarly, repeat visitors from the region were a common trend with Singapore being the highest placed among Asian source markets at 84%. Indonesia sent 76% repeat visitors, Malaysia 74%, and Thai-land 63%. Another trend observed

in respect of the South Asian region was as the demographic was shift-ing towards the young, it necessi-tated increased use of social media to reach this generation of travel-ers. Plans are afoot to develop an online ambassador programme for satisfi ed visitors to share their experiences.

Macau is all set to get a brand new slogan and promotional image this year in a bid to turn the destination into a “global centre of tourism and leisure”.

The Macau Government Tourist Offi ce (MGTO) is keen to replace its current ‘A World of Diff erence, the Diff erence is Macau’ jingle and pro-duce a new promotional video and advertisement. The Macau SAR government will work in collabora-tion with the MGTO to make opti-mal use of the region’s tourism and world heritage resources. Mean-while, the number of participants registering at the Macau Business Tourism Center has jumped 130% to 1.2 million as compared to 2009. It also hosted a total of 266 events last year, 31% more than in 2009.

The UK outbound travel mar-ket will take another three years to return to pre-global downturn levels, although the volume of travellers in 2014 will still be 10% less than that generated before the recession in 2008, research released at WTM Vision–London revealed.

As regards revenues, UK outbound receipts in 2014 are expected to hit $38.6 billion, a slight increase from 2008’s $38.4 billion. The UK overseas holidaymaker is now increasingly looking towards value for money deals, signifying a change in mindset post downturn. The outlook for UK outbound departures for 2011 was pegged at 56.2 million, slightly up on 2010’s 56 million, 58.3 million for 2012, the year of the London Olympics, 58.7 million in 2013, and 59.6 million in 2014. The Travel Industry Global Overview predicts UK outbound

departures to plateau at around 60 million in 2015, still consider-ably lower than the 66.9 million recorded in 2008. Turkey, Greece and Spain are set to emerge as the most popular destinations owing to their value for money proposi-tion. Political unrest in the Middle East is driving tourists to choose Turkey while Spain has been off ering heavy discounts to tour operators. Outbound operators, online travel agents and airlines are now resorting to new sales techniques, promotional deals and loyalty schemes to boost business. Moreover, Thomas Cook and TUI -- UK’s two big tour operators – are dishing out all-inclusive deals to attract budget-conscious trav-ellers. Overall, the travel market exuded confi dence that expen-diture will be back within a few years, provided operators get their pricing and product right.

Image makeover

Asian business travellers head Down Under

Rebound by 2014

Lake Kenyir – new wonderThe Terengganu state govern-ment in Malaysia is planning to turn Lake Kenyir, the largest man-made lake in South-East Asia, into a major tourist attraction.

Several three to four-stars hotels are being developed on some of the 340 islands on the lake.

A luxury hotel will also come up on Pulau Poh, linked by a new cable car facility from Pengkalan Gawi jetty. Lake Kenyir drew large num-ber of tourists from Singapore, China and Arab countries, with arrivals increasing from 160,000 in 2009 to 200,000 last year.

INTERNATIONAL

Visitor arrivals to Hong Kong showed an overall upward trend, increasing 20% to 3,357,960 during March this year.

For the January-April period, the total number of arrivals (13,065,931) was 14.4% higher than that recorded during the corresponding period last year. Visitor arrivals from Main-land China increased 28.7% to sur-pass 2.13 million, with both travellers under the Individual Visit Scheme and tour group visa showing a con-sistent growth of 63.2% and 21.1%

respectively. Despite the March 11 earthquake and its aftermath, the decline in arrivals from Japan was only 0.8%, as business travel from the country remained unaff ected by the disaster. Travel sentiment in South Korea also received a boost, thanks to the vigorous promotion of Hong Kong tour products.

In April, South Korean arriv-als went up by 13.8%. Singapore emerged as the best performer from the South-East Asian region, which could be partly attributed to

a strong Singaporean dollar against the Hong Kong dollar. Increased business visits for MICE activi-ties in Hong Kong caused arriv-als from Australia, New Zealand and South Pacifi c to climb up by 9.4%, while those from Europe, Africa and the Middle East rose 8.4%. Russia led the BRIC coun-tries with a growth rate of 73% in April, but overall arrivals from the Middle East dropped 7.7% during the month in the wake of the polit-ical instability.

India, Thailand, Costa Rica and other developing countries are increasingly vying for a bigger share of the estimated US $40 billion Cana-dian medical tourism market.

Increasingly, Canadians are open to travelling abroad to receive med-ical treatments ranging from cos-metic operations to cardiac care, from fertility treatments to den-tal care. According to a Deloitte

National Health Services report, over 60% of Canadians are willing to seek medical services outside their own country provided they are cov-ered by healthcare.

Presently, outbound tourism for medical services from Can-ada comprises 2% of the popula-tion, while the number could reach up to 1.6 million by 2012. Seeking medical care abroad is gaining in

popularity as patients can receive cutting-edge treatment at aff ord-able rates and at the same time enjoy a vacation. In a bid to attract more Canadian medical tourists, a three-day conference was held at the Toronto’s Metro Conven-tion Centre last year, sponsored by Indian private health care com-panies and fi rms that specialise in medical tourism.

Rise in Hong Kong visitor arrivals

Canada medical tourism industry worth US $40 billion

Malaysia’s Sunway Lagoon is now repositioning itself as an events venue for local and global markets, instead of just a theme park.

The destination is all set to drop the words “theme park” from its name as it “gives the perception of a small, one-park

attraction”. Sunway Lagoon CEO Aaron Soo pointed out that it off ers 80 diff erent attrac-tions, including a Wildlife Park, Extreme Park and Scream Park. Upcoming attractions at the park comprise a 5D theatre and a giant water slide.

TAT to trainIn a bid to boost the marketing skills of the tourism industry practitioners across the pub-lic and private sectors as well as grassroot community mem-bers, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will organise a series of training seminars.

At least 1,200 people are expected to participate in 15 seminars, to be organised in both primary and secondary destinations nationwide. These

seminars, except one are free of cost, will cover all aspects of tourism marketing, including online marketing and promo-tion for overseas markets (Korea and the US).

The main objectives of the seminars will be to help tourism stakeholders improve the qual-ity and professionalism of their marketing plans and strategies as well as keep them abreast of the latest trends and innovations.

Bollywood in Thailand?The Tourism Authority of Thai-land (TAT) invited 23 international fi lm industry leaders to familiar-ise them with the landscapes Thai-land off ers for shooting.

Film directors from China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden, the United States and Vietnam were given a comprehensive tour of Thailand. Besides observing the country’s culture and lifestyles

along with natural attractions - mountains, beaches and islands - the fi lm industry leaders were also given an overview of support infrastructure, including lab facil-ities, recording studios and other service providers. International fi lm productions taking place in Thailand, including those of ‘Mis-sion Impossible’ and ‘The Scorpion King 3’, generated revenue, of about US$ 62 million in 2010.

Repositioning Sunway Lagoon

8 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 INTERNATIONAL

Turkey received 2.29 million tour-ists in April this year, a rise of 31% compared to the corresponding period last year, with Germany being the biggest contributor in the growth, followed by Russia, the UK and France.

During January-April 2011, vis-itor numbers rose 21% to 5.96 mil-lion, as compared to the same period in 2010 according to Turkey’s Cul-ture and Tourism Ministry. Last year, 28.632 million tourists visited Turkey, up 5.7% from a year earlier. Meanwhile, the Cornelia Diamond

Golf Resort & Spa is gearing up to host the World Travel Awards 2011, Europe Ceremony, dubbed as ‘The Oscars of the Travel Industry’, on September 2. The luxury resort is located next to the beautiful beach of Iskele Mevkii. Istanbul off ers a confl uence of diff erent continents and cultures, and is carving a name for itself as an international leisure tourism and events destination. It was chosen as the 2010 European Capital of Culture, and also voted ‘Europe’s Leading Destination’ by the World Travel Awards.

Guests who book rooms in Flor-ence (Italy) hotels will now have to shell out more money as city author-ities have declared that an additional accommodation tax will be intro-duced as of July 1 this year, thus fi ll-ing the coff ers of the city council with at least €18 million a year.

People will have to pay an extra

charge of one euro per person, per night, per star of category for up to a maximum number of nights (fi ve has been suggested). Hoteliers will have to collect the tax from the guests. The European Tour Operators Associa-tion (ETOA) says the new tax would hurt the hotel industry, especially at the start of the high season.

Turkey tourism growth

Accommodation tax in Florence will harm business: ETOA

Treat from Czech spa townTo celebrate the 200th anni-versary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s visit to Teplice, visitors to the Czech spa town are being off ered a treat as they can stay in the legendary musi-cian’s room, which has been recently renovated.

Moreover, a newly fur-nished Imperial suite has come up in the Emperor’s Spa, with upscale amenities for the con-venience of tourists. Visitors to the town can also enjoy Spa Wafers and a souvenir of Spa Coff ee made of South and Cen-tral American roasted coff ee beans exclusively for Teplice. Another spa town, Karlovy Vary, is hosting the Old Czech Fair or porcelain celebration. Tourists can rejuvenate them-selves with the ‘Elizabeth’s Bath’ being off ered at this spa. Maria Spa Courtyard, of Mar-ianske Lazne, is also not far behind in its range of treat-ments that employ natural Maria’s gas CO2 and peat.

China grants licencesForeign companies will now be allowed to organise tours for outbound Chinese tourists as Beijing opens up the Chinese outbound tourism market to overseas tour operators.

Initially, three foreign com-panies – TUI from Europe, CITS American Express Travel Services from the US and JTB New Century International Tours from Japan - have been granted licences by the China National Tourism Administra-tion. Earlier, foreign tour opera-tors were allowed to work only in the inbound and domestic travel sector. Outbound busi-ness from China is growing at a much faster pace compared to domestic and inbound trav-els. Spending by the Chinese on international tourism has mul-tiplied four times since 2000, and it stood at US $48 billion last year. It is expected to rise to US $55 billion this year.

Strauss-Kahn’s house attracts touristsThe apartment building in New York, where beleaguered former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was been lodged under house arrest following sexual assault charges, has become a tourist attraction.

The 21-storey Empire Building at 71 Broadway, near Wall Street, remains sur-rounded by a crowd of onlook-ers. Strauss-Kahn was forced to resign as Managing Direc-tor of the IMF after he was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid on May 14 in his US $3,000-a-night suite at the Sofi tel in Manhattan.

Travel to US on the rise

The US travel and tourism market is expected to grow over the next fi ve years as a large number of visitors from China, South Korea and Bra-zil will drive US exports in tourism-related services.

The US Commerce Department has estimated a 6-8% average annual growth in incoming tourists, with 64 million foreign travellers projected to visit the US, spending US $144 billion during their stay this year,

exceeding 2010’s record of US $32 billion spent by international trav-ellers. Chinese visitors to the US will jump by 232% in the next fi ve years, from South Korea by 200%, Brazil will show a 150% rise while trav-ellers from Asia and Oceania are expected to increase by 82%. India also was not far behind in the list with projected growth of 94% from 2010 through 2016. US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke foresees a

bright future for the country’s travel and tourism market, in line with President Barack Obama’s goal of doubling exports, thus supporting millions of American jobs. Under Secretary of Commerce for Inter-national Trade, Francisco Sánchez said at Pow Wow that travel and tourism has been producing a trade surplus every year for more than two decades, and in 2010, it created a US $32 billion trade surplus.

July 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST 9INTERNATIONAL

Visitors to China now have yet another option to choose from - a four-day cruise on the luxury 124-passenger vessel, the Sanctuary MS Yangzi Explorer. This boutique-sized ship has 62 suites with private

balconies. Australian Pacifi c Tour-ing (APT) is off ering a 13-day Impe-rial China package (from US $5,095 pp person twin share), and a Won-ders of China package from Beijing to Shanghai (12 days, from US $4,895).

Luxury cruise on China’s Yangtze river

Europe Suite Sale

Religious package in Greece

APT off ering free Fiji stopoverAustralian Pacifi c Touring (APT) is off ering a free three-night stop-over at Outrigger on the Lagoon on the Coral Coast (Fiji) for guests who book APT’s 21 day Royal Escorted or 24 day Southern Explorer vacations by July 31, 2011. Other attractions include a coun-try home-stay with a local family in Rotorua, a stay at the famous Her-mitage Hotel, a journey across the

Southern Alps aboard the Tran-zAlpine Train and a cruise in the Fiordland National Park. In Aus-tralia guests stay at The Pier One Sebel and also travel on The Ghan railway.

Travellers can now explore the full range of Europe’s majestic

treasures and historic cities from Turkey to the Greek Isles and along the Dalmatian Coast by taking advantage of Seabourn’s ‘Europe Suite Sale’ on 2011 summer and fall departures. Huge savings of 50% or more are on off er if bookings are made by June 30, 2011.

Ovadias Tours has introduced a new religious package for believers - In the Footsteps of St. Paul - priced at approximately US $1,110, avail-able till November, 2011. Guests can also avail an Athens city sightsee-ing tour, and a three-day cruise to the Greek Islands and Turkey.

Discounts by Discover France Discover France Adventures has now extended group discounts on self-guided cycling tours to groups of four or more. Earlier, these

discounts were only available to groups of 10 or more. The off er is valid for bookings through Octo-ber 31 for the 2011 season only.

LOOK AND SELLGrand Voyages Regent Seven Seas Cruises has

launched the ‘Grand Voyages’ for 2012 to cater to the escalating demand for extended sailings in Europe and South America. The itinerary is: Northern Odyssey, 29 nights, London to Stockholm, departs June 3, 2012; Latin Sojourn, 27 nights, Monte Carlo to Buenos Aires, departs Nov. 9, 2012. Fares begin at US $10,799 per guest.

10 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 INTERNATIONAL

Air India is likely to meet all dead-lines to join Star Alliance, a global consortium of airlines, by July 31.

The national carrier’s formal entry into the 27-member alli-ance has already been delayed by over two years. It has lost out on enhanced revenues that such an

alliance generates for member air-lines, despite paying an estimated joining fee of €10 million to the alliance.

To take stock of the progress made by Air India to join the inter-national airlines’ network, Govern-ment of India and Ministry of Civil

Aviation offi cials are soon sched-uled to meet Star Alliance and AI representatives. Meanwhile, rival Kingfi sher Airlines has already started integrating with oneworld, while Jet Airways is expected to announce its entry to the Star Alli-ance after Air India.

As the Indian holiday and busi-ness travel market is burgeoning, airlines have come up with incen-tives to woo vacationers, business travellers and students.

Desperate to boost passen-ger confidence that has dipped to an all-time low, national car-rier Air India is now offering a discount of 10% if the tickets are booked in India. With increas-ing Indian students looking to pursue higher studies, British Airways is tapping the market with special offers. Till Novem-ber 15, all students flying British Airways will get a Matrix SIM card with free talk time. They will also be allowed to carry an extra piece of luggage weighing up to 23 kg.

Emirates Airlines is targeting

family vacationers with a 50% discount on fares for up to two children under 12 years. Infants can avail three nights of free stay and meals in Dubai. There are freebies on offer for business flyers too as First and Business class travellers can enjoy one night free stay at a deluxe hotel in Dubai. Several hotels have tied up with Emirates Airlines for these offers.

For nature and wildlife lovers, Gulf’s low cost carrier, Air Arabia, is offering a wildlife safari pack-age to Kenya, starting from Rs 49,500 per person on twin shar-ing from six cities in India. Etihad Airways, also keen to spread its loyalty base, is offering free flights and upgrades, and tying up with online rewards shops.

Great deals through summer

Star entry for AI

Budget airline IndiGo plans to start international operations to Dubai, Bangkok and Singapore from Sep-tember 1 this year at a promotional return fare of Rs 9,999.

The low-cost carrier will launch its Delhi-Dubai fl ight on Septem-ber 1, followed by a Delhi-Bang-kok fl ight on September 8 and a Delhi-Singapore fl ight from Sep-tember 15. Mumbai will also be connected to Bangkok and Dubai from October 2. The introductory promotional fare will be valid only for the fi rst 25,000 seats. But

IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh claimed that even when these low-fare seats get exhausted, the airline will continue to price itself 25-40% lower than full-service car-riers (FSCs) on these routes. About 8-9 aircraft will be deployed to ser-vice these routes. Besides, the air-line plans to expand its fl eet to 60 aircraft by December 2012 from 39. Competition for other carriers such as Air India and Jet Airways on short-haul routes is likely to intensify following IndiGo’s foray into international routes.

Low cost international flights by Indigo

AVIATION

Emirates mobile check-in facility

Small partner with giantsEmirates cus-tomers can now get a mobile board-ing pass on their internet-enabled mobile device for upto 24 hours in advance. To avail online check-in facility through their mobiles, passengers can log on to www.emirates.com and receive a bar-coded boarding pass on their internet-enabled phone. The mobile boarding pass can be scanned and read directly at all check-in counters, airport secu-rity check points, Dubai immi-gration, Emirates First Class and Business Class lounges, and boarding gates.

Private non-scheduled airlines will now be allowed to enter into market-ing alliance and passenger booking partnership with scheduled airlines, thus enabling them to code-share with big carriers such as Jet Airways and Kingfi sher Airlines.

The government has taken this decision in a bid to bring several smaller cities and tourist spots in the country on the aviation map. The move is also expected to improve connectivity to remote areas. Both parties would be gainers as per the understanding as non-sched-uled airlines can expand their net-work while scheduled carriers can provide seamless connectivity to their passengers. Nearly 120 non-scheduled airlines, including Air One and Span Air, can now publish their fl ight schedules. These airlines operate a fl eet of 350 smaller aircraft as well as helicopters.

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) will be joining the oneworld alliance in late 2012.

MAS was unanimously elected oneworld member designate by the Chief Executives of the alliance’s member airlines at a meeting on the sidelines of IATA’s 2011 World Air Transport Summit. After the Kuala

Lumpur-based carrier formally joins the alliance, oneworld’s global coverage will expand to almost 950 destinations in 150 countries, served by a combined fl eet of over 2,600 planes carrying 358 million passen-gers a year. India’s Kingfi sher Air-lines is also expected to join the alli-ance early next year.

Air China owned –Shenzhen Airlines has signed a prelim-inary agreement to enter Star Alliance in Shenzhen. Shenzhen is China’s fourth largest carrier. Air China formally joined Star the same time as Shanghai Air-lines at the end of 2007, but termi-nated its membership last Octo-ber following its merger with China Eastern Airlines that for-mally joined the SkyTeam airline alliance last week.

Eight Indian community asso-ciations in Ras Al Khaimah say they will boycott Air India, dur-ing the summer holiday season, if their demands for more daily fl ights to India are not met.

There are over 450,000 Indi-ans living in Ras Al Khaimah and the limited number of fl ights to Indian cities leads them to travel by road to Sharjah, Dubai or Abu Dhabi, they say.

Presently, only one daily fl ight operates from Ras Al Khaimah to India. It is not clear how the boycott will take place.

Malaysia Airlines gears up to join oneworld alliance

Shenzen to join Star

Ras Al Khaimah calls for more fl ights

Gulf Air introduces new check-in systemGulf Air fl yers can now avail reservation ser-vices, booking, e-tick-eting and web check-in procedures online with the help of the airline’s new Advanced Check-in System International (ACSI). The service is also aimed at enhancing the airlines’ ease of use as it fully supports check-in, boarding and load control functions, and off ers enhanced passen-ger recognition facilities.

Customers can now log in from their home or offi ce or on the move and enjoy a variety of value added services such as automatic fl ow of seat prefer-ences, special service request, travel document information

and onward journey details. The ACSI system is already in place in eight Gulf Air destinations - Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Frank-furt, Istanbul, London, Mum-bai, Muscat and Paris - and will be introduced progressively in other stations soon.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Virgin Australia are all set to enter into a long-term alli-ance which will enable the two airlines to code-share on each other’s international and domes-tic flights and offer reciprocal frequent flyer programme bene-fits and lounge access.

From August 1, SIA custom-ers will be able to interline on Virgin Australia’s domestic net-work, allowing them to travel to a range of destinations with just one ticket, through-checked baggage, terminal transfers and inclusive of meals. Virgin CEO John Bor-ghetti termed the partnership with SIA “a huge step for us” and “a game changer”.

John Borghetti (R), CEO of Virgin Australia, and Goh Choon Phong (L), CEO of Singapore Airlines

Virgin and SIA to enter into long-term alliance

12 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 AVIATION

Rail Europe has announced its expansion into Asia with the opening of its fl agship retail outlet in Hong Kong.

A huge number of Asian tour-ists, especially university students and younger travellers, were inter-ested in exploring Europe by train.

Bookings in Hong Kong were up by 48% from January to April this year. Rail Europe also plans to develop the Hong Kong store as a model and reference for its other regional mar-kets. The outlet has been set up in collaboration with Sincerity Travel, a local agent for train travel.

Rail Europe opens retail outlet in Hong Kong

Pricol Travel has forayed into the cruise-cum-leisure segment with the launch of a Cruise Bay lounge, the sixth interactive lounge in India at Banjara Hills in Hyderabad.

As part of its expansion plans, Pri-col Travel also intends to open bou-tique hotels, wilderness lodges and luxury villas in diff erent locations in South India. Accordingly, eight new uber luxury properties would come under the Tamara brand at various

places such as Rameshwaram, Tan-jore and Ootacamund, which could be ideal family getaways. The com-pany will invest Rs 75 crore to develop the Tamara brand. The lounge would sell cruises for 28 cruise liners from across the world. The corporate travel management service provider is also hosting special-interest holidays like the Oktoberfest, Mardi Gras, The Scottish Whiskey Trail and Castles of Scotland itineraries. According

to Pricol Travel Director Vikram Mohan, the company was getting huge response from corporates and individual families for cruise vaca-tions, as cruises cost less than com-parable land vacations. In addition, the company plans to acquire two fi rms in corporate and leisure travel over the next 24 months, valued at Rs 150 crore. With these acquisi-tions, Pricol will expand its opera-tions to North India.

Leading online bus tickets brand redBus has announced that it has crossed the four million seats this May 2011.

The bus-ticketing brand, owned by Pilani Soft Labs, clocked over Rs 116.8 crore in gross bookings in the year 2010 – 2011. It is now looking to expand its customer base and is adding unique features in order to establish diff erentiation and con-venience. The company claimed a phenomenal growth rate of 4823%

in 2010. redBus has made the pro-cess of bus-ticketing more conve-nient and reliable by providing sev-eral unique features such as user ratings of bus services, pictures and videos of buses, cash-on-deliv-ery, simple and user-friendly inter-face, paperless ticketing enabled on its site through mTickets, the avail-ability of multiple seat layouts on one page making comparisons easy, and the largest available inventory put forth to customers.

With a view to tap the business potential of the still nascent cruise tourism sector in India, Parliament is all set to clear the India Cruise Tourism Policy this year.

A slew of initiatives will be announced, which will help to develop the support infrastructure for cruise services, on both overseas tours and inland waterways. Nikhil

Thakurdas, Director, CruiseBay, pointed out that presently, a huge number of Indian travellers were opting for cruises in other coun-tries, especially Singapore and Hong Kong. However, once the cruise tour-ism sector in India is properly devel-oped, it could be a lucrative proposi-tion. For this purpose, it is essential to develop infrastructure similar to

international airports. The govern-ment has recognised the potential of this sector and accordingly iden-tifi ed Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore, Kochi and Tuticorin to promote Cruise Tourism. Inland cruise ser-vices between Mandovi and Zuari in Goa, on river Brahmaputra in Assam and Hooghly river in West Bengal could also be started.

Pricol to go for two acquisitions

The All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC) has demanded complete rollback of the recent diesel price hike, and threatened to launch an indefi nite strike if the government failed to do so.

The AIMTC has termed the government’s decision to raise fuel prices as “unwarranted” and has written to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, giving an ulti-matum of 15 days to reconsider the decision. AIMTC offi cials said they had voiced several other grievances such as toll rates. Warning that the fuel price hike might lead to rise in transportation cost of industrial goods by up to 25%, the transporters

said that instead of passing the bur-den on to common people, the gov-ernment should ensure operational effi ciency of oil companies.

Meanwhile, a section of the industry alleged that the strike threat was nothing but a ploy to raise transport charges. The Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training (IFTRT) accused the transporters of exploiting the die-sel hike issue to evade the trans-port reforms that the government has recently introduced. It also said the truckers were interested to negotiate on other issues rather than forcing the government to reduce the fuel price.

Truckers demand rollback of diesel price hike

Record growth for redBus

India needs to focus on infrastructure to develop cruise tourism

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has recently ordered 40 new ambulances for diff erent airports in the country to improve the handling of medical emergencies.

The vehicles, complete with mod-ern medical facilities, will help pro-vide emergency medical treatment in the crucial fi rst few minutes. Currently there are more than 131

ambulances at around 64 airports across the country. The need for more ambulances was felt at all major air-ports with the increasing domestic air traffi c and medical emergencies.

Airports Authority orders 40 new hi-tech ambulances

TRANSPORT

The Renault-Nissan Alliance is all set to open a new research and development facility in Mountain View, California.

Nissan plans to use the new Sil-icon Valley facility to further tech-nological advancements in its electric vehicles, such as graphi-cal user-interface displays, in-car

internet connectivity and smart-grid research. Similarly, Renault will conduct research on advanced engineering for future sustainable vehicles. The Alliance is the global auto industry leader in sustainable transportation and the only car group mass-producing zero-emis-sion vehicles.

Renault-Nissan opens new R&D centre in Silicon Valley

Almost 73% of the upgradation and modernisation work at Chennai airport is complete as regards the construction of the new integrated terminal buildings.

The modernisation work at the 1,283 acre airport is being carried out by the Airports Authority of India. The major work involving extension of the secondary run-way and construction of a bridge

over the river Adyar has already been completed. These two projects have been executed at a total cost of Rs 470 crore. After the extension of the runway, the world’s largest air-craft - Airbus A-380 – will be able to land and take-off from the airport. The total cost of the entire moderni-sation work stands at Rs 2,015 crore. It has already exceeded the earlier estimate of Rs 1,808 crore.

The Penang Hill funicular train broke down for the third time in almost a month due to a technical glitch.

About 400 passengers had to be brought down by jeeps and buses from the hill as they were stranded because of the breakdown. Later, engineers were brought in to assess and fi x the problem, after which the service resumed. The techni-cal glitches have become more fre-quent after a RM 73million upgrade which enables the new air-condi-tioned Swiss-made coaches, car-rying 50 people each, to travel non-stop from the base to the summit of Penang Hill. Previously, passengers had to change trains midway.

The demand for luxury car rentals in Turkey is witnessing unprece-dented growth owing to the increas-ing economic activity, improve-ment in convention tourism and developments in civil aviation.

Growing capital, employment and technological investments are spurring the growth in this sector,

and the car rental business in Tur-key will double in volume in the next fi ve years. Every day there are around 145,000 individual and corporate rentals, resulting in an annual turnover of US $3 billion. However, Turkey’s market is still way below the European markets in long-term rental business.

Penang Hill funicular train breaks down third time in a row

Lovers of space tourism can rejoice as Isle of Man company Excali-bur Almaz (EA) has unveiled two research space stations for public viewing for the fi rst time.

The fi rm was even considering the possibility of using these machines as orbital vehicles for space tourism in the future. The fi rm’s Executive Vice

President Buckner Hightower went as far as to claim that they could even off er holidays in space and run possi-ble trips around the moon and back by 2015. For the time being, the sta-tions will be used for research and testing. The Isle of Man is also likely to send the fi fth manned moon mis-sion, after the United States, Russia,

China and India.Each of the stations, 36ft (11m)

long and 13ft (4m) in diameter, are being kept in an aircraft hangar at Jurby airfield for public dis-play. The machines are similar to those used at the International Space Station and were imported from Russia.

Car rentals business in Turkey registers promising growth

The showcase Beijing-to-Shang-hai bullet train network went through a test run even as it is dogged by controversy over the prestige project’s high cost.

Government offi cials, man-agers of the companies that built the line and reporters were part of the test run on the 1,318-kilo-meter (824-mile) trip. The bullet train will require half the time of conventional rail to reach its des-tination i.e. about fi ve hours.

The communist government is on a construction spree, building thousands of miles of high-speed rail to show off its rising wealth and technological prowess. How-ever, it is facing widespread crit-icism as these ambitious proj-ects are seen as too expensive for

a country where millions of peo-ple still live in poverty. Moreover, the network looks set to expand to 8,000 miles (13,000 kilome-ters) of track this year and 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) by 2020. There are also allegations that Beijing is violating the spirit of licenses with foreign providers by reselling technology that was meant to be used only in China.

Meanwhile, China’s Railway Ministry has assured that appro-priate steps have been taken to ensure safety and security, com-prising daily inspections of tracks and other facilities and an earth-quake monitoring system. The Beijing-Shanghai line has been constructed at a total cost of 215 billion yuan (US $32.5 billion).

Beijing-Shanghai bullet train test run conducted amid controversy

Chennai airport modernisation almost complete

Chennai airport modernisation almost complete

14 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 TRANSPORT

Research space stations open for public viewing

Research space stations open for public viewing

Thai Airways has launched an elite invitation-only tier, ‘Platinum’. This extension to their ROP (Royal

Orchid Plus) was available to pas-sengers holding Gold status. For this, the members either need to

have fl own at least 40 international Thai fl ights in a calendar year, or they should have earned at least 50,000 miles.

Features in Platinum include an exclusive check-in area in Suvarnabhumi Airport, an addi-tional baggage allowance of 30kg, with Silver members receiving an extra 10kg, and Gold an extra 20kg, an access to Royal First Class lounges, and confirmed economy class ticket even 48 hours prior to the departure. Above all, the cus-tomers will fly regardless of any limit of miles, unlike the present scenario where the mile limit for Silver and Gold category expires after three years. Also, the cus-tomer can postpone the ROP ser-vice fees pertaining to change of award nominee or rerouting of Thai award ticket.

The world’s leading independent airport lounge programme- Prior-ity Pass, has given a gift to all the proactive travellers by launching an all new iPad and iPhone app, ‘Find Nearest Tool’. This allows the travellers to view and locate all essential details of the available lounges in the programme world-wide, especially in the Middle East

region. One just needs to search for Priority Pass from the iTunes store, and the apps can be easily downloaded.

The new features allow you to see lounge images, add favourites and review search history. Jon-athan French, Head of Brand at Priority Pass, says that the app is ideal for their frequent travellers as

it provides a quick access on the fi n-gertips for 28 lounges in the Mid-dle East and 600 lounges through-out the world.

The bounce back of the economy from recession has blessed the pri-vate jet charter industry of Dubai with prosperity according to Hugh Courtenay, Private Jet Charter Founder and Chief Executive.

Courtenay says a major part in the

growth of this sector has been played by the unrest and disturbances in other parts of the Middle East, driving visitors to opt for a sought-after holiday spot like Dubai, leav-ing behind those unstable destina-tions that drew more than 25 million

visitors last year. Dubai is expected to draw at least fi ve million among these 25 million tourists which will simultaneously result in an upsurge in the private jet business.

Courtenay adds that his clients, which include mostly the spendthrift

aristocrats and high business offi -cials, prefer a comfortable and less time-consuming journey which is provided to them by the Private Jet Charter off ering a plethora of com-forts like 15 minutes prior check-in facility, airport information, VIP

terminals. along with a team of highly skilled pilots and cabin crew. The call for such convenient travel is eventu-ally augmenting the demand of pri-vate jet charter business in Dubai making it a faster growing domain in tourism in the region.

Conventions and incentives, one of the worst aff ected sectors in the global economic turmoil, saw a year of relief and celebration in 2010, according to The Turisme de Barcelona (Barcelona Tourism Offi ce) in a report presented at the annual assembly of its Barcelona Convention Bureau (BCB), which was attended by 200 experts from the sector.

The US, the second interna-tional market, heaved the fi rst sigh of relief. Almost all its destinations have recovered the losses that have been incurred in the last two years. However, Barcelona saw an excep-tional improvement with great numbers from the North Ameri-can market that has shown a full 35% jump in 2010 as compared

to 2009. Keeping abreast with its own history of hosting the great-est number of international con-gresses and being the second best in the ICCA rank for 2009, this alluring city hosted 2,138 meet-ings representing 616,833 dele-gates in 2010. It also showed 15.1% increase in the number of corpo-rate meetings.

Thanks to this, the city also saw an increase of 7.1% in the number of delegates. The current inter-national market of Barcelona is 59.5% of the business as com-pared to 38.5% of the local Spanish market share. This dynamic city has proved itself in the corporate ambit and is now one of the most preferred spots for meetings and incentives.

Boom in Private Jet Charters

Thai Airways launches Platinum offer

A gift by Priority Pass

Barcelona Boom

CORPORATE

The organizers of International Pow Wow projected that hosting the travel convention for the sec-ond time in San Francisco would generate good visitor movement to the city and indeed it turned out to be a massive hit as the exhibition witnessed more than 1, 100 tour operators from across the globe, along with 450 media attendees. The show had 3,500 exhibitors encapsulating all sectors of the travel industry like visitors bureau, DMCs, hotels, airlines etc.

A lump sum amount of US $5 million was paid by the spon-sors, San Francisco Associa-tion, and local business to host the event. Pow Wow is the only convention that has the maxi-mum return on its investment. San Francisco attracts tourists towards its cultural and artistic hues, varied neighbourhood and especially towards its gay tableau, says Laurie Armstrong, a spokes-woman for San Francisco Travel. She also adds that cities like New York, Las Vegas etc. also try to hit on the market that the gay tab-leau provides, so San Francisco would have to strive to keep up the

step high in this very market. By being the host city, San Francisco also got a chance to showcase its glitz and glamour through parties and tours to its most captivating

locations and cuisine. As appar-ent, the main focus of this pro-paganda was to attract tourists and to make tourism as its largest economy generating factor.

April proved to be a golden period for the Hong Kong International Airport as fl ight movements went up by 12.1%, along with an 8.5% upsurge in passenger trips, thanks to the local residents’ travel and also the augmented visitor move-ment in the city.

However, the cargo industry saw a 6.5% decrease in the same month. The 9.5% drop in exports from the last year is being considered as the prime factor behind the down-turn. Not only exports, but imports and transhipments also saw a 3%

decrease in April. “The disruption to the logistics and supply chains of many industries caused by the earthquake in Japan in March also played a part in the decrease in tonnage...” said Stanley Hui Hon-Chung, Chief Executive Offi cer of Airport Authority Hong Kong. The industry is optimistic on the growth in Air Cargo in the peak season in the later part of the year. The Air-port witnessed an increase of 10.7% handling 51.8 million passengers, while aircraft movements increased to 13.7%, amounting to 319,320.

Hong Kong International Airport traffic up

Pow Wow expected to generate a gush of tourists to San Francisco

Business travelling catapulted a growth of whopping 192.2 mil-lion overnight hotel stays in the most visited country in the world-France, reports the government sta-tistics offi ce INSEE. French hotels saw a growth of 2-2% in 2010 which came as a relief to the industry given the drop of 4.9% in 2009. The indus-try has not yet fully recovered as it has also seen a benchmark of 197.6% overnight hotel stays in 2008.

According to Louis de Gimel, Head of research at INSEE, it is the rich

business travellers who have acceler-ated this growth in France, especially in Paris. While the French travellers kept the ratings high, there was a 3.3% increase in the US guests followed by the Asians and Africans. Research-ers are of the view that the harsh Brit-ish – euro relations prevented visitors from the UK as they saw a decrease of 6.7% in 2010. Gimel says: “It’s not the same clientele at all, we’ve seen a revival in the high category hotels, because in general Americans stay in higher-rated hotels”.

Business travellers fuelling growth in French Hotels

Bangalore is witnessing a huge arrival of global hospitality brands, a result of the city attracting inter-national business travel. It saw major opening of properties like Sheraton Hotel by Starwood Hotels and Resorts at Brigade Gateway in Malleswaram in the mid of May, and Switzerland - based Moven-pick Hotels and Resorts on June 1.

Upcoming launches include a fi ve star resort hotel - ‘Prestige Golfshire’, a 300 room property being opened up by the Prestige Estate Projects in partnership with J W Marriot on Nandi Hills Road. Shangri La on Palace Road and Ritz Carlton on Residency Road are also all set to open up within the next two years in addition to an augmentation of 2,500 rooms in the city to the present 5,550 rooms in categories ranging from 3 star bud-get to 5 star deluxe. Cushman and Wakefi eld, a real estate consultancy records that 80% of the demand for hotel rooms is reckoned by

Business travellers alone followed by 5% by meetings and conferences segment and 3% by the leisure seg-ment. Although the average room rate declined to Rs 6,6oo in 2009 as compared to Rs. 8,500 in 2007, the growing demand has again fuelled up the price to 10-15%.

Manav Thadani, Chairman of hospitality consultancy fi rm HVS, is of the view that the con-siderable amount of room supply

to Bangalore has been of tremen-dous help in balancing and orga-nising the rates and that the micro markets have been doing quite well. Chris Moloney, COO, South West Asia, Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) who is also going to launch Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts in Bangalore, is of the view that the increased hotel room sup-plies has helped to curb down the soaring room rates.

Bangalore welcoming major hospitality developments

16 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 CORPORATE

Kolkata airport: Hub in the East?

Kolkata, by virtue of its location, has always been one of the important commercial and transport hubs of India, especially for the Eastern and North-Eastern states, and to some extent for the northern hinterland as well as the neighbouring coun-tries of Bhutan, Nepal and Bangla-desh. For a long time, Kolkata was also the gateway for connections to South-East Asia.

With a dip in West Bengal’s trade and commerce, and fl ight of capital, Kolkata’s importance too declined. While the road and rail connectivity still maintained some presence, due to the link with the North East, the city’s airport - the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Air-port (NSCBIA) – paid the biggest price. International airline compa-nies withdrew fl ights, citing losses on the sector. Between 2005 and 2009, British Airways, Malaysian Airlines, Royal Jordanian Airlines and Gulf Air pulled out of Kolkata. Meanwhile, although the domestic load of passengers kept increasing, the airport’s carrying capacity and facilities fell woefully short.

So when the NSCBIA was included under Airport Authority of India’s modernisation plan at an estimated cost of Rs 2,325 crore, it was with a hope that the city’s air-port would regain some of its for-mer glory. According to a press release by AAI, 51% of the construc-tion work had been completed by end of 2010. A new integrated ter-minal is set to come up by March next year. Spread over an area of 1.8 lakh square feet, the new terminal will have 104 ticket counters and 15 aerobridges, with a projected traf-fi c of 20 million passengers every year, compared to the fi ve million

currently. Other developments include commissioning of Doppler Very High Frequency Omni-Range (DVOR) for navigational purpose, and system improvement and infra-structural development for better movement of cargo. “The civil con-struction work is expected to be over by December 31 this year. The next three months will see the shift-ing of several airlines offi ces in the new terminal and associated infra-structure development,” GS Bawa, GM(PR), AAI, said, adding the sec-ond phase of extension will be com-missioned by 2020.

Although the projected traffi c for Kolkata is much less than that for Mumbai (40 million passengers by 2013) and the current capacity of New Delhi airport (35 million pas-sengers annually), political goodwill can go a long way in seeing that the importance of Kolkata airport grad-ually increases.

The repositioning of Kolkata as

a gateway for tourist and business travellers to and from North East India and South-East Asia can be a boon for the airport. If the recent thrust on travel and tourism – lei-sure, business, educational, and medical - can boost the positive image of West Bengal, the airport

will be the fi rst to gain as air travel is the most convenient and the fastest mode of transport avail-able. Already, we are seeing some interest by global airline compa-nies operating out of Kolkata. Fif-teen international carriers and seven domestic airlines operate

fl ights from the NSCBIA currently. Chinese carrier Hainan Airlines started operations on July 12 and SilkAir of Singapore will take off from the city for the fi rst time on August 1. Doha-based Qatar Air-ways has announced daily fl ights to Doha from July 28. Meanwhile, Jet Airways and IndiGo too are plan-ning to make Kolkata the hub for international operations to South East Asia, and a stopover for fl iers from North East India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Kolkata holds potential for a variety of markets. Apart from res-urrecting Kolkata’s lost glory as an educational and cultural hub, an increasing number of medical centres and state-of-the-art med-ical facilities have come up in and around the city. To attract tourists from East and South East Asia, Kolkata is the gateway city to the Buddhist circuits in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, and even Nepal. The legacy golf clubs of Kolkata can be sold to golf-crazed visitors from Japan and Korea.

Once one of the leading airports of the country, the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport (popularly known as Dumdum airport) of Kolkata has slipped down many notches. But with the recent plans to revamp the airport and its facilities already underway, and the efforts to reposition West Bengal as a state on the move, we can expect the airport to regain its earlier eminence as an aviation hub, believes Dipannita Paul Majumdar

BEAUTIFULBENGAL

A bit of London in Kolkata

Boat Rides and Hand Pulled RickshaKolkata’s Tourism Icons …Any Takers?

Although Mumbai is the sister city of London today, it was Calcutta – now renamed Kolkata – that was once the capital of the British empire in India. The city still boasts of a colo-nial lifestyle in more ways than one. Kolkata’s central business district – Dalhousie Square or Benoy Badal Dinesh Bag, a few buildings along Park Street and Central Kolkata still hark back to the days when the city was the second most important one in the British empire, after London. The Maidan may not be as expansive as Hyde Park, but off ers as much of a verdant escape; both cities oper-ate an underground transport sys-tem. But the similarity ends here. The moment one looks down to the streets and the pavements, any illu-sion of similarities with London is rudely broken.

Despite the similarities, to say that the cities are alike is undoubt-edly a far-fetched idea, but one can-not deny that Kolkata does imbibe a lot of London in looks and lifestyle.

But that cannot prevent Kolkata from drawing inspiration from the many ways London has catapulted itself as a global attraction. Be it street maintenance or a system-atic traffi c system – emulating any of these facets will only make Kol-kata better.

Ananya Ria Roy, from London and currently working with an NGO in Kolkata, says: “Besides the respec-tive rivers that run alongside Kolkata and London, both cities have a pen-chant for markets and fresh food. The colonial rulers have left their mark behind in Kolkata’s architec-ture; both cities have a vibrant art and theatre circuit, with numerous galleries and museums.”

London is the main cultural hub of England. Similarly, will it be too much to ask if Kolkata becomes the same for eastern India? This is not a very diffi cult feat. As Atreyee Sen, an Assistant Director work-ing in the Bengali television indus-try points out: “Kolkata in itself is

very culturally rich – be it music, theatre, art, cinema; and it’s on the rise now more than ever before. So it only makes sense for Kolkata to be the leading cultural hub of the east.”

The Victoria Memorial is to Kol-kata what the Buckingham Palace is to London. Both are must-sees for visitors. But while the Buckingham Palace scores by way of its mainte-nance and glamour, Victoria Memo-rial only excites the researcher and the connoisseur of art, but holds lit-tle attention for the common visi-tor. It is most unfortunate that the Indian Museum still remains a ‘jadughar’ despite its treasure trove no less important that that in pos-session of the British Museum.

The taxicabs of London are a world unto themselves. The mainte-nance of the cabs, the behavior of the drivers, their knowledge of the city’s streets have become legendary. Kol-kata too can take a leaf from these London cabbies and perpetrate the legend of the yellow-top cabs.

The very mention of the City of Joy fl ashes images of Howrah Bridge and tiny dingy boats streaming under it past the banks of River Ganga. Vivid images of the sun setting over the watery lifeline of Kolkata transfi x international and domestic visitors

alike. Bollywood fi lms have tried their best to capture these magic moments on celluloid, but in reality nothing has been done to uplift, renovate or pro-mote this unique tourism product to make it an international attraction. An early morning boat ride along the

banks of River Ganga has become a must-do for tourists in Varanasi. From Kashmir to Kerala – be it shikaras on the Dal Lake or elegantly converted rice boats on the backwaters – the water world draws global attention, comparable with the gondolas of Ven-ice. The simple, manually rowed boats move slowly and complement the ride along the serene waters, something which motorised and sophisticated boats are unable to off er.

“If nicely decorated boat rides could be introduced under the aegis of the tourism department, then why not? Boats should have comfortable seating, hygienic food and drinking water, and educated guides. It will allow tourists to capture some of the most memorable moments during the cruise, speaking volumes about the city’s culture, traditions and lifestyle,” says Sheikh Jafar, a veteran boatman

at Outram Ghat. Another ferryman at Princep Ghat, Shamsur Sheikh, says candidly: “The boats are in poor con-dition. We don’t earn enough to main-tain the boats. But we do understand the tourism potential our boats have. Someone has to come up with money and a workable plan.”

Kolkata is also identifi ed with hand-pulled rickshaws which have somehow been negatively immorta-lised by Dominique Lapierre’s book, and the subsequent Roland Joff é fi lm, City of Joy. In 2006, the previous gov-ernment of West Bengal passed the Calcutta Hackney Carriage (Amend-ment) Bill calling hand-pulled rick-shaws ‘inhumane’. The Congress and the Trinamool Congress opposed it as the bill did not speak about the rehabilitation of the rickshaw pull-ers. Promises were made about their rehabilitation, but in reality, nothing

was done to provide them with alter-nate livelihood.

In other cities, like Durban or Shanghai, hand-pulled rickshaws are huge tourist attractions. Ben’s hand pulled rickshaw at Durban beach is decked with cow horns and ostrich wings and he charges 10 Rands just to click a picture with visitors! A Shanghai based company has gone one step forward. It manufactures hand-pulled rickshaws and exports them all the way to the US !

annu25evhaanpunitogaof rid

18 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 SPECIAL

A flagstoned path, the smell of coffee beans signalling the presence of a café in the vicinity, a bookstore looming up, a fasdebating its own financial conundrum with the adjoining 5-star restaurant, a quick dessert afterwards at the confectionaa drink at the pub... are you wondering where Debasree Banerjee is ? Park Street, Kolkata or Oxford Street, London?

June Mukherjee’s roving eyes spot two well-known aspects of Kolkata which can be used to raise the state’s tourism appeal, encourage a pollution free ride, and help solve livelihood issues

Beyond marshes, mangroves and maneaters

haws

In Bengali, Sunderbans, a UNESCO world heritage site, literally means ‘beautiful forest’ or ‘beautiful jungle’ .For a person smitten by wanderlust, Sunderbans, endowed with the very best gifts of Mother Nature, is just the place to visit. Sunderbans is known for its wide range of fauna, including 260 bird species, threatened species such as the estuarine crocodile, and the iconic Royal Bengal Tiger.

In the year 2009 a devastating cyclone, Aila, ravaged the area, thus affecting tourism and also the livelihood of the people. According to a South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE) working paper based on a study in Sunderbans, there is a close relation between tourism and livelihood in the area. “Tourism as a poverty reduction strategy may be particularly useful because it is able to support and improve the lot of households that have the least human and other forms of capital,” the paper concludes. But owing to various factors Sunderbans fails to attract a steady fl ow of tourists throughout the year, in order to bring satisfactory dividends for locals and the government.

Asit Biswas, the co-founder of Help Tourism, which runs The Sunderbans Jungle Camp, says: “To boost tourism, infrastructural growth is essential, giving special attention to providing proper roads and electricity generated from renewable sources. Proper transportation systems and good lodging should also be developed because sometimes tourists find themselves stranded due to lack of it. Even safe drinking water is not available for locals, let alone providing the same to tourists!”

A recent study by ActionAid India and The Calcutta Samaritans put the number of hand-rickshaw pullers at 25,000, with more joining the pool every year. A large number of them hail from states like Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. These rickshaw pullers demand little by way of ame-nities. If they are relocated to various tourist spots spread across West Ben-gal, and trained and inducted as part of a tourism package - off ering joy rides around the tourist attractions

- then it can partially solve their liveli-hood issues. With the Trinamool Con-gress and the Congress now in power, the new government will have to work out a feasible compensation package. Now, in most cases, the pullers are not the owners. The government can even encourage the rickshaw own-ers to take a lead in this renovation process and be a part of the tourism drive. Once the rickshaws are deco-rated well, and pullers provided good guidance and training, the pullers or rickshaw owners can be asked to take on regular maintenance too.

“This proposal is a great opportu-nity. We are trying to solve the liveli-hood issues of the rickshaw pullers; the tourism perspective can defi nitely throw up some opportunities. The main issue is to ensure their right to food, and right to live. Of course, we cannot force anyone. But those who

are interested can be shifted to vari-ous tourist spots and be given an alter-native livelihood,” says Reshmi Gan-guly of The Calcutta Samaritans.

General Secretary of All Ben-gal Hand Pulled Rickshaw Union, Mukhtar Ali hails the idea. “If tour-ism department utilises and pre-serves the heritage value of this, then our full support is there. Not only West Bengal, but the rest of India can be explored.”

Md. Hosibur Rahman, who owns a few rickshaws, welcomed the con-cept. “It is really a unique proposi-tion to use the hand pulled rickshaws across West Bengal in various tourist spots as exclusive tourism items. The pullers will earn well. Their families will automatically live well.”

“There are many rehabilitation possibilities. One of them is defi nitely this suggestion that they should be

turned into tourist attractions. Train-ing should be given to some of them… but it is a limited option because not all can be included under the tour-ism umbrella. The other possibility is to make certain congested zones in Kolkata non-car zones, where well-decorated hand-pulled rickshaws can operate over short distances as an alternative to public transport. This is very common in many devel-oped cities,” says Anuradha Talwar, a social activist.

Sailing in a dingy boat or a ride in the hand-pulled rickshaw is not about introducing extravagantly expensive tourism products, but converting things which already exist, which are closely associated with images of the city, and which, if prudently used, could develop into exclusive attrac-tions, while helping solve livelihood issues of a section of the urban poor.

Sunderbans, a wonder of Mother Nature, needs a plan to realise its full potential as a tourism hotspot writes Mayuri Bhattacharjee

July 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST 19FEATURE

Continued page 20...

fast-food joint onary or maybe

A city with a viewEver since Mamata Banerjee assumed offi ce as Chief Min-ister of West Ben-gal, the one thing that has kept the city’s tongues and pens wagging

continually is her London Dream. Nothing stirs the imagination of Kolkata, the erstwhile capital of the British Empire in India, more than images of the capital of the United Kingdom. As Banerjee pursues her dream with single-minded ambition, it is not surprising that the chief min-ister’s sights are set on the river that sweeps majestically past the city. For, what the Thames is to London, the Ganga is to Kolkata. If tourism in the city has to go anywhere, it has to take the Ganga route.

“Where else in the country can one see ‘Europe on the Ganges’ – fi ve erstwhile European settle-ments on a 60 km stretch of the river Hooghly? This needs to be marketed worldwide,” says GM Kapoor, state convener, INTACH Kolkata, and a leading advocate of conservation of heritage proper-ties across Kolkata and Bengal. He feels that if a city has a riverfront, it is its greatest stock in trade. “With often less than half the width of the Ganga, many European riv-ers have lent the cities on its banks their great tourism potential. Kol-kata’s unique heritage value along the Ganga need to be unlocked to set it apart from other cities of the world,” he added.

Banerjee is obviously keenly aware of the possibilities off ered by the Ganga and its tributary, Hooghly. “Why can’t Kolkata become another London?” she has said repeatedly, commissioning a beautifi cation of the city’s riverfront with an eye on

that of the Thames. Creating a land-mark modelled on the London Eye is also part of her plans for the revival of tourism in Kolkata. She has engaged Rites, a central agency, to prepare a report for the development of grand structures such as Kolkata Tower, Kolkata Gateway and a city heri-tage museum in the stretch between Babughat and Fairlie Place on the strand. With Rites suggesting that a heritage culture zone be set up on the bank of the river in lieu of a bus terminus, it is probably time to look forward to a cleaner, prettier strand,

especially with proposals to remove a part of the walls along the river bank, which get in the way of its breathtak-ing view.

TND’s survey along the strand revealed plenty of obstructions that hid the river and its sights from visitors on this stretch, especially between the splendid old cantile-ver Howrah Bridge (now renamed Rabindra Setu) completed in 1943, and the new, swank Vidyasagar Setu that has been operational since 1992. Old godowns and warehouses – the debris of a humungous one that

succumbed to a fi re recently – spoil the show completely, hiding the river from view except in tiny unpalatable patches. Pulling some of these down will certainly improve matters for river-loving tourists as well as Kolk-atans. The ferry ghats and jetties too need a facelift.

Banerjee’s wish list includes cafes, eateries and parks along the stretch, with specially earmarked areas where the spiritually-minded can sit in meditation, in keeping with the Ganga’s sacred associations.

The city’s heritage land, its

magnifi cent colonial past, makes it eligible to be considered as a living museum. “Every visitor marvels at the imposing edifi ces Kolkata has to off er. It has many landmarks, each with its own story to tell. We need to package and promote this match-less product,” says Kapoor, whose blue print for the city’s development includes a revamp of the dockyard at Kidderpore.

Equally important for Kolk-ata is the promotion of its night life, another signifi cant aspect of its colo-nial heritage, sure to excite the more youthful crowd. Ever since the 1950s, Western style entertainment has been one of the hallmarks of the city’s post-colonial cosmopolitanism.

From brass bands to rock and roll to jazz, cabarets and fl oor shows, Kolkata – especially Park Street - has seen it all. This is one more fea-ture that could be resurrected. The fun quotient of Kolkata has taken a beating over the past four decades with many of its nightspots closing down and others pulling the cur-tain on fl oor shows and live music. “We’re the only restaurant that never stopped its live music, in spite of a steep tax on such entertain-ments. Till date, Trincas is a large draw with customers for its music as much as for its food,” says Shashi Puri of Trincas, a restaurant that not only drew some of the biggest names in western popular music but was also the nursery for some. A revival of this vibrant scene which pro-moted artistes of the calibre of Usha Uthup, Louis Banks, Carlton Kitto, and Pam Craine could augur well for a lost culture - the Park Street of the swinging ’60s.

The writing on the wall is loud and clear: Kolkata’s revival is depen-dant on a march back to the past with the vision fi xed on the future.

Another operator, Probir Majumdar, who runs Bodin’s Bazra a jungle retreat adds: “Sunderbans is a gold mine, yet to be explored fully. Many foreign tourists in India want to come to this amazing wonder of nature but due to lack of systematic transportation and good lodging facilities they think twice before doing so. People like us who are running jungle retreats/camps also face problems due this sorry state of aff airs.”

“Nothing but a comprehensive

master plan, devised after discussions with the various departments of the government and NGO’s, can augment sustainable growth in this sector.” adds Biswas. What can be seen as a good sign is that the new government in its party’s vision document had mentioned that turning Sunderbans into an eco-tourism hotspot would be one of its goals. The new Government can work in conjunction with old tour operators who are already functioning in the area, and

also bring in new players, to achieve this goal. Safe, attractive and ecologically viable jungle safaris and exposure tours which give a glimpse of the biosphere, rural life and local culture should be developed and marketed well.

Sunderbans has great potential , beyond the commonplace and negative perception of ‘dangerous marshes and mangroves; and man-eating tigers.’ The time has come to prove this perception wrong. The time has come for a ‘change.’

Kathakali Jana wants Kolkata to recreate some of the interesting aspects from the past to fast forward itself on the path of an attractive future

20 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 SPECIAL FEATURE

Continued from page 19

A blueprint for Sunderbans

With soaring health care costs and long waits for medical procedures, it is becoming increasingly diffi -cult to fi nd quality, aff ordable treat-ment. Whether you want cosmetic surgery or life-saving procedures, you might have to dig deep into your wallet or wait several months before receiving the medical care that you require. Or you could try medical tourism and receive qual-ity care for a fraction of the price and without the long wait!

According to the National Coalition on Health Care, more than 500,000 Americans traveled abroad to receive medical and den-tal work in 2006. And this is not an isolated trend.

Every year, millions of patients from around the globe fl ock to some of the hottest medical tour-ism destinations in order to receive fi ve-star treatment at unbelievable prices. Experts predict that by 2012,

medical tourism will grow to be a US $100 billion business with more than 780,000,000 patients travel-ing abroad to receive care from for-eign doctors, dentists and hospi-tals. These impressive fi gures don’t necessarily include the growing

alternative healing sector either. With wellness spas and Ayurvedic healing on the rise, medical tourism is clearly a global phenomenon that deserves greater attention.

However, medical tourism isn’t for everyone. You should have an open mind, be a seasoned traveler, and apply plenty of rigour to your search process. Few tips on fi nding quality care overseas: Always go for JCI-accredited hospitals, look for affi liations, carry your medical fi les and avoid troubled spots such as countries having social unrest.

Medical tourism wins devoted American fans

If the proposed UNESCO World Heritage tag is bestowed on 10 sites of the Western Ghats, the tourist influx will go up three-fold, believe experts in the tour-ism industry. On an average 10 lakh tourists and trekkers annu-ally visit prime spots in the West-ern Ghats range in Karnataka. This is largely to do with the pref-erence of foreign tourists, who primarily visit places recognised by UNESCO.

“The world heritage tag worked like magic and both domestic and foreign visitors increased ten-fold compared to the early 1990s”, said a tour-ist department official. It turned out to be true in case of Hampi which had been a secret place for a long time. The heritage status will not only increase tourism revenue manifold, but will also boost the economy of the Mal-nad region.

‘World of Accor’, an initiative by Accor, that provides the oppor-tunity for its clients to discover the Accor brand portfolio, will be launched in India for the first time at Sofitel Mumbai Bandra Kurla Complex on November 15, 2011.

Graham Wilson, Senior Vice President, Sales and Market-ing – Asia Pacific said, “There will be around 30-80 delegates flying to India, mainly General Managers and Heads of Depart-ments from different brands under Accor umbrella from dif-ferent countries to India for this event, who will get an opportu-nity to meet key travel agents,

partner airlines, financial part-ners, MICE and Corporate Oper-ators from India.”

Accor Hotels recently signed an agreement with Arizona-based Connect-Worldwide to strengthen its distribution in India to tap the growing market. Elaborating on the partnership with Connect-Worldwide, Jean-Luc Chretien, Executive VP, Sales Distribu-tion and Loyalty, Accor Hotels said, “India is a dynamic and a key market for domestic and out-bound sales of Accor. As a result of the partnership we expect a significant increase in the mar-ket share globally.”

‘World of Accor’ to debut in India in November 2011

The ‘Hop on and Hop off ’ (HOHO) bus service was launched by Del-hi’s CM Sheila Dikshit as an initia-tive to introduce Delhi to the Com-monwealth Games visitors on the eve of the International Tourism Day. This bus service covers more than 19 destinations and plies from 8 am to 8 pm at a frequency of half an hour.

All the 14 ‘HOHO’ buses arranged by Delhi Tourist and Transport Corporation in part-nership with Purple UMTC Transit Pvt Ltd are spacious, air-conditioned and have on-board entertainment facilities.

Anybody wanting to experi-ence the service can book their ticket online at www.hohodelhi.com or just buy a ticket on board. A ticket will cost Rs 300.

The ‘HOHO’ bus stops are con-veniently planned near the metro stations, so as to facilitate travel-ling to other tourist attractions of the city, covering monuments, museums, galleries and more.

Experience a spectacular day out on ‘HOHO’ Buses in Delhi

Air India, straddled with loss of reputation due to recent strike, is out to gain its lost share in the market and has come out with an exclusive off er where one can fl y to any number of destinations for a duration of 10 days.

The scheme is available under two variants. A silver pass passen-ger can fl y on economy class to any domestic sector of one’s choice for Rs. 30,000, while a platinum pass

holder can travel in executive class to any domestic route for Rs 50,000, inclusive of all taxes. These passes are available for sale at Air India offi ces from June 15 to July 15 and will be valid for travel up to September 25.

Thus if you have been looking to explore the country and were deterred by high fares, than look no further. However plan now as scheme is valid till 15 July only.

Air India launches unlimited travel scheme

INDIAWill UNESCO heritage tag help turn Western Ghats into tourism hotspot?Will UNESCO heritage tag help turn Western Ghats into tourism hotspot?

Online travel is growing apace. Comscore media matrix found that the number of Indian vis-itors to Indian travel sites has increased by 32% to 18.5 mil-lion, and IRCTC gets the max-imum eyeballs. This validates the trend that the younger audi-ence mostly prefers to book online. Also, currently travel is the biggest e-commerce cate-gory in India.

IRCTC is a premier desti-nation online that leaves all behind when it comes to travel

websites. The success of IRCTC is because of the backbone called Indian railways which runs more than 10,000 trains. 18.5 million online users visited a travel website in April 2011. 8.4 million visitors landed on IRCTC. MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Cleartrip, and Expedia make it to the top fi ve. An interesting addition to the list is redBus.in which provides online ticket-ing for private buses. redBus.in is to bus travel what IRCTC is to train travel.

IRCTC tops travel websites with 8.4 million visitors

If you are fl ying out of Delhi and your ticket was booked last month, do expect a refund of Rs 200 from your airline. The Directorate Gen-eral of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked airlines to refund airport development fee (ADF) already collected from passengers on account of advance bookings.

The Delhi high court, on June 1, had ordered the private airport operator Delhi International Air-port Limited (DIAL) to stop col-lecting an ADF of Rs 200 from domestic passengers and Rs 1,300

from international passengers. DIAL had asked airlines to stop including ADF in the fares with immediate eff ect. But even after three weeks of the order, airlines have no clue how to refund the money.

Some domestic carriers have claimed that they have issued instructions to refund money to passengers when they produce their tickets and boarding passes after completion of their jour-neys; but most passengers are unaware of this.

Airlines in a state of quandary: Asked to refund ADF

Darjeeling has regained its due place as Kolkata’s favourite sum-mer destination following the promise of peace that has baffl ed it for the past few years.

“There is a sudden rush of tour-ists to Darjeeling. Bookings have gone up by 20 per cent over the

past two weeks and this is not only because of the summer holidays,” said Anil Punjabi of the Travel Agents Federation of India. Many tourists, who were booking other hill destinations, including Sik-kim, are now changing plans and opting for Darjeeling.

Tourism had a setback since June 2008, when the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha called a flash strike and asked tourists to vacate the hill town within 24 hours. “Tourist influx diminished by 50 per cent after that,” said a tour operator.

The concept already exists in Sin-gapore, where booklets on sim-ple insurance products are made available to monoline agents.

Life Insurance companies are now tapping kirana shops (gro-cery stores) in rural areas to dis-tribute products, in a bid to enlarge their distribution network.

Max New York Life Insurance is undertaking a pilot project in Uttar Pradesh to test the viability of distributing its Max Vijay pol-icy through kirana stores. “The

pilot project is on in 30 districts of Uttar Pradesh, involving 100 retailers, including grocery shops and mini-retail outlets. We have tied up with distributors in each district, which in turn would choose these retail outlets,” said Rajit Mehta, Executive Director and COO of Max New York Life Insurance.

The company is planning to replicate the concept across the country depending on the success of the pilot project.

Insurance companies tap kirana stores

National carrier Air India sus-pended fl ights to the world-famous Khajuraho following similar moves taken by Kingfi sher Air-lines on March 26 and Jet Airways on April 30 because of the soaring mercury levels due to which the number of tourists had declined drastically.

Only AI, which operated fl ights to Khajuraho twice a week, also had decided to stop the fl ights for this famous tourist destination after Taj Mahal.

According to offi cials, only 6778 tourists including 514 foreigners, visited Khajuraho between June 1 and 11 due to the unbearable scorching heat.

AI flights to Khajuraho suspended due to soaring heat

Paradise regained: Darjeeling back to being the ‘beat-the-heat’ tourist spot

22 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 INDIA

The eighth edition of Destination Britain & Ireland (DeBI) took place recently in Bengaluru. The event was chosen to launch VisitBritain’s (VB) four-year global marketing campaign, ‘Britain You’re Invited’, in conjunction with it’s ‘Goodwill Ambassador Programme’ target-ing Asia-Pacifi c markets.

According to VisitBritain Chief Executive, Sandie Dawe, this Pro-gramme, is the first in a series of promotional activities that rolled out featuring Bollywood film-maker Karan Johar, Asia-based television presenter Asha Gill and 2012 Olympic Chinese equestrian rider Alex Hua Tian, to market the destination.

The campaign is backed by pub-lic-private partnership funding of £100 million (US $162.7 million) and aims to attract and invite visi-tors from all over the world to visit and explore the destination.

Indian arrivals, in particular, look promising. “Britain welcomed more than 366,000 Indian visitors last year, a 34% increase over 2009. Indian travellers spent about 358 million pounds during their travel to Britain, a 33% growth over 2009”, said Sandie Dawe.

VisitBritain launches DeBI 2011 in Bengaluru

The historic Mughal road car rally organised by Shimla-based Himalayan Motorsport Asso-ciation (HMA) in collabora-tion with the Jammu and Kash-mir government was flagged off from Royal Springs Golf Course in Srinagar on June 26. Various

participants across the country took part in this rally.

“People should know that peo-ple of the Valley are so friendly and good. This car rally will pass a message of goodness across the country and people will come here”, a participant said.

2nd Mughal Road car rally flagged off to boost tourism

Beachwear and temples don’t get along. Scantily-clad tourists have not gone down well with temple authorities in Goa. The 450-year-old Mahalasa Narayani Temple has banned the entry of foreigners within the temple precincts with a board stating “Entry restricted for Foreign Tourists”, while the Mangueshi temple and Ramna-thi temple have asked tourists to wear proper attire when they visit the premises.

Welcoming the decision of the Mahalasa Narayani Temple to ban foreigners’ entry, President of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG), Gaurish Dhond,

said, “There has to be a sense of decency when you visit temples. As an association we have been educating travel guides and hote-liers to inform tourists about deco-rum at temples,” he added.

Around 400,000 foreigners travel to Goa every year. The use of bikini-clad women to promote the destination was banned in 2010 by state tourism honchos who feared that it sent out the wrong mes-sage. However in April this year, this decision was overturned and three models were hired to wear skimpy swimwear, featuring in advertisements targeting the over-seas market.

Can tourists visiting Goa have a French Riviera experience? Well, plans are afoot to model Panjim on the lines of picturesque city of Nice on the famed Côte d’Azur, more pop-ularly known as the French Riviera. The idea was proposed recently during Indo-French seminar orga-nized by CII in partnership with French Embassy. A delegation from France headed by Rudy Salles, dep-uty Mayor of Nice and a Member of French Parliament, has off ered to share expertise on specifi c tourism related issues with Goa.

Nice dotting the French Riviera is very similar to Panjim, which is built on the banks of river Mandovi and faced similar issues. The two signifi cant tourist-specifi c areas to be worked on are namely rapid transportation and solid waste management.

Swapnil Naik, Director of Tour-ism, said “government is defi nitely keen on partnering with France on this initiative. We have invited a

technical team from Nice to Goa in order to study the circumstances here and suggest a feasible plan for execution.

“Goa receives a large number of tourists each year. A rapid transport

system is essential to cope up with growing numbers of domestic and international tourists,” said Tour-ism Director. In recent years Goa has received charter fl ights from France in addition to other European cites.

Panaji eyes ‘Nice’ facelift: French Riviera De Goa?

Want to see Goa in a totally diff er-ent setting - without its shacks and crowds on the beaches? June-Sep-tember period is the perfect time to experience a diff erent and all-new Goa with giant sea waves hitting the shores, a cool breeze welcom-ing you and numerous streams and waterfalls sprouting amidst lush green landscape.

Travellers are typically alarmed when they hear the word ‘mon-soon’, but this season Goa has lots to off er. Goa’s crowded beaches wear a largely deserted look dur-ing the monsoon. Thus, in a bid to make Goa a 365-day holiday destination, the Government has come up with “Raindrop Tourism’

campaign, which authorities are keen to market, especially to trav-ellers from West Asia, where rains are sparse.

Goa faces stiff competition from neighbouring Kerala whose backwater canals, lakes and riv-ers have proved a big hit with tourists. Keeping that in mind, Goa Tourism Development Cor-poration (GTDC) has introduced discount off ers under themes like ‘monsoon glee’ and ‘mon-soon honeymoon’ at its resorts and hotels to attract holiday-makers during the off -season. The corporation is also off ering 30% discount on stay and food during the monsoons.

Romancing the rains: Goa echoes with raindrop tourism

Goa loves foreigners, its temples don’t thoughGoa loves foreigners, its temples don’t though

July 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST 23INDIA

The 2011 consumer is evolving, and brands need to perceive the changes in lifestyle, to best connect with their existing and potential customers. Consumers worldwide are opting for thriftier lifestyles and consid-ered purchasing which is made easy through online value checking.

Consumers are seeking a new dimension of experience in con-sumption and are also demand-ing good customer care, which is part of the value equation for them. They are more comfortable with the shrinking radius of modern lifestyle. But, at the same time a hybrid of global and local or ‘glocal’ continues to infl uence consumption. This idea of glocal recognises that global infl u-ences continue to fl avour consumer

behaviour.Another trend is that consum-

ers worldwide are focusing more

and more on sustained health and wellness. Along with this they are more comfortable with aff ordable,

green off erings and are readier to part with cash if products are wor-thy and cheap.

Interestingly even while prac-ticing thrift, emerging market con-sumers are eager to buy things their parents could only dream of. More and more consumers from developed economies are now opting for nuanced rather than purely ‘blingtastic’ goods and services.

Mobiles are a cherished per-sonal accessory for consum-ers and they are going to great lengths to personalise their mobiles. The email feels too slow, instead social networking and social shopping is preferred.

Culture is physical, digital,

high, low, authentic and ideal for the 2011 consumer. Brands wishing to woo consumers and getting the reg-ister right must fi t into the dialogue which is moving the consumer more than traditional advertisements.

Top Consumer Trends for 2011

Rwanda, once known for its bloody ethnic genocide, has spent the last seven years investing in “low impact, high value” environmental tourism and has attracted a great deal of for-eign investment.

Rwanda attracts the kind of tour-ist who prefers to charter a helicopter rather than make the long journey by road. This is testimony to the remark-able transformation the country has undergone since the 1994 genocide.

Researchers in Australia have released a study pricing reef sharks at almost two million U.S. dol-lars each as tourist attractions, as opposed to food or other products.

Shark diving accounts for about 8% of the country’s GDP and also for 14% of its business tax base. “Shark

tourism can be a viable economic engine,” said Matt Rand, a shark expert. “This study provides a com-pelling case that can convince more countries to embrace these animals for their benefi t to the ocean and their value to a country’s fi nancial well-being”, added Rand.

Costa Cruises has announced new cruise itineraries for two of its ships, Costa Pacifi ca and Costa Mediter-ranea, during autumn 2011. Costa Cruises has reinstated calls to Israel on seven cruises, from 12 September 2011 to 17 November 2011.

From the beginning of October to mid November 2011, fi ve Greece

and Turkey cruises will be replaced with three Lisbon and Casablanca and two Canary Islands cruises. Two mini cruises sailing 21 and 26 November will be added between the Canary Islands programme and the positioning cruise to Abu Dhabi, where Costa Mediterranea will be deployed during winter 2011/12.

Million-Dollar sharks a boon to Eco-tourism

New routes for Costa Cruises during autumn 2011

Rwanda rebuilds its tourism industry

NICHE

Sports tourism refers to inter-national trips specifically taken to watch sporting events like the Olympics, Formula 1, Grand Prix etc. The FIFA Football World Cup held in France in 1998 attracted 900,000 international

football fans and generated US $12.3 billion. The 2007 Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean was thought to have generated an additional 100,000 visitors who travelled specifically for the tournament.

Whilst the number of sports tourists fl uctuates on an annual basis depending on the events tak-ing place, an estimated 12 million international trips are made for the main purpose of attending a sport-ing event.

Cruise lines, tour operators and travel agents will need to work more closely to ensure they do not breach new regulations on selling cruise holidays to disabled clients. Under the regulation, cruise lines, tour operators and agents can-not refuse to sell a cruise to any-one with a disability or reduced

mobility unless there are specifi c safety grounds, such as ship design or port infrastructure.

Passengers will need to give only 48 hours notice of assis-tance needed to board ships. In addition, cruise lines need to review their booking conditions and carry out risk assessments

on their ships in relation to car-rying disabled passengers. Under the new rules, passengers are not obliged to tell agents or cruise-lines of any specifi c accommoda-tion, seating or medication needs at the time of booking, putting the onus on agents to ask the right questions.

Winning with Sports Tourism

Cruise lines and agents warned over new disability laws

Wilderness Safaris has launched a new brand Wil-derness Collection. This new brand will provide a home for a carefully selected portfolio of progressive and innovative programmes in iconic African destinations and will build on the success enjoyed by North Island and Abu Camp over the past decade.

Two exceptional new des-tinations that will join the

Collection early in 2012 are Segera on the Laikipia Plateau in Kenya and Odzala in the vir-gin rainforest of Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville).

Each of the destinations included in the Wilderness Col-lection has a foundation based on Wilderness’ core princi-pals, “the 4Cs” – Conserva-tion, Community, Culture and Commerce.

The Galaxy Macau is the latest venue to open its doors to cus-tomers, as casino operators seek to cater to the needs of an expand-ing social class. The Galaxy Macau, which has already created a stir in the region, will arrive com-plete with its own luxury artifi cial beach as well as a wave pool. The US $2billion (£1.2billion) hotel and

resort will have 2,200 rooms, and will be managed by the renowned brands Banyan Tree and Japan’s Okura. The project is the brain-child of Lui Che Woo,the billion-aire.The location is already the site of Sheldon Adelson’s Venetian Macau, and there are talks of fur-ther projects from Wynn Resorts and SJM Holdings.

New Brand Launch: Wilderness Collection

Galaxy Macau Hotels opens its doors in Cotai

IN BRIEFTRENDS

July 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST 25NICHE

Hoteliers have to tread a thin line when incorporating in-room tech-nology into their rooms as they have to ensure that they must not lose the warmth and human touch of hospi-tality in a bid to become tech-savvy.When it comes to ease of use, experts agree that the ‘six-second rule’ pretty much sums up the scenario. It has been found from general experi-ence that if a guest is unable to fi gure out how to use the technology in his

room within six seconds, he would most probably give up on it.

Hotel owners and operators now face the additional challenge of keep-ing abreast of the latest advances in the fi eld of technology, so as to off er their guests the best experience, inferred a panel of experts at the Dubai Hotel Show, held at the Dubai World Trade Centre from May 17-19.

The needs and expectations of each guest varies according to

his choices and preferences. For instance, a business traveller might carry a plethora of latest devices and expect seamless connectivity for all of them in his room, while a leisure traveller, with limited knowledge of gizmos, might appreciate a simple and hassle-free user interface.

Whenever guests check into a hotel, they expect a better and more sophisticated technology experience than what they have at home, since

they want value for money.Experts are also quick to point

out that technology can very well off er rich rewards to hotel owners in the form of reduced energy costs and boost their revenue by increasing the reputation of their own brand.

Most of the panelists unani-mously agreed that mobile phones will gain prominence as regards in-room technology. The future is envi-sioned as where people won’t have

to use the hotel’s device to control things. They will instead be able to use their own personal device which will work just as well in hotel rooms as at home.

The importance of investment in infrastructure has been stressed upon, as is building support for future devices. In short, saving energy, IP technology and remote sensing hold the key to futuristic in-room technology.

The Indian Hotels Co Ltd (IHCL) has admitted that its US opera-tions have been denting the over-all profi tability of the group at the consolidated level.

The Tata group hospitality company faces an uphill task of making these assets profi table in a very complex market.

On a standalone basis, for the fourth quarter of the fis-cal 2011, the hotel company reported 57% increase in net profit at Rs 93.93 crore from Rs 59.91 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.

However, on a full-year basis, the company reported a decline in net profi t from Rs 153.10 crore last year to Rs 141.25 crore in fi s-cal 2011.

IHCL has three hotels in the US - Taj Campton Place in San

Francisco, Taj Boston and The Pierre in New York.

The company has also decided to increase its stake in associate company, Piem Hotels, to over 50% from the current 42.6%. For this purpose, it will invest Rs 51 crore in Piem, which owns the Vivanta by Taj President in Mumbai, among other properties in the country.

The Chinese hotel market has exhibited strong performance, with continued year-on-year growth in revenue per available room (RevPAR) for the first four months of 2011.

According to STR Global data, Wuxi led Chinese cities with a Rev-PAR increase of 39%, followed by Shenzhen (33%), Xiamen (28%), Hong Kong (27%), Guangzhou (21%), Wuhan and Xian with an increase of 19% each, Chengdu

(18%), Macau (17%), and Beijing, Ningbo and Shenyang with 15% increase. Only Suhou registered a negative RevPAR of -0.8%.

The Chinese hospitality indus-try is also set to register signif-icant development growth with 502 hotel projects in the pipeline. These projects, which are in the planning and construction stage, would add more than 164,900 rooms, resulting in an increase of 13% on the existing room stock.

Luxury hotel brand Dnata has taken over the Zitahli Resorts & Spa in the Maldives, thus adding a new prod-uct to their 5-star deluxe category.

With the acquisition, Dnata now has separate properties in the Mal-dives - the Zitahli Kuda Funafaru, and the Zitahli Dholhiyadhoo, scheduled to open in June this year.

The Zitahli Kuda Funafaru incorporates 50 spacious luxury villas while the Zitahli Dholhiyad-hoo will have 100 luxury villas and suites with private plunge pools.

Dnata operates several elite 5-star properties and chains, including The Peninsula and Centara hotels.

IHCL’s US operations still not profitable

Chinese hotel market boomingDnata takes over luxury resort in Maldives

HOSPITALITY

In-room technology – boon or bane for hospitality industry?In-room technology – boon or bane for hospitality industry?

Accor is all set to open two new hotels in Thailand - the 166-room Hotel Muse Bangkok Langsuan and 213-room Mercure Krabi Deevana.

Over the last six months, Accor has added 1,400 rooms to its Thai portfolio, including the 162-room

All Seasons Bangkok Victory Monument.

Thailand’s oversupply and slug-gish visitor arrivals have had an adverse impact on Accor’s reve-nue per available room (RevPAR). However, its average room rate improved by 1-2%, while the average

occupancy rate for the fi rst quarter of this year was more than 70%.

Accor, which currently man-ages 50 hotels and 11,759 rooms in Thailand, is now banking on online channels and partnerships with commercial brands to fi ll up rooms between June and October.

The world’s first Fashion Hotel will soon come up in Dubai. Al Habtoor Group, a UAE-based diversified conglomerate, in collaboration with Fashion TV, is finalising the location within

the Emirates.The new property will be funded

solely by the Al Habtoor Group, but the conglomerate is waiting to reach an agreement with the Fashion TV manage-ment regarding the value of the project and its loca-tion, Vice-Chairman and CEO Mohammed Al Hab-toor said.

The modalities to set up the world’s fi rst Fashion Hotel have already been worked out between Al Habtoor and Michel Adam, President of Fashion TV global network.

The hotel will cater

specifically to the global fash-ion community, urban profes-sionals, as well as business and leisure travellers.

The InterContinental Hotels Group is embarking on a major expansion drive in China and has entered into a strategic cooperation with Poly Real Estate for establishing six new hotels in Guangdong and Jiangxi

provinces. Post the agreement, Poly Real Estate will manage three InterContinental hotels, two Crowne Plaza hotels and one Holiday Inn hotel, thus add-ing a total of 1,773 hotel rooms to IHG’s China portfolio.

With less than 100 days left for the kick-off of the Rugby World Cup, a new hotel -- Novotel Auckland Air-port – has come up just 50 metres from the international terminal of

the Auckland Airport. This new 263-room hotel, worth US $65 mil-lion, has been developed by Tainui Group Holdings, in partnership with Auckland Airport and Accor.

Istanbul will soon get a new hotel -- Raffles Istanbul Zorlu Center – catering specifically to performance arts, because of its proximity to the Zorlu Cen-ter, which offers world-class dramas and musicals simul-taneously with their openings

in London and Broadway. Zorlu Property is investing over US$175 million and plans to open the hotel by the fourth quarter of 2012. The hotel will have 130 guestrooms and 50 suites, besides a ballroom with a 1,200 person capacity.

Marriott Luxury Hotels & Resorts is all set to establish its fi rst hotel in the industrial district of Ray-ong, on the east coast of Thai-land, near Pattaya. The 300-room Rayong Marriott Resort & Spa,

expected to come up around Octo-ber, will cater to holiday-makers and MICE groups, as well as cor-porate travellers who have busi-ness in the automobile companies located in Rayong.

The 5-star Montcalm Hotel decided to go for a soft launch on May 23, with only 100 rooms of the luxury hospitality destination thrown open for guests initially.

However, none of these 100 rooms are lacking in luxurious ame-nities as the hotel boasts a butler ser-vice for the suites and studios, the executive Club Lounge, meeting and

banqueting rooms and The Chiswell Street Dining Rooms.

The rest of the 235 rooms of the luxury hotel, located just by the Bar-bican concert hall in heart of the City of London, are expected to be open for business by September. The her-itage building, which dates back from as early as 1750, earlier housed Whitbread & Co.

IHG to establish 6 new hotels in China

New airport hotel for Auckland

Zorlu Center, Istanbul, to have its own hotel

Marriott to set up resort in Rayong, Thailand

New hotel in the heart of London goes for soft launch

Accor expansion plans in Thailand

World’s first Fashion Hotel to come up in Dubai

IN BRIEF

July 2011 · TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST 27HOSPITALITY

TECHNOLOGY

Faced with competitive pressures on many fronts, airlines in China are looking more closely at technol-ogy solutions that can directly boost their top and bottom lines.

Sabre Airline Solutions, already a solutions partner to several air-lines in China, has seen an enor-mous growth of interest in such technology among airlines in China. Of particular interest is the Sabre AirVision suite that helps airlines with scheduling, planning of net-works, pricing, managing reve-nues. The other, Sabre AirCentre, is an operations solution suite that supports airlines by helping them manage crew resources, fl ight plan-ning, and also provides airlines with a graphical monitoring of airline operations.

“We are in constant conversation with our airline partners, so we hear their concerns and challenges. Our solutions are built to directly address these issues and therefore Sabre is able to bring immediate benefi ts to the airlines,” said Dasha Kuksenko, Head of Sales for Asia Pacifi c and India, Sabre Airline Solutions.

One of the challenges faced by airlines in China and around the world is the overbooking of seat inventory. Enter Sabre’s Revenue Integrity, off ering an array of impor-tant benefi ts to airlines by identify-ing and eliminating non-revenue

generating bookings. “One of our airline partners in

the Middle East saw a US$26 mil-lion benefi t from using the Sabre AirVision Revenue Integrity after just fi ve months. That translates to a huge boost to the bottom line,” said Kuksenko.

Sabre also reported earlier this year that its airline partner China Eastern Airlines had been enjoying greater effi ciency after automat-ing its fl eet planning and schedul-ing processes with Sabre’s AirVi-sion Network solutions. With these tools, airlines can better forecast network profi tability, evaluate optimal fl ight times against aircraft availability, and better plan fre-quency of operation. Airlines that

have chosen to automate these pro-cesses have found immediate sav-ings upwards of 2%.

Rising fuel prices is another chief concern for airlines. From the Air-Centre suite is a fl ight planning tool called Flight Plan Manager. With this, the entire fl ight plan-ning process is automated, inte-grating complete data support ser-vices such as weather, airport and airspace restrictions information. This industry-leading solution has been proven to save airlines fuel by up to 7%.

Airlines in China, grappling with constraints on resources against a backdrop of tremendous growth, have also shown keen interest in Sabre’s AirCentre Airport resource management solution. This allows airlines, airports and ground han-dling companies to effi ciently and eff ectively plan, administer and manage ground resources such as employees, equipment and gates. Seven of the top 10 airlines in the world use Sabre AirCentre Airport, reporting a reduction of full-time employee and equipment require-ments by 25%. Administrative costs are also reduced by up to 20%.

Sabre Airline Solutions contin-ues to work with airlines in China, bringing proven solutions to help China’s aviation industry achieve sustainable growth.

Chinese airlines banking on technology for savings

Google enters travel searchAfter buying an airfare search and pricing system, ITA software, Google is currently developing a product that will specifi cally assist customers when search-ing for information on fl ights and hotels. This product will give in depth information to the cus-tomer by providing details, prices and links to suppliers.

The world’s largest online travel agency, Expedia and budget AirA-sia have entered into a partnership - a natural next step for the online travel tourism industry. Expedia will be selling fl ights, hotel book-ings and holiday packages in one of the fastest growing travel and tour-ism markets.

The South-East Asian mar-ket is expected to grow between 30% to 40%. Expedia gets exclu-sive distribution rights for tickets and benefi ts from AirAsia’s dis-tribution network. AirAsia gets access to Expedia’s 130,000 hotels and assisted global distribution

for their long haul fl ights. The new company will be formed by merg-ing Expedia with AirAsia’s online booking services like AirAsiaGo and Gorooms.

Evolutionary partnership

W Hotels Worldwide has launched an iPhone applica-tion that provides customers the opportunity to book hotel rooms and has an integrated music platform. It also pro-vides fashion tips and informa-tion on special offers. Overall, the application is an extension of the W lifestyle.

W’s iPhone app that does all

Changing technology and chang-ing customer requirements will eventually change the way airports work - from connecting the cus-tomer by providing information available on smartphones and tab-lets, to customising information

based on their location and per-sonal needs.

“We need to fi nd more innova-tive ways to communicate with dig-italised passengers,” says Antoine Rostworowski, of Aéroports de Montréal.

The Intelligent Airport

Asia Pacifi c and the Middle East, followed by Europe, have become global hot spots for inter-regional long distance air travel, according to analysis by the market intelligence solution Amadeus Total Demand by Airconomy.

The review looks at trends between regions over the last two years, comparing the fi rst quarter of 2009 to 2010 and 2011.

“The Middle East is frequently misconceived as just a point of trans-fer. Our data, however, shows strong evidence of the sharp increase as origin or fi nal destination of this part of the world,” says David Doc-tor, Director, Amadeus Airline and Travel Agency Distribution.

Demand for air traffi c between

Asia Pacifi c and the Middle East grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 13% to almost 3 million passengers a month in the fi rst quarter of 2011. Dubai remains the destination of choice and the fastest growing for city pairs, such as Dubai-Mumbai, Dubai-Karachi and Dubai-Delhi.

Traffi c between the Middle East and Europe has surged 10.7% CAGR over the last two years -a market of approximately 2.4 million passen-gers a month. Dubai, London and Paris are the chief contributors to this trend, with London-Tel Aviv, Paris-Cairo, and Dubai-London, rapidly growing city pairs.

European demand to and from Asia Pacifi c added a 4.8% CAGR to

a traffi c fl ow already the strongest worldwide, with nearly 3.5 mil-lion passengers. Of the top city-pairs contributing to this growth, London is the busiest travel point. London-Bangkok, London-Delhi and London-Hong Kong, are among the top city pairs causing this increase.

Growth between North Amer-ica and Europe has stagnated since 2009 despite economic recovery.

Amadeus Total Demand by Air-conomy provides detailed demand data for any city-pair in the world. Data is mined from a large number of sources including low cost car-riers, airline direct online sales as well as from the GDS distribution channel.

A survey conducted by TripAd-visor reveals that travellers are increasingly depending on mobile phone applications for planning their vacations, and also as a useful com-panion during their trip too. The mobile device survey was conducted among more than 1,000 US citizens. While 60% said that they had downloaded a travel application, 38% claimed to have used their mobile devices for actu-ally planning a trip. Although keeping in touch still holds top spot, researching

restaurants, destinations, accom-modations, fl ights and reading traveller reviews are also high on the list.

Amadeus releases trends on long haul travel

Sabre Airline Solutions’ AirVision and AirCentre saving airlines millions

Mobile Apps become popular for travel planning

The recent activities of vandal-ism and abuse of heritage sites has shocked the Archaeological Sur-vey of India. To fi nd out how the government is tackling the prob-lem, read on.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) may have found a new way to keep idle youngsters and reckless associations away from the protected monuments of Delhi.

ASI has proposed to intro-duce tickets for visiting monu-ment sites of Delhi, especially the ones in remote areas.

This will be applied to 13 mon-ument sites, including Hauz Khas group of monuments; tomb of Adham Khan; tomb of Jamali-Kamali; Wazirabad bridge, mosque and tomb; Khirki masjid; tomb of Sheikh Kabiruddin also known as Rakabwala Gumbad (Lal Gumbad in Malviya Nagar); Asokan Rock Edict in Srini-vaspuri; Begumpuri Masjid; Bijai Mandal; and tomb of Wadde Khan, Chhote Khan and Bhure Khan in South Extension.

Until now only the world her-itage sites were ticketed. These were Qutub Minar, Humayun’s Tomb and Red Fort.

This fee would be a meagre

Rs 5 for Indian nationals and Rs 10 for foreign nationals. “The move does not aim at increas-ing the revenue. The basic idea is to secure the monuments and prevent misuse. It has been seen that if you have to pay for enter-ing a site, incidents of misuse or of children playing cricket on the grounds become infrequent,” a senior official informed. It does not intend to discourage the tourists who wish to genu-inely see the site. It may how-ever, raise some fund that can be used for petty maintenance. Lakhs of rupees are spent on conservation of these sites through landscaping and struc-tural conservation.

The move was motivated by incidents like the use of Jamali-Kamali mosque for prayers, vio-lating the ASI act off 1992, misuse of Zafar Mahal and Adham Khan’s tomb by locals to dump gar-bage inside the grounds. Besides youngsters playing cricket and football at these sites, couples using it as their hang-out point, delinquent youngsters adding graffi ti to walls and etching their names, drug peddlers using it to trade and abuse drugs, will also be discouraged by this step.

Ticketing it to save it

MONUMENTS

The 17th century, Mughal era tomb- Chausath Khamba, made entirely of marble, located at Nizamuddin in Delhi, will soon be undergoing restoration and conservation.

The German Government has given a grant of Rs 96 lakhs to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), who are looking after the maintenance of the monument.

“The German Government is proud and honoured to give its humble contribution to the won-derful work that the Aga Khan Foundation is doing to preserve the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of this holy place,” said Ambassa-dor Thomas Matussek.

The conservation work will be a part of the Humayun’s Tomb-

Sundar Nursery-Hazrat Nizamud-din Basti Urban Renewal Initia-tive, a public-private partnership between the Aga Khan Develop-ment Network and the Archaeologi-cal Survey of India(ASI), the Munic-ipal Corporation of Delhi(MCD) and the Central Public Works Department(CPWD). It is expected to complete in two years span.

German Government funding Indian monument restoration

UNESCO’s World Heritage List is finally out. The World Her-itage Committee met in Paris this June to decide upon the nominations.

Twenty one cultural, three natural, and one mixed site have been listed. Río Plátano Bio-sphere Reserve in Honduras and Tropical Rainforest Heritage in Sumatra, Indonesia, have been added to the World Heritage List in Danger. India’s Manas Wild-life Sanctuary has been removed from that list.

The committee added the Nin-galoo Coast, a vast area of reefs and caves on the remote western coast of Australia, the Kenya lake system in the Great Rift Valley and Japan’s Ogasawara Islands, to the list of natural properties.

Five beech forests in Ger-many have received exten-sion as United Nations World Heritage Sites. The areas have been included in a listing for similar ancient forests in Eastern Europe.

The World Heritage List now consists of 936 proper-ties, of which 183 are natural sites, 725 are cultural and 28 are mixed properties.

In a shocking revelation, Archae-ological Survey of India (ASI) informed that around 33,826 her-itage sites remain unprotected.

The list was compiled by National Mission of Monuments and Antiquities (NMMA), estab-lished by ASI in 2007. It was man-dated to prepare a nationwide record of monuments to create a heritage catalogue.

The database, expected to be a good surprise, turned out to be a shocking eye-opener.

“Rajasthan has the maxi-mum number of unprotected

monuments viz. 5,220. Uttar Pradesh has 3,653 monuments at risk. West Bengal has 3,627 unshielded monuments while Orissa has 3,248 unprotected monuments, followed by Hary-ana at 2,537. Puducherry has 1,800 unprotected monuments, while Goa has 1,384, Maharash-tra 972 and Himachal Pradesh 909”, as extracted from the statement released by the Min-istry of Culture.

The question is: How long will these heritage sites remain unpro-tected, and at risk?

33,826 unprotected monuments in India

25 new sites included in World Heritage List

30 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 MONUMENTS

Talk about casting gastronomi-cal spells and Taj Malabar will be on top. The “Rice Boat” food festi-val hosted by Taj is getting two best items together-Indian seafood and international wines.

Green Point NV Victoria Aus-tralia - a fresh and delicious spar-kling wine, combining rich fl avour and superb delicacy; Pouilly Fumé, Sauvignon Blanc

2009 Loire Valley, France, a great wine to pair with seafood, are some of the highlights from the festival.

For food, one can choose from masala crumbs, fried softshell crab prawn, garlic roast, crab and coco-nut soup, lobster ullarthu, fi sh pol-lichathu, prawn moily served with appam or rice and tender coconut souffl é, and much more. Jayanta Das, Executive Assistant F&B Man-ager, Taj Malabar informs, “Fish and

From 2000 to 2010, almost all industries saw major economic upheavals. Hotels’ Food and Bev-erage industry was no diff erent. The question was whether to oper-ate an F&B department in the hotel or to chuck it.

PKF-HR conducted a study to understand the trends in restau-rants, lounges and catering depart-ments of hotels.

The sample was for the span from 2000 to 2010. The hotels stud-ied had an average 413 rooms, and off ered multiple F&B outlets and extensive banquet facilities.

The study sample showed that, on compounded annual basis (CAGR), F&B revenue in hotels decreased 0.6%, during this decade. The total revenues of hotels also decreased 0.5%.

However, when analysed on a dollar-per-occupied room basis, hotel F&B revenue increased 1.6% on a compounded annual basis during the decade. This is signif-icantly greater than the 0.1% rise in total hotel revenue per occupied room. During the study period, the number of occupied rooms declined 0.5% CAGR.

However, during 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2009, it was noted that the food and beverage department of hotels generated more revenue than the occupied hotel rooms. But of this, 55.5% was generated from banquet services and caterings. 30.2% was from restaurants, 5.6% from lounges, and 4.4% from room service in the hotels. The credit for this goes to the capability of hotels for attracting local patrons to their restaurants, lounges and catering facilities.

In contrast during the years 2004 to 2007, total hotel revenues

increased much more than F&B revenues. Both occupancy and average room rates were contrib-uting factors. This led to the the-ory that the skills of hotel manag-ers to raise room rates are higher than their ability to increase F&B profi ts. F&B profi ts are based on the management’s ability to con-trol the prime costs of labor and costs of goods sold.

From 2009 to 2010, total F&B revenue increased 8.6%. The greatest increases were observed in beverage revenue (9.4%), fol-lowed by food revenue (9.1%) and

other F&B revenue (6.2%). This can be compared to the total hotel revenue for the same period which increased 6.5 percent.

The study has thus painted a new picture for hotel F&B depart-ments. Losses within the Food & Beverage departments are no longer borne by owners. It is on the of F&B management to con-tain costs and grow revenues. If they are tactful in attracting cli-ents, increasing catering revenue and beverage sales, the hotel F&B department can generate profi t-able revenue.

Recession remedy lies with good F&B managers

goats cheese too will match wonder-fully with classic sauvignon wine.”

The challenge was to present a gourmet of international stan-dards. Chefs here, have been proven to win hearts. The festival was on till 26th June.

sparklingwith

Toast to rice

wine

FOOD&BEVERAGE

À la carte alert! Restaurant and canteen operators may have to give few more details on the menu than just price and food description.

Consumers today demand to know the source of the food, how it was prepared and the nutritional value.

The statement came from The 2011 Unilever Food Solutions World Menu Report that sur-veyed 500 people each in the UK, US, Germany, China, Brazil, Rus-sia and Turkey.

Around 90% of people insisted on more information at the eating joints. They said, this would help them to make better choices about the food.

More than 70% said that know-ing about the nutritional content of meals would also infl uence the choices when eating out.

Around two-thirds of the 3500 respondents said that food labels

including “low fat” and “calorie content” would be a “welcome addition” to the menu.

According to the report, “desired nutritional information seems to be lacking in all coun-tries surveyed.”

It also showed that the con-sumers are not putting the gov-ernments or food service suppli-ers under the radar for this.

“What’s in my food?”

Classic Candles with Blooms Choose fl owers with a hint of fra-grance, like gardenia submerged in a vase. Plain white or two shades of aromatic candles look

great when placed intelligently. This goes with any venue.

Grandeur in levels Put 10 to 12 bud vases in the

center of a table. Use just one type of fl ower in up to three

shades. Arrange them in staggering heights. For pocket-friendly décor, roses are a good choice.

Colour QuestLess of fl owers but more

of simple elements such as clear plastic stands of varying

heights with vases and fl oating

candles in bright colors, is also a raging trend.

Spill your creativity by using readily available, easy-to-work-with items and seasonal items, like

berries and garland for winters. But with these tips, it is recom-

mended to assess a few factors. The size of the room, overall space, lighting, and the season must be kept in mind.

Make centerpieces that please your pocket

Five food & beverage kiosks are up for a bid at Singapore Changi Airport Group (CAG). However, it can’t be won just with money, but with “new and innovative F&B concepts”.

Any company represent-ing Western or Asian brand names, can score a 3 year, non-renewable contract with CAG for which the tender closed on June 28.

The units are at Terminal 3’s Departure/Transit Lounge South and measure between 18sq m and 26sq m.

Leasing: Changi Airport kiosks for Innovative F&B Concepts

Classic CChoosegrance, in a vashades o

great whThis goes w

GrandPut 1

centyp

sh

Lof

clearheights

Whether you want to create a cen-terpiece for your own function or help your hotel staff reap higher returns in lesser investment-here are some useful tips for cost-friendly centerpieces.

It’s called ‘Thailand’s Best Som-melier Competition’ but is more than that. It’s a double deal. While the local sommeliers exhibit their skills and win prizes, a gourmet enriched wine sampling session is the major attraction.

This grand two-day wine tast-ing event paved a profi table year for the Thailand wine industry. Guests savored sampling of over 100 wines with labels from 20 wine importing countries like Argen-tina, South Africa, and France (supported by SOPEXA). Thai-produced fi ne wines were available

for tasting too.The guest list has already

exceeded the thousand mark. Inter-national wine trade executives, high-end wine enthusiasts and a glam-orous crowd of F&B professionals, were all there. The mini wine trade fair provided a great opportunity for networking with the key players of the wine industry.

Held on 30 June and 1 July, this year, at the Dusit Thani, Bangkok, its tickets cost 1,600 Baht, and could be purchased in advance from sup-porting wine companies or Wine Today’s offi ce.

Thailand’s Sommelier hosts International Wine Showcase 2011

Vietnam has recently been ranked 8th in the Asia Pacific region in the F&B business sector by Business Monitor International.

To explore and invest more in the developing market, Viet-Cham Expo Company and Sin-gapore’s Astreem Corporation hosted “Top Franchise Asia 2011”, this June. It was also sup-ported by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Franchising and Licensing Association of Singapore (FLA).

To encash dynamic consum-erism, many Singapore com-panies are showing interest in Vietnam as a market for fran-chise expansion.

Market analysts observed that Vietnamese businesses too

have welcomed the franchisees. It secures their investments while setting up in local mar-kets and also enables easier and quicker entry in foreign mar-kets. The cost of overseas pro-motions is also reduced.

Participating franchisors in this expo included Kooshi and Animaland in lifestyle; F&B brands such as Empire State, Creative Eateries, Don’s Pie; FMDS, Q-dees, Soul Kids, and Kinder Golf in education; Auto Saver from the retail section.

FLA hopes the matching platform will facilitate inter-est and participation of Viet-nam’s brands in the upcoming FLAsia 2011 showcase, which will be held in Singapore at the end of this year.”

Vietnam opens doors for global business

32 TRAVEL NEWS DIGEST · July 2011 FOOD&BEVERAGE

TTF Hyderabad was organised at the Hitex Exhibition Centre, with participation from over 170 domestic and outbound travel organizations from all over India and abroad, from 19 states/union territories and seven countries, all under one roof.

It broke all previous records: maximum number of participants ever at Hyderabad; double the gross area as compared to last year; 40% increase

in the number of exhibitors; 150% increase in the number of visitors.

TTF Hyderabad had International participants from Dubai, Egypt, Kenya, Malaysia, Maldives, Turkey and Thailand. Among the exhibitors in the domestic sector, Gujarat continued its aggressive marketing campaign as Partner State this year too, along with Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

TTF Hyderabad 2011

EVENTS