Category: India

With an aim to increase more people to people exchanges, especially tourism from India, the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, said it will extend electronic-Visa facility for India starting from July 2018. The country had already initiated friendly-visa regime for Indians from early this year by doing away with the mandatory ‘invitation letter’ clause for applying for visa. “The e-Visa system will further ease the processes to enhance more travel exchanges between the two countries. Uzbekistan offers a wide range of attractions for tourists starting from religious to spiritual to eco-tourism, adventure, educational, etc. With less than three hours of flying time ... Read more

If you are a family vacationing in Goa and is planning to check-in to the Park Hotel Goa Baga River, your kids may not get a room there, as it is an adults hotel. The boutique hotel is for adults-only, and guests below the age of 18 are not welcome. The hotel caters exclusively to couples and the just-married. TripAdvisor says that there is only one other hotel in the country with entry restrictions and that is ‘Ananda – In the Himalayas’, in Rishikesh. The hotel doesn’t allow children below 14 “in order to maintain its tranquillity”. The 28-room luxury hotel’s ... Read more

Major aviation consultancy, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) has urged the Central government to make the process of Air India Privatization investor-friendly otherwise it might soon shut down. CAPA, through its Twitter account said that “CAPA estimates AI headed for 2-year losses of USD1.5-2.0 bn in FY19/FY20. Failure to divest could see AI close unless govt willing to spend taxpayer funds. Far less costly to make offer more attractive to investors”. According to CAPA, the three key themes emerging on Air Indian divestment are: 1) Critical that terms in EOI – particularly for labour & debt – are amended, as ... Read more

Ballarshah Station Balharshah and Chandrapur stations (Nagpur Division) of Central Railway have been awarded first prize for depicting the best art & refurbishing itself as the most beautiful station across Indian Railways. Ballarshah and Chandrapur railway stations were decorated with paintings and sculptures depicting the Tadoba forest, which was welcomed by the passengers who had a feel of the rich wildlife beauty of the Tadoba Forest in the station itself. Both the stations have been awarded Rs 10 lakhs as the prize money. In order to promote cleanliness with creativity, the Ministry of Railways had invited nominations across all Zonal ... Read more

On 5th May Indian Railways has a special reason to cheer and celebrate for the women commuters. The first ever Ladies Special train in the world was started between Churchgate and Borivali on 5th May, 1992. 5th May 2018 will go down in the annals of history as the 26th anniversary of introduction of this milestone of Indian Railways dedicating an entire train to women commuters. The First Ladies special train, flagged off on Western Railways, was initially run between Churchgate and Borivali and further extended upto Virar in the year 1993. The ladies special has been a boon for ... Read more

The Minister of State for Culture(I/c) and Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Dr. Mahesh Sharma inaugurates the Exhibition ‘India and the World: A History in Nine Stories’ -an extensively collaborative effort of the British Museum, London; National Museum, New Delhi; and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai with the active support of the Culture Ministry. The Exhibition will be inaugurated at 5.00 PM, at the National Museum auditorium, New Delhi. The exhibition chronologically encapsulates the evolution of Indian civilization since antiquity and its interconnectedness with the outside world through a raft of exquisite artefacts from ... Read more

Considering the huge demand of passengers on Delhi – Gorakhpur sector, Ministry of Railways has decided to increase the frequency of Gorakhpur – AnandViharHumsafar Express from 3 days to daily. Train No 12571/12572 Gorakhpur AnandViharHumsafar Express via Barhni will now be extended from 2 days to 4 days & Train No. 12595/12596 Gorakhpur Anand Vihar Humsafar Express via Basti will now be extended from 1 day to 3 days a week. Manoj Sinha, Minister of State for Communications (I/C) and Minister of State for Railways, along with local public representatives will flag off the special Train No. 02571 Gorakhpur- Anand ... Read more

Think Strawberries, one of the leading travel representation companies, has been appointed as the Sales, Media, Marketing and PR Representative in India for Disneyland Paris, Sharjah Commerce & Tourism Development Authority, Tourismo De Portugal and Majid Al Futtaim Group (Ski Dubai, iFly Dubai and Orbi Dubai). In addition to this, Visit Orlando and Cocoon Maldives have signed with Think Strawberries for Representation in both India and UAE. “2018 has been a terrific start for us. We are thrilled with the successful acquisition of marquee accounts, which demonstrates that Think Strawberries is future ready and recognised by some of the finest, ... Read more

Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it will give additional loan for Himachal Pradesh to develop tourism infrastructure in the state. An ADB team led by Country Director Kenichi Yokoyama called on state Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to allocate the second trench of Rs 750 crore loan under the Infrastructure Development Investment Programme for Tourism. The team appreciated the efforts of the state Tourism Department in implementing the phase one under the programme, which will be over by 2020. Nineteen projects were sanctioned under phase one out of which 16 were completed and the remaining three would be completed by ... Read more

Goa Tourism is planning to conduct a roadshow in US to boost tourism. Tourism minister Manohar Azgaonkar and chairman Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) Nilesh Cabral will head the roadshow, which will start on May 20. Chief secretary Dharmendra Sharma and deputy director tourism will also be part of the delegation to US. US tourist arrivals in Goa remain at less than 2 per cent of the state’s total tourist footfall. The tourism department’s website shows that the footfalls from the country dropped to 1 per cent in 2016 after showing a slight growth in 2015 when it received 12,227 visitors. Meanwhile, ... Read more

This is the best time to start a tourism enterprise or an enterprise for providing entertainment in Rajasthan, as the state government has decided to exempt 50 per cent on stamp duty. Issuing the order, Department of finance said that the stamp duty chargeable on purchase or lease of multi-storied commercial building for setting up these units will get relaxation of 50 per cent on stamp duty. The benefit will also been given to entrepreneurs who are interested to set up enterprise in information technology. The entrepreneurs can get this relaxation of paying 50 per cent of stamp duty at ... Read more

After winning the hearts of people across the world with its snack varieties, Haldiram’s is now turning to travel and tourism sector, launching a travel company by the name Travhos Experience. The Indian snack company is said to have hired a handful of experienced tourism professionals to head the company. Travhos is also planning to offer everything from package tours to treks. It will also be offering services in heritage and spiritual as well as in business and other packages for India and abroad. “Our model is to make all kind of travel experiences accessible to the public,” Siddharth Sharma, Managing Director ... Read more

Targeting Indian tourists, Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) has opened a representative office in Mumbai. More than 110,000 Indian travellers visited Qatar in the first quarter of 2018. Qatar has become an increasingly accessible destination for Indian travellers, especially after Qatar waived visa entry requirements for Indian citizens last year. “The decision was taken in view of the rapid growth of India’s outbound tourism market in recent years, coupled with QTA’s intensified efforts to diversify and grow visitor source,” said QTA’s Chief Marketing and Promotion Officer Rashed AlQurese. “The steps taken to make accessing Qatar easier are particularly targeted at visitors seeking to experience ... Read more

SpiceJet has launched daily direct services between Delhi and Punjab’s Adampur. The first direct flight was flagged off from Delhi airport’s Terminal 2 to Adampur by Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, and Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet. SpiceJet was awarded Adampur under the first round of the regional connectivity scheme UDAN and the city is the fifth destination for the airline under this scheme. In addition to Adampur, SpiceJet also launched daily services between Leh and Delhi. Flight SG 8731 was flagged off at 3:30 pm from Delhi and SG 8732 was given a flag ... Read more

Ramu B, IAS took charge as the Director of Karnataka State Tourism Department on April 24, 2018. The 2010-batch IAS officer Ramu B, had earlier served as the District Collector in Chamarajanagar. He said “My priority in the new role would be to improve the marketing of Karnataka tourism,” said the new tourism director. “One State Many Worlds” is all about selling an experience. I need about some months to study and understand the kind of experience we are trying to market. Be it responsible tourism or adventure tourism, I would really like to market the state to different kind ... Read more