Category: News

English Premier League champions Liverpool FC has announced a new global partnership with the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority and Economic Development Board of Mauritius, as the club’s official tourism and economic development partner. The deal forms part of the country’s drive to become a leading global tourist destination and business hub of Africa. The three-year partnership will see Mauritius benefit from a range of LFC digital, social media and marketing assets.  As well as being one of the top premier luxury holiday destinations in the world with one of the highest rates of return visitors, Mauritius is also one of ... Read more

India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued fresh guidelines for international arrivals. These guidelines will be operational from 00.01 hours, 8th August 2020) Before Planning for Travel: i. All travellers should submit self-declaration form on the online portal (www.newdelhiairport.in) at least 72 hours before the scheduled travel. ii. They should also give an undertaking on the portal that they would undergo mandatory quarantine for 14 days i.e. 7 days paid institutional quarantine at their own cost, followed by 7 days isolation at home with self-monitoring of health. iii. Only for compelling reasons/ cases of human distress such as ... Read more

Andhra Pradesh’s Tourism Minister Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao has said that in order to generate revenues for the sector, hotels across the State will be turned into paid quarantine centres. Addressing the media at the Secretariat, he said, “Tourism sector has suffered huge losses due to the COVID-19 crisis. So, we have decided to rent out low-occupancy tourism hotels as COVID quarantine centres.” The private hotels are already being used as quarantine centres. “Tourism hotels in Nellore, which were used as quarantine centres, have generated a revenue of Rs 2 crore in the past few months,” said Rao, adding that revenue of ... Read more

The Association of Tourism Trade Organisations India (ATTOI) is organising a webinar on August 6, featuring two eminent individuals – Claudia Wagner, managing director of German tour operator FIT Reisen and Muralee Thummarukudy, Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction in the United Nations Environment Programme. The theme of the webinar is “We will overcome”. While Claudia Wagner will speak in English on the topic ‘Impact of Covid-19 and the revival of tourism’ from 3.30-4.30 pm, Muralee Thummarukudy will deliver his talk in Malayalam on the subject ‘Is there a spring season awaiting Kerala tourism?’, from 4.30-5.30 pm. Claudia Wagner has been with ... Read more

Kenya Airways resumed international flights on Saturday, heading to about 30 destinations for the first time since the routes were suspended in March due to the coronavirus, Reuters has reported. The carrier, in which Air France KLM holds a small stake, resumed domestic flights in mid-July after the government cleared local air travel. “We announced we are starting with 27 destinations, we increased it to 30 just following demand,” Allan Kilavuka, the airline’s chief executive officer, said during a ceremony ahead of seeing off a flight to London. He said for the rest of the year the airline expected demand ... Read more

Brazil has reopened international air travel to foreign tourists, even as the country’s coronavirus outbreak ranks as the world’s second worst, according to a news report by Reuters. Air travel was suspended in March. Tourists from all countries may travel to Brazil as long as they have health insurance for the duration of their trip, the government said in a decree which did not explain the rationale for the decision. Brazil is reopening its air borders faster than other countries in the region with less severe outbreaks, such as Colombia, Argentina, Panama and Peru which remain closed to international commercial ... Read more

Ryanair has initiated legal proceedings against Ireland, questioning the legality of travel restrictions that have kept a quarantine policy in place for all but 15 countries. The Irish carrier, Europe’s largest budget airline, said it is challenging what it described as the Irish government’s “ineffective” green list of countries, for which a 14-day quarantine requirement does not apply, Reuters reports. Ireland has taken a more cautious approach to reopening its economy and skies than many European countries. The green list, announced on July 22, contained some popular destinations Ryanair flies to, such as Italy and Greece, but not others including ... Read more

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has announced that a travel corridor arrangement has been set up with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to facilitate essential business trips, which included official and diplomatic visits. The minister said Indonesia proposed the agreement after consulting with related government bodies, as well as their counterparts in the UAE, Jakarta Post reports. “Indonesia and the UAE signed an agreement on an essential business travel corridor. The agreement is effective immediately,” Retno said. The travel corridor agreement, she added, was strictly for essential business travel such as businesspeople and diplomats, but not for tourists. The agreement ... Read more

Travellers arriving at airports in the UAE could be among the first passengers in the world to undergo Covid-19 detection by police dogs. K9 sniffer dogs have been stationed at airports across the country to help detect traces of the coronavirus from passenger samples, according to a report by The National. Specially trained dogs at Dubai International Airport are working to track possible infections using swabs gathered from arriving passengers. “An area was dedicated to detect Covid-19 using K9 police dogs at Dubai International Airport,” said Major Salah Al Mazrooei from Dubai Police. “Samples are taken in collaboration with partners ... Read more

The Confederation of Kerala Tourism Industries (CKTI) is seeking urgent financial aid from the government for the survival of the sector that has been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic. The confederation said the government should take additional measures to help the 15 lakh employees who are directly linked to the travel/tourism/hospitality segment. Meanwhile, following a series of online meetings that saw representation from 35 registered trade associations, CKTI re-elected EM Najeeb as its chairman. The main objective is to ensure survival and then the revival of the industry, CKTI stated in a press release. The tourism sector is the most ... Read more

Europe’s airline and airport associations have written to Prime Ministers, Transport, Health and Home Affairs Ministers across the European Union, Schengen and the UK, stating their concerns over their failure to implement coherent and scientific approaches to travel restrictions. The letter, sent jointly from Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe), Airlines for Europe (A4E) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), is highly critical of the introduction of new restrictions relating to selected countries. Many of these restrictions, state the organisations, are inconsistent with the principles laid out by the World Health Organization(WHO) and theEuropean Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The aviation sector has been dealt a ... Read more

Air India has announced 12 additional flights from August 18-30 to Canada and Vancouver from Delhi under the 5th phase of the Vande Bharat Mission. Bookings for the flights are now open on the airline’s official website or booking offices. As India is set to begin the fifth phase, more bilateral air bubbles are expected to be announced with more countries. The fourth phase of the Vande Bharat Mission brought back as much as 2.5 lakh Indians from 53 countries around the world. Under phase 4, a total of 1,197 flights have been scheduled so far, including 945 international flights ... Read more

Kuwait’s international airport will resume commercial flights to 20 countries from August 1. The resumption will be carried out in a three-stage re-opening, five months after it suspended operations due to the coronavirus pandemic. Flights will initially cover eight countries in the Middle East, including the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Lebanon; six in Europe, including the UK, Germany and Switzerland; five in Asia, including Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and the Philippines; and to Ethiopia as the lone African destination, Kuwait’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said in a statement. The government’s three-stage re-opening took into account the importance of ... Read more

The Indian Government and the State Government of Kerala should be held responsible for their criminal negligence towards the struggling travel and tourism sector, tourism body ATTOI has contended, citing instances of employees committing suicide. While many other countries, both developed and developing, have come forward with plans to support the industry, the Indian government and the state of Kerala have ignored the sector, ATTOI President Vinod CS has said. Even neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka and states such as Himachal Pradesh have given shape to financial packages and benefits for tourism employees, but God’s Own Country hasn’t come to ... Read more

Kerala Tourism will increase its cooperation with other state tourism departments and the Central Government to avoid issues in inter-state travel, said Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran on Friday. The Minister said he expects tourists to start visiting Kerala Tourist Places in the next one or two months. He was speaking at the concluding session of the two-day e-Conclave organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) with the participation of representatives from various states and the Central Government on the future of tourism. In the first phase, ayurveda, eco-tourism and adventure tourism sectors will be strengthened ... Read more