Condé Nast Traveller India launches Readers’ Travel Awards 2012

Condé Nast Traveller invites its readers to vote for their most memorable and treasured travel experiences by participating in the annual Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Travel Awards 2012, recognized internationally as a benchmark for excellence in the travel and tourism industry. Readers can vote for their favourite holiday destinations and travel experiences by filling in the Readers’ Travel Awards questionnaire available in the Condé Nast Traveller June-July 2012 issue or by logging onto www.cntraveller.in. Entries are open till July 31, 2012 and the award winning destinations, hotels, airlines amongst other categories will be announced at an awards ceremony later in the year.

Since their introduction in India last year, Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Travel Awards have been recognized as the most prestigious travel awards in India.

Divia Thani Daswani, Editor, Condé Nast Traveller India says, “We were overwhelmed by the response the awards received in their first edition in India. The Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Travel Awards are widely acknowledged as the most prestigious awards in the travel industry, because they are voted for by our discerning readers, who understand, appreciate and ultimately consume luxury travel products and services. We look forward to an even greater response this year, given the increased circulation and reach of the magazine, and the growing appetite for luxury travel. And of course, the chance to win a stay at a fabulous luxury hotel in Asia is an added incentive to vote! Just buy the current issue of Condé Nast Traveller India or vote online at www.cntraveller.in before July 31, 2012. Good luck to you, and to all your favourites!”

Condé Nast Traveller India readers have the opportunity to vote across 22 categories for their favourite destinations, hotels, airlines, spas, airports and more. Five lucky participants stand to win a luxury hotel stay at world class destinations like Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore, Jakarta and Bangkok.

Talking about the success of Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Travel Awards in India, Subodh Kant Sahay, Minister of Tourism, Government of India shared, “Now is the time to properly market India’s tourist destinations and achieve our vision to double the number of tourists to India. Condé Nast Traveller has contributed extensively to the Indian tourism industry since its arrival in India and we believe that the magazine will offer a significant boost to our initiatives thanks to its circulation and credentials – which are tremendous, no doubt.”

CONDÉ NAST TRAVELLER READERS’ TRAVEL AWARDS INDIA 2012
INVITES READERS TO VOTE FOR THEIR FAVORITE IN THE CATEGORIES LISTED BELOW:

1. Country
2. Overseas City
3. Indian City
4. Leisure Destination -India
5. Emerging Destination -Overseas
6. Emerging Destination- India
7. Business Hotel – Overseas
8. Business Hotel – India
9. Leisure Hotel -Overseas
10. Leisure Hotel – India
11. New Hotel – Overseas
12. New Hotel -India
13. Boutique Hotel -India
14. Hotel Loyalty Programme
15. Airport
16. Airline- Overseas
17. Airline- Domestic
18. Cruise Line
19. Specialist Tour Operator
20. Spa in Hotel -Overseas
21. Spa in Hotel -India
22. Destination Spa

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Courtesy : bestmediainfo.com


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Agra may soon get international air terminal

Taj city Agra may soon get a brand new international air terminal at Dhanuali, close to the Kheria IAF base here, if the project gets the green signal from the union civil aviation ministry, says an official.

After visiting the terminal site, Raghu Raman, general manager-planning of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), held extensive discussions on the project with local administration officials and tourism industry leaders.

Raman said on Friday evening that a detailed proposal would now be sent to the ministry within a week and, if approved, "construction would begin soon".

"It may take around 18 months to two years for the terminal to be ready," Raman said.

The AAI is currently unable to optimally utilise the facilities at Kheria airport. Apart from government planes and some chartered flights, domestic majors like Indian Airlines and Kingfisher operate from here only during peak tourist season (October-March).

According to airport officer Kuldeep Singh, besides state government planes, about 60 chartered flights landed here last year.

AAI is spending around Rs.40,00,000-50,00,000 a year on maintaining the existing facilities at the airport but "this expenditure is of little use as regular flights do not touch Agra", officials said.

Officials were hopeful that there would be no hassles in acquiring 60 acres of agricultural land near the village to construct the new terminal building after paying adequate compensation to the farmers.

The airport terminal project for Agra was accorded priority after the new Samajwadi Party government took over in Uttar Pradesh in March this year.

"The Akhilesh Yadav government wants the terminal urgently. Besides, several other projects are being discussed at the highest level, including an international airport at Baldev in Mathura district," Rajiv Tiwari, president of tourism industry body Federation of Indian Travel Agents said.

"The tourism industry in Agra is demanding that immediate steps be taken to get flights resumed from Kheria airport before the start of the new tourist season. We recently submitted a memorandum to the chief minister, requesting him to grant concessions on fuel purchases and provide certain facilities at the airport," Tiwari said.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has now equipped its Kheria air base with night landing facilities and the runway has also been extended after repairs.

The new terminal could accelerate the growth of tourism sector in this region that draws a large number of foreign visitors, tourism industry sources here aver.
courtesy: zeenews.com

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Understanding domestic Indian travel behaviors

GLOBAL REPORT—As more and more hoteliers look to capitalize on an emerging travel market in India, understanding that emerging traveler’s behavior with respect to travel is critically important.

For example, the adoption of social media as a travel research tool in India has accelerated much faster than any other region of the world, according to PhoCusWright researchers on a webinar Wednesday titled “Upward and Onward: PhoCusWright’s Indian Consumer Travel.”

The top three websites visited when researching travel in India are Facebook, Orkut (a social networking and discussion site operated by Google) and Twitter, according to PhoCusWright research. Therefore, hoteliers who want to successfully capture demand need to tweak their social-media strategies to target Indian travelers.

“There is tremendous opportunity for travel providers because India is still a developing market,” said Julien Beresford, senior research analyst at PhoCusWright. “It’s critically important to know that a single channel will not work. It’s critical to have a multichannel strategy.”

Understanding the demographics 

There are more than 19 million broadband users in India, according to PhoCusWright, signifying an accelerated Internet and mobile adoption rate. Wireless coverage is increasing dramatically in the area and 4G networks will be popping up in India later this year. There has been a surge in rich-media content and social networking, which has had exponential effects on India’s travel market.

There are more than 46 million Facebook users in India. The country has a population of 1.21 billion; 339 million of those are urban residents and approximately 61 million are considered “upper echelon,” which is the group doing most of the traveling in India today.

India has seen significant investment related to its tourism industry, including the expansion of four metro airports.

All of this has led to approximately 55,000 rooms in India’s hotel development pipeline, according to PhoCusWright.

The typical Indian traveler is a young male between the ages of 25 and 44 and has a graduate degree. While regional languages are spoken primarily, most Indian residents read English primarily, which presents an opportunity for international hoteliers.

Young Indians are spending much more than they did just two years ago, said Deepak Jain,
research associate with PhoCusWright. Significantly more travelers today are doing so with friends, family and other adults, as opposed to traveling alone. Fifty-eight percent of upper-echelon Indians take just one trip in a year; one in four plan to take three or more leisure trips.

“Even though they are traveling less (than U.S. travelers), they are optimistic about future plans. Indians plan to take more trips, spend more and stay longer,” Jain said.

India’s channel mix

Approximately 6 billion travel bookings are made online in India on an annual basis. Recently, more than 2 billion (about 33%) of those bookings were made with online-travel agents and the remaining 4 billion were made directly with suppliers, according to PhoCusWright research. However, approximately 50% of those supplier-direct bookings were made on RailToursimIndia.com; without those bookings, the mix would be spilt about 50-50 between OTAs and supplier direct, Jain said.

When researching travel, the most-used online destinations are search engines and social media. Forty-five percent of Indian travelers reported using social media as a primary research tool, much higher than PhoCusWright has seen in any other region, Beresford said.

When it comes to booking online versus offline, many travelers in India still book travel through traditional offline travel. According to PhoCusWright research, 31% of Indian travelers “usually or always” book online, while 42% “usually or always” book offline. When asked how their last trip was booked, an overwhelming number of survey respondents reported booking offline.

Mobile and social media

In India, 55% of leisure travelers have a smartphone. Only 2% of Indian travelers don’t have a mobile phone at all, according to PhoCusWright research.

Social networks are a primary travel tool. Indian travelers are using the sites primarily to get travel advice, get recommendations about activities, plan trips collaboratively and share travel updates.

“There has been some activity by the telecom operators to drive consumers to social-networking sites by lowering data charges,” Beresford said. “But I think it’s more than that. There is an acceptance of social networking to interact with travel providers and OTAs to an extent we don’t see yet in the U.S. and Europe.”
Courtesy : www.hotelnewsnow.com

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Sikkim to be one of the largest beneficiaries of adventure tourism promotion

With its exotic locations, wilderness and mesmerizing natural beauty, Himalayan state Sikkim is going to be one of the largest beneficiaries of GoI's ongoing initiative to promote adventure tourism in order to popularize Indian adventure tourism in global platform, GoI is standardizing different facets of the fast growing sector especially the safety parameters.

Out of total 25 national projects already identified to boost up Adventure Tourism in India under Central Financial Assistance (CFA), Sikkim alone has 7, highest in number amongst Indian states. These include 3 heliports and three destination development projects.

According to ATTA ( Adventure Travel Trade Association), a global network of adventure tourism companies, global annual adventure tourism business volume is expected to cross $ 60 billion by the end 2012.

And, "With proper infrastructure development, Sikkim can enjoy a significant portion of this," said Mr. S. Sanyal, President Eastern Himalayan Tour and Travel Operators Association.

"We are ready to utilize the tourism potential in all possible ways without jeopardizing our rich natural biodiversity, delicate ecosystem and natural beauty," Sikkim CM Mr. Pawan Chamling told ET earlier.

The roadmap of Union Tourism Ministry to promote Indian adventure tourism in global platform has been chalked out based upon inputs from state Government and Adventure Tour Operators Association of India. Apart from finding different circuits, the Ministry is developing a well framed safety parameter conforming international standards for all the stake holders to follow.

With 82% of its 7000 sq km geographic area under forest cover, 3% under Glaciers and 14% under round the year snow cover, Sikkim is a hotspot for adventure tourism with its hilly terrain ranging from 900 ft to 28,000ft altitude above mean sea level.

Beside 26% of the total flowering plant species cache of the whole country, Sikkim hosts 424 identified medicinal plants or near 600 orchids in its flora and 552 birds or 700 species of butterflies in fauna to attract adventure tourists from the whole world.

Courtesy: indiatimes.com

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Top 5 Increasingly Booming Industries in India- Tourism and Hospitality are on the list

Since the advent of industrialization in India we have witnessed setting up of many new industries in various sectors. Indian industrialists after the 65 years of independence have come a long way. Some sectors have developed and some are still developing. Most of the sectors have even attracted foreign investments to the country. Following is an insight to some of the top increasingly booming industries in India.

Tourism

Tourism is one of the most important industries to any country as it is the best source for inflow of foreign currency into the country. A tourist, with him brings foreign currency and thus his every little spending is contributing in a better way to the country’s economy. Its contribution is around 6.23 % to the national GDP and generates 8.78% of the total employment. It is estimated that around US $375.5 billion will be generated by this particular sector by 2018. India being such a large and diverse destination has become a major attraction for tourists all over the world. The fact that it has 28 different states, and each one has a different and a unique culture of its own, adds to the curiosity of the tourists.

There have been efforts to increase new forms of tourism such as rural, medical and eco-tourism. Medical tourism over the years has attracted a large chunk of tourists to Asia especially for plastic surgeries. India, despite having some of the world class medical facilities has suffered due to its low levels of sanitation. This remains one of the biggest hurdles in development of medical tourism here. But one of the major challenges is of security of the tourists. Domestic tourism is over 800 million.

Another challenge is shortage of hotels and tourist accommodation places in the country. Lately, government has also started promoting tourism and awareness about tourism in country under the programme of “Incredible India”.

Power Generation

Electricity has become one of the most basic necessities of one’s life today. India has the 5th largest power consuming market in the world. In the 11th five year plan, the planning commission displayed “electricity for all till 2012” as the aim of government but 2012 has arrived and we are not even close to this goal. Power generation sector provides great opportunities to the investors as it promises higher returns. Coal, despite being termed as major pollutant still continues to generate 55% of total power generated. Though government has taken steps to generate electricity from hydro, nuclear and solar energy but there share is still very low as compared the thermal energy.

Hospitality industry

With increasing tourism and with the advent of modern life styles and westernization this particular sector has witnessed a sudden and massive boom.Hospitality industry is one of the world’s largest service generating sectors. In India though it is new but people are investing in it and also more people are opting for hotel management course to enter this promising industry.

This sector can be divided into two; the entertainment and accommodations sectors. Discs, bars hotels have become part of the urban lifestyles. On the other hand with an increase in tourism in India has lead to need of more hotels and infrastructure.

Animation industry

This particular sector has witnessed a much required boom over the past few years. With the increasing use of 3D technology in movies and many other animation technologies, this industry has managed to create a demand for creative animators, and other technicians.According to a study this industry is growing at rate of 30% annually. A slight government help to the animation industries in terms of loan can provide a futher increase and profit to new but rapidly growing industry.

Food processing industries

Food processing industry is another rapidly growing industry in india. The central government has taken many steps to increase the growth of this sector for eg they treat all the agro processing industries with a greater priority and responsibility. This has to some extent brought more organisational factor into the food retail and agricultural sector. This is one sector which has faced a rapid increase in the foreign direct investments. Also, over the time there has been an ever increasing demand of such goods in the Indian market. This industry is growing swiftly and is estimated to cross $200 billion till 2015. This sector currently faces major problem fetching proper investment at various stages of supply. More upgraded technology is the current need of the hour.

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J&K to be prime tourism destination in India: Jora

Stating that the tourism was the mainstay of the Kashmir’s economy, Minister for Tourism and Culture Nawang Rigzin Jora Thursday said that his department will turn Jammu and Kashmir as one of the premier destinations of the country. He said National Geograpic has agreed to promote State’s tourism.

“Give me one more peaceful year and you will see the sea change on the ground. Once peace is given a chance, there will be no looking back in the tourism sector,” Jora said while speaking at the annual certificate distribution ceremony of Institute of Hotel Management Srinagar.

Jora said Kashmir valley witnessed a surge in the tourist rush due to peaceful year 2011.
“We did our best to revive this industry. We want to see a record number of tourists to visit Kashmir valley. This industry received major setback during militancy. This year, we are expecting record number of tourist arrivals to Valley,” he said

Lauding the efforts of Institute of Hotel Management for its commendable job, Jora said the institute is emerging as the best institute in the country.

“For the fourth consecutive, this institute bagged national level awards,” he said.

Jora said lack of funds for tourism is hampering the developmental works in tourism sector.

“We receive only Rs 6 crore as publicity budget while as the state government has a budget of Rs 3000 crores for electricity. The more appalling thing is that Chattisgarh receives Rs 12 crore as publicity budget but Jammu and Kashmir being one of the scintillating tourist destinations gets only 6 crore as publicity budget,” he said.

“On our request, government of India will send a National Geograpic TV Channel team here which will make promotional ads on tourism in Jammu and Kashmir.”

Former Director Tourism Farooq Shah said Institute of Hotel Management is doing an excellent work in building the capacity of the students.

“The main aim of this institute is to provide professional training so that they can provide better services in tourism industry,” he said

He said the institute has trained thousands of students so far and will continue to do so in the future “Last year over 2000 students were trained in this institute. If the institute goes at this pace then there is no need for ordering manpower from outside the state and we can supply the manpower to other states as well,” he said.

Commissioner Secretary Tourism Government of J&K Atul Dullo said the courses taught here at the institute provide youth many employment opportunities.
“The institute provides free training to the youth. Thousands of students are trained here every year. It was necessary to provide this kind of training to the youth as the numbers of tourists are growing every year,” he said.

During today’s event over 700 certificates were distributed among the students who had completed their six months or one year courses in different sectors.

Among others who were present on the occasion include Principal Institute of Hotel Management Srinagar Nasheed Srivastav, Director Tourism Talat Parviz, and President Travel Agents association of Kashmir Rouf Tramboo.

Courtesy : www.risingkashmir.com

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South African Tourism to announce India as "established tourism market" by 2013

As a result of continued positive growth in inbound visitor numbers from India and China, South African Tourism is all set to recognise the two countries as established tourism markets. While speaking at Africa’s top travel trade fair, INDABA 2012, Thulani Nzima, CEO, South African Tourism, said, “We have witnessed strong growth from India in 2011 and recorded 90,367 Indian arrivals, a 26.2 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2010’s figure of 71 587. We hope to cross the 100,000 mark for tourist arrivals from India in 2012. Such increase in arrivals will give us the rationale to stop using the ‘Emerging Market’ tag for the country, which we shall do very soon, say by 2012 end or 2013.”

He added that South Africa witnessed 84,883 tourist arrivals from China in 2011, a growth of 24.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2010. He also said that South African Tourism shall continue to engage the trade and media for further promotion activities and continue to invest in both China and India. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Tourism Minister, South Africa, said that India and China registered positive growth in 2011 and continue to remain emerging and core markets for South Africa. He stressed on the importance of the two countries and re-confirmed their contributions to South African Tourism.

Organised to be held over four days (May 12-15, 2012) at Durban ICC, INDABA 2012 has over 1,500 confirmed exhibitors including accommodation providers, airlines, tour operators, car rental companies, tourist attractions and a host of other tourism businesses, around 200 hosted buyers and over 780 media. The theme of the event this year is ‘Shaping our future together’.

While delivering his inaugural speech, Schalkwyk stressed on the need for cooperation to take tourism in Africa forward. “While South Africa’s tourism sector proved its resilience in tough global economic conditions, the industry requires to work with co-opetition (cooperation and competition), which is the new way for the future of tourism. There are some areas where we need to work with our competing international players. Competition brings out the best in all of us, but cooperation is what is urgently needed, especially for the African continent, where we have to work together to remove barriers to international travel and tourism. It is only through strong partnerships and a collective approach that South Africa’s tourism industry will continue to grow. We also need to work towards responsible and sustainable tourism.”

“Tourism is a collaborative business and requires cohesion and partnership from all spheres of the tourism industry, both private and public, to ensure tourism growth. It is necessary to manage the value chain and work in collaboration with all the stakeholders involved,” Nzima added.

Speaking of challenges and hurdles that need to be addressed, Schalkwyk said that taxes such as the United Kingdom air passenger duty and the European Union’s unilateral inclusion of all international flights in their domestic emissions trading scheme (ETS), distort markets and affect passenger numbers and tourism receipts in long-haul, developing-country destinations, and will increasingly do so in the years to come. “We should work with our likeminded partners in other long-haul destinations to fight the aggressive unilateralism with which new taxes on international tourism are imposed. We are working with a number of partners to push for a global solution to replace this patchwork of unilateral measures,” he said.

Schalkwyk also stressed on aviation as a major factor for boosting tourism. He said, “We must unlock the benefits of aviation on our continent, create space for the new-model low-cost airlines, advance competition in the skies, and establish Johannesburg as one of the hubs on the continent as well as the South-South corridor. In all of this, our national carrier, South African Airways, will have an important role to play.”

Setting the target for 2020, Schalkwyk said, “Eight years from now, in 2020, the timeframe of our National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS), we want to see 15 million international arrivals for which we will be spending R 218 million in promoting our destination in Africa over the next three years and will ensure a significant presence on the continent, with five offices across Africa within five years. By 2020, we will have implemented an e-visa system that will improve security while also facilitating hassle-free travel.”

Coutesy: travelbizmonitor.com

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