Last week, Hong Kong-based carrier Cathay Pacific announced the resumption of three non-stop weekly flights from Chennai.
05.09.2023 - 05:31 / skift.com / Amrita Ghosh / Peden Doma Bhutia
The overall nights booked on Airbnb in India have grown by almost 70% in 2022 as compared to pre-pandemic levels while domestic nights grew by 110%.
“We have seen more than double growth in bookings for international travels during the January-March quarter this year when compared to the corresponding period last year,” Airbnb’s General Manager for India, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Amanpreet Singh Bajaj told Skift’s Asia Editor Peden Doma Bhutia in the latest episode of the Skift India Travel Podcast.
The company in June signed a memorandum of understanding with India’s Ministry of Tourism to promote the country as a sought-after tourism destination and shine a spotlight on its cultural heritage. It also launched a dedicated ‘Soul of India’ microsite that showcases a range of heritage stays across the country.
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Overcast | Google Podcasts | YouTube | RSS
“Destination promotion is a big part of this partnership. We don’t want to just focus on India’s tourism hotspots but also work with underserved communities and regions, train people there so that we are able to position India on the global map holistically,” said Bajaj.
As part of the partnership, Airbnb is also offering support to hosts in untapped tourist areas, assisting them in promoting their homestays, building host capacity, and fostering a culture of responsible hosting.
“We are sharing travel insights and homestay insights with the Ministry of Tourism so it leads to a more informed ecosystem in terms of responsible tourism policies and training requirements,” he added.
Over the years, Airbnb inked deals with the tourism departments of Goa, Maharashtra and a few Northeastern states to boost hinterland and homestay tourism and enable capacity building of hospitality entrepreneurs in the states.
“When we work with the government, there is a growing consciousness in terms of creating policies that are easy in terms of registration requirements for a host so that it attracts more people to undertake this micro entrepreneurial opportunity,” said Bajaj.
Several states which have adopted homestay policies are now encouraging more people to open up their homes to the world.
“We are working with state governments to share global best practices and create awareness about policies as part of our collaboration with the tourism ministry for our hosts to comply with the requirements from respective states,” he said.
Micro-entrepreneurial hosts on Airbnb, who self-identify as women, collectively earned over $12 million last year.
In fact, the company recently partnered with Sheroes — a New Delhi-based women’s networking and enabling platform — to grow its community of women hosts in India. It also has a partnership
Last week, Hong Kong-based carrier Cathay Pacific announced the resumption of three non-stop weekly flights from Chennai.
IndiGo is developing a wrist device designed to gauge pilot fatigue and alertness levels before and after flights, according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters The budget carrier will work in partnership with the French aerospace conglomerate, Thales Group, and also intends to appoint a consultant to improve its fatigue risk management procedures.
Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express brands, together making up nearly 70% of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG)’s portfolio in India, are going to remain the “driver of growth” in the market, said the company’s South West Asia Managing Director, Sudeep Jain.
Air India has entered into an interline partnership with Bangkok Airways that will allow the Tata Group-owned airline’s passengers connections to 10 Southeast Asian destinations beyond the Thai capital.
Only 25% of Indians traveling abroad purchase travel insurance well in advance while making travel arrangements, while the majority of them wait until the last three days to buy it, according to data compiled by insurance aggregator Policybazaar.
Antitrust watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved Tata group’s plan to merge its full-service carriers Air India and Vistara.
Indian carrier Vistara reported its first-ever net profit for the quarter ending December 2022, according to statement from the airline on Monday.
India is expected to overtake Germany to become the world’s third most powerful travel and tourism market by 2032, according to World Travel and Tourism Council’s Economic Impact Research.
The Google pages of many hotels — including premier properties — in the Himalayan hill towns of Darjeeling and Kalimpong in West Bengal have been defaced for fraud ahead of the holiday travel rush. Anybody looking for hotels in Darjeeling using the search engine will come across prominent photographs containing the hackers’ phone numbers over a section displaying pictures of rooms and amenities. “We have been lately facing incidents where fraudsters are posting their mobile numbers with payment options to book not only our properties but also several others in the region. We are continually monitoring this and flagging all such posts as ‘spam’ for Google to review and have them removed,” said Viraj Oberoi, director of Elgin Hotels & Resorts, a luxury heritage hotels chain with properties in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Sikkim. Cyber miscreants are removing hotel details and creating their own profiles with personal contact details, said Sandipan Ghosh, general secretary of regional travel trade body Eastern Himalayas Travel and Tour Operators’ Association. “Surprisingly, they’re also luring customers to pay in advance while knocking off the goods and services tax charge,” Ghosh said. In India, the goods and services tax on hotels range anywhere between 12-18 percent, depending on the pricing. Customers, while trying to book hotels online for Darjeeling, have been duped to pay advance amounts to bank accounts which don’t belong to the owners of the accommodations. “We’re in touch with the cyber cell department to track such incidents closely and take action accordingly,” Ghosh added.
Editor’s Note: our
India will invest around $12 billion over the next two years in airports, aircraft and recruitment to meet the booming demand for air travel. The country aims to increase the number of airports from the present 148 to 220 by 2025, for which private builders will contribute roughly $9 billion, with the balance coming from the government-run Airports Authority of India. It entails new terminal construction, greenfield projects, and refurbishment of existing buildings, including old military airfields from the colonial era, as per a Bloomberg report. “We need to put in place the civil aviation infrastructure and capabilities that by 2047 would be able to support a $20 trillion economy within India,” said the country’s civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia at the ongoing CAPA India Aviation Summit in New Delhi. Scindia said passenger capacity at India’s six major airports is expected to grow to 420 million in four years from 192 million today, and Indian carriers’ fleet will grow to 2,000 aircraft in five years from 700. Additionally, India has eased leasing rules for airlines to lease more aircraft to address aircraft shortages as travel rebounds from the pandemic. He also highlighted how India had tweaked its airplane leasing program to enable airlines to add more aircraft to meet passenger demand, including more “wet leasing,” or renting of planes with crew, for domestic and international routes. Tata Group-owned Air India last month announced a record order for 470 jets and is due to take another 25 leased aircraft.
Indian companies have failed to set targets to reduce corporate travel emissions, according to an annual report by campaign group Transport & Environment. Globally, only 50 companies out of 322 have set targets to reduce business travel, with information technology (IT) services company Wipro paving the way in India. Wipro has achieved a 15-20 percent reduction in air travel emissions between the 2015 and 2020 period. Among all 10 Indian companies featured in the ranking report, only IT services provider Tech Mahindra reports on air travel emissions specifically. “Advancements taking place in India are mostly being led by the technology industry. We invite these technology companies to continue to work on their travel policies and demonstrate leadership to catalyze change in other industries,” said Denise Auclair, corporate travel manager at Transport & Environment. Of the companies that have targets, only four companies meet the “gold standard” of reporting air travel emissions and commitment to reducing them by 50 percent or more, by 2025 or sooner. These are Novo Nordisk (pharmaceuticals, Denmark), Swiss Re (finance, Switzerland), Fidelity International (finance, Britain) and ABN Amro (finance, the Netherlands).