Low-cost Indian carrier SpiceJet has secured its board’s approval to raise up to INR 30 billion ($358 million) through institutional investors, a move disclosed in a filing to the Indian stock exchange on Tuesday.
17.07.2024 - 08:16 / skift.com / Bulbul Dhawan
India’s largest online travel agency MakeMyTrip and budget airline Air India Express have partnered to launch ‘Xpress Holidays’ – a platform that would allow travelers to book end-to-end holiday packages.
The platform is hosted on the website and mobile app of Air India Express. MakeMyTrip is also displaying these holiday packages on its website.
MakeMyTrip’s Efforts: MakeMyTrip has been working towards becoming the first port of call for Indian travelers, and has been making several efforts toward that end:
The company has a long-term strategy of developing a travel superapp in India, not only increasing its product offerings but also focusing on ancillary products, including forex and travel insurance.
Following IndiGo? The joint move by MakeMyTrip and Air India Express comes about a month after budget airline IndiGo introduced a hotel booking option on its website and app, looking to offer its customers a one-step booking solution. For this, IndiGo partnered with the Expedia group.
Even before IndiGo, full-service airline Vistara was already offering a hotel booking platform powered by online travel company Booking.com.
Sarovar Hotels has opened the 97-key Sarovar Portico in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh. According to a statement by Sarovar, the property is Saharanpur’s first branded hotel. Although Skift could not independently verify if this is true, it indeed seemed to be the case when we tried searching for hotels in the city across OTAs and branded hotel chains.
Sarovar is among the fastest-growing hotel chains in the country. In the first four months of 2024, it had opened seven hotels, with the goal of opening another eight to 12 properties during the rest of the year, Sarovar Hotels managing director Ajay Bakaya had told Skift.
The company is looking to have 125 operational hotels by the end of 2024, and expects this to increase to 150 by the end of next year. It has a pipeline of 70 to 80 hotels.
Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) has expanded its presence in India by entering into a partnership with MRS Group of Hotels. This marks SLH’s first collaboration with an independent hotel group in India.
Under the collaboration, MRS Group’s three properties – Suryagarh Jaisalmer, Narendra Bhawan Bikaner, and Mary Budden Estate Binsar – will be integrated into SLH’s collection of luxury boutique hotels.
This would also lead to the three properties of MRS to be included in Hilton’s loyalty program Hilton Honors due to SLH’s exclusive partnership with Hilton.
Experiential hotel chain Leisure Hotels Group has opened two new properties under its Bedzzz portfolio – Bedzzz Xclusiv Ikshana Luxe in Nainital and Bedzzz Xclusiv Baikunth in Manali.
The hotels continue the sociotel (social hotel)
Low-cost Indian carrier SpiceJet has secured its board’s approval to raise up to INR 30 billion ($358 million) through institutional investors, a move disclosed in a filing to the Indian stock exchange on Tuesday.
The Indian government is exploring adventure tourism as an avenue of promoting destinations across the country. For instance, earlier this month, the newly appointed minister of tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat went skydiving in Haryana on World Skydiving Day.
India’s rising middle class and higher disposable income have boosted spending on discretionary services, while the growing lower middle class has bolstered domestic travel, said Rajesh Magow, group CEO of MakeMyTrip, during an earnings call on Tuesday.
Two years ago, Gatwick had no flights to India, and today the airport connects around 24 weekly Air India flights to four cities — Kochi, Amritsar, Ahmedabad, and Goa. Next month, Air India will be connecting Bengaluru to London Gatwick. Catch Stephanie Wear, the vice president of aviation development, at London Gatwick Airport in conversation with Skift Asia Editor Peden Doma Bhutia on Gatwick’s ambitious plans for expanding its connectivity with India.
India’s foreign exchange earnings through tourism in 2023 was INR 2.3 trillion ($27.5 billion), according to the government’s latest Economic Survey for 2023-24 – a 66% gain over 2022.
Air India's new flagship aircraft will make its hotly anticipated U.S. debut later this year.
One of the biggest events in the airline industry begins on Monday as the famed Farnborough International Airshow kicks off just outside of London.
The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) is diving into the branded residences market with its first Taj Branded Residences in Chennai.
The real-life Y2K. “Blue Screen of Death.” The IT outage that has affected everything from Times Square billboards to payrolls has also led to a worldwide meltdown in the airline industry.
Intrepid Travel’s India arm has a target of getting 30,000 tourists a year to India by 2030 — that’s four times the 7,500 it brought last year.
The Indian aviation industry has recorded its highest-ever half yearly domestic passenger traffic. Between January and June 2024, Indian airlines carried 79.35 million passengers. This was an increase of over 4% from the previous year, as per data from Indian aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
Paytm started as a financial services company in India, but is now diversifying its revenue streams, with a special focus on travel. The fintech company often refers to itself as an online travel agency and is looking at travel as a core business segment.