Leela comes close to Taj

The Leela Group, in collaboration with Qatar’s Al Faisal Group, is planning to build a five-star hotel near Taj Mahal in Agra with an FDI of about Rs 500 crore. The 250-room hotel, spread over seven acres, is to be built in 30 months, will entail an FDI of about Rs 500 crore.

 The hotel will be built under the brand name ‘Aiana’ and will be the sixth such hotel in India. The new hotel, named Aiana Agra, will be developed as two complexes with a total of 250 rooms. There will 100-room Leela Palace and 150 room-Aiana on top of a shared podium.

Apart from Agra, Leela Group is developing a hotel in Jaipur and a 1,000-acre property in Chandigarh -  a 27-hole Golf course and villas and a 150-room hotel.  Leela is also planning to sign an agreement in Dubai with the royal family there for a 250-room hotel facing the Burj Khalifa.

Pune gets its first Crowne

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) opens the first Crowne Plaza hotel in Pune - Crowne Plaza at Pune City Centre. The 173-room hotel will operate under a management agreement with 'Advantage Raheja Group' and has been rebranded from an existing property.

Crowne Plaza Pune City Centre lies in the Koregaon Park district which is just a 20 minute drive away from the airport. The refurbishment is anticipated to be completed by early 2017 and the hotel will remain fully operational during this time.

IHG has 27 hotels open across four brands in India including-InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express with 41 hotels in the development pipeline. 

Dream expansion of $200 mn in India

Dream Hotel Group announces US$ 200 million in properties in Goa and Jaipur. The India development is expected to begin in 2016 itself and the Group is planning to come up with the properties by 2019-2020.

Dream Hotel Group LLC has signed its first hotel in the Middle East with Qatar-based Al Alfia Holding to develop a Dream Hotel in Doha. Dream Doha will be a 325-room property, featuring nine dining and nightlife venues. Joining Dream Phuket Hotel & Spa and Dream Bangkok in Thailand, Dream Doha marks the third international property for the group. The Group is on track to have five hotels operating in the US by early 2019. Dream has set aside US$ 1.5 billion for developments including the Doha project. Five more projects are also in the pipeline. 

Steigenberger is coming to India

Soon a German hospitality presence is going to be seen in the Indian soil for the first time. German luxury hospitality company, Steigenberger, which operates 95 hotels across many countries, is entering to India by partnering with MBD Group. The two companies have formed a joint venture company that will operate, manage and franchise hotels in India under the MBD Steigenberger brand.

The new company plans to open at least 20 luxury hotels in India over the next 15 years. MBD currently owns and operates two hotels through a franchise model with Carlson Rezidor's Radisson. MBD will hold 51% stake in the new JV company while the rest will be owned by Steigenberger.

Of the 20 hotels that the Company is planning, at least 4-5 will be owned by MBD.MBD is already setting up a 184 room luxury hotel in Bangalore that will be managed and operated by the JV. The Bangalore property, expected to be operational by 2019, will have 118 service apartments priced Rs 2 crore onwards.

Jordan welcomes more Indian travellers, with new packages

Jordan Tourism Board has aggressive promotional plans for the India market. The tourism board has turned its focus on south Indian states such as Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and seven northeastern states of India for promoting the Holy Land tourism offering for the christian community. The board is also working on two niche tourism offering projects- wellness and food and wine, which should materialise by the third quarter of 2015.

The Board is also in the process of developing packages offering five-six nights length of stay in the destination targeting leisure, FITs, honeymooners, MICE, religious, wellness and families segment The Board is also looking at possibilities to tap producers for Bollywood Tourism.

Apart from the metro cities, the tourism board is also targeting the Tier II western and northern cities- Ahmedabad, Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Jaipur, Ludhiana and Amritsar. 

Tamil Nadu to top the tourism list in 10 years

Tamil Nadu Tourism Minister S.P. Shanmuganathan said the state is all set to become a major tourist destination in about a decade. He was speaking after inaugurating the month-long annual Indian Dance Festival at Mamallapuram on December 28, 2014. The minister said the tourism policy, conceived by the AIADMK government in 1991-92, and steps initiated during subsequent AIADMK regimes had resulted in a steady increase in the number of tourists to Tamil Nadu.

“The state, which leads in promoting health tourism, has initiated various promotional activities, and achieved the first rank in domestic tourist arrivals in 2013. The same year, it ranked second in foreign tourist arrivals,” he added.

Karnataka to focus on health and wellness tourism

The Karnataka government is planning to offer tax and non-tax incentives to entrepreneurs wanting to set up health and wellness related units in the state. For the first time, the state has drawn up such a proposal in the soon-to-be-launched Karnataka tourism policy 2014-19.

Medical Tourism has attracted over 1.3 million people to India in 2013 alone and Karnataka is keen to jump on the bandwagon. It wants to attract investments in new facilities and draw more medical tourists to the city for high-end and complicated procedures.

According to an internal report of the tourism department, Karnataka is seeing a sharp increase in the number of tourists and almost a 25 per cent annual rise in the medical and wellness tourism.

Another recent study also advocated that states can overcome the travel industry's reliance on seasonality and vagaries of a global economic climate by promoting health and wellness tourism. The study found that Karnataka's established tourism infrastructure, with its capacity to support world-class hotel services and quality of medical services, offers the best platform for this segment. 

Devotees throng Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa

 Nearly 32 lakh pilgrims visited Old Goa for the exposition of the Sacred Relics of St Francis Xavier reverently known as Goencho Saib at the Basilica of Bom Jesus, the ancient Church. The exposition, which began on November 22, will conclude on January 4, 2015.

“The pilgrim/tourist inflow for the St. Francis Xavier Exposition is very encouraging and we will meet the target of estimated arrivals for the Exposition till it concludes in January 2015,” said Goa Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar. 

Bengal practices eco-friendly tourism

West Bengal is all set to promote eco-tourism on a large scale. Plans are afoot to set up a bird sanctuary in Kolkata on the lines of Singapore's Jurong Bird Park, a move which is expected to catapult the site to the top-five tourism spots in India. The government has already flagged off work on mega tourism hubs such as Dooars, Hooghly and the world's largest mangrove forest - Sunderbans. 

The government also announced setting up of an eco-tourism advisory board at the fag end of 2014. The board will be chaired by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to facilitate implementation of the proposals in a manner that doesn't damage the environment.

"The two priorities for us are - balance between nature and industrial development and eco-friendly practices. We certainly don't want to disrupt natural systems at the cost of progress and we will monitor the implementation of projects in accordance with that," said Tourism Minister Bratya Basu.  

Work has already started in Jharkhali (in the Sunderbans), at Gajoldoba, 35 km east of Siliguri in the Terai-Dooars forest circuit, and at Sobuj Dweep in Hoogly district. “The tourism department is designing a Sunderbans tourism roadmap taking into account the two priorities,” Basu said.

To tap into the relatively virgin locales in the Sunderbans, Banerjee recently launched a Rs. 400-crore project to boost tourism infrastructure in Jharkhali on a public private partnership model.

Jharkhali is one of the entry points to the Sunderbans - home to the endangered Royal Bengal tiger. The proposed hub will have an eco-tourism park and hotels for tourists.

To ensure ease of travel, Banerjee also unveiled a 725 metre bridge - named Mridanga Setu - that will connect the Sunderbans with the mainland.

Another ambitious project is the world's first mangrove zoo to come up in Jharkhali at a cost of Rs. 25 crore. The hub will mimic the mangrove ecosystem to ensure compatibility with the animals.

 Banerjee said it would mainly help conserve the endangered flora and fauna of the Sunderbans. She has also inaugurated a tiger rescue centre in the area named 'Byaghrosundari' (Bengali for 'beautiful tigress'). She has also reached out to the picturesque hilly regions to boost tourism, including the Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR) where she took an initiative to revive a car safari that was stopped four years ago. The reserve, spanning 762 square km in Jalpaiguri district, has 12-15 tigers, according to government sources.

Banerjee plans to make Jayanti, one of the villages in the BTR area, a model village, spruced up with homestays where tourists can enjoy a slice of local culture.

The state will also float a global tender for a 100-acre eco-tourism park at Banarahat in the district, complete with resorts, budget hotels, craft villages, convention centres and a youth hostel. Over the next two years, the project is likely to fetch an investment of more than Rs.300 crore.

Similar to Jharkhali, Gajoldoba, at the confluence of two rivers in Hooghly district, is being pegged as the 'gateway' to the Dooars. "The coastal spots will have water sports and other adventure activities while the ones in the ecologically-rich areas will have safaris, trekking, bird watching etc. Activities will be specific to the locations of the eco tourism parks," said Basu.

The tourism department is also working on developing two new eco-tourism hubs at Sylee, adjacent to Malbazar, and Kunjanagar near Falakata in the Dooars over an area of 90 acres, with a focus on tea tourism. 

Goa reaps big with the VoA facility

Just within a week after the visa-on-arrival (VoA) facility started at the Goa airport at Dabolim, the beach-haven issued almost 1091 visas till December 25, 2014. On an average 100 VoA are being issued a day with effect from December 17, 2014. So far, VoA to Russian nationals top the charts.

Reports show that Goa airport had issued 375 VoA between December 4-16. “The figure has tripled within a period of 10 days and is going to increase over the next couple of days,” said Assistant director and chief immigration officer Aravind Kumar H Nair.  There is an increase in charter arrivals too.  The surge is expected to continue as tourism has entered the peak season with New Year festivities attracting tourists from round the globe.

As per data furnished by Goa airport, VoA issued to foreign nationals is as follows: Russia (595), Ukraine (430), USA (25), Germany (15), UAE (7), Australia (4) Philippines (4), Israel (3), Jordan (3), New Zealand (2), Brazil (1) Finland (1), Kenya (1) Norway (1) and Singapore (1).

Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar said, "I have been reiterating this right from the beginning that the VoA facility at Goa airport will bring in international tourists in large numbers. The very fact that it has increased within a period of 10 days shows that within the next few weeks and months, this facility will further boost tourist arrivals from across the globe.”

“We are also expecting a new list with inclusion of more countries for issue of VoA. Goa is keeping its fingers crossed as the new list could include UK and will help bring in more foreign tourists from that country to Goa," he said.