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. 

11 lakh tourists visited Kashmir in 2014

Though Kashmir was hit by the devastating floods and two elections this year, which had all the chances to badly affect the tourism in the land, it is a welcome trend to see that about 11 lakh tourists thronged Kashmir. Kashmir hosted more than 20,000 tourists every month since the floods in September.

“We had crossed the figure of 10 lakh tourists before the floods and as the year is to end now, we have received around 11 lakh visitors,” Director Tourism, Kashmir, said. “After the floods caused widespread devastation, we have been able to revive the tourism by 50 per cent. We used to receive around 40,000 tourists per month for this period of the year but after the deluge, around 20,000 tourists visited Kashmir every month,” he said.

The director said he was hopeful of fully reviving tourism in the next three months as the department was taking many steps aimed at reviving the sector in the Valley and many more initiatives were in the offing. “We are holding local level events, interactions with tour operators outside the state and festivals to dispel the notion that Kashmir was not safe to travel after floods. We have also invited tour operators from outside to see for themselves what the Valley had to offer,” the tourism director informed.

Karnataka to lease 1,463 acres of land for tourism development

Karnataka is all set to lease more than 1,400 acres of tourism department's property to private operators on public-private-partnership model in order to boost tourism activities.  

The cabinet meeting on 23.12.2014 decided to lease 1,463.38 acres and attract Rs.14,737 crore investments in the sector, said T B Jayachandra, Minister for Law.

The move comes in the wake of tourism department's properties being mismanaged and in a pathetic condition. Most of the tourists prefer private hotels and resorts than government run hotels including Yatri Nivas (travellers' bungalows), dormitories, guesthouses and Mayura Hotels.

The Infrastructure Development Corporation (Karnataka) Limited (iDECK), which surveyed the properties, has listed a set of problems and probable solutions to them. The most common problems in all the properties pertain to unkept toilets, no water in toilets, seeping roofs, bad quality of food, improper bedding and hygienic ambiance.

"The move would create 43 lakh jobs and put Karnataka on one among top 50 destinations in the World," Jayachandra said.

KSA may issue tourism visas

With an aim to revive local tourism, the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) has approved provisions to issue tourism visas and regulate the system. If the proposals are finally approved, the SCTA would issue visas in coordination with the Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs.

The Kingdom has a tourism market in areas with a strong historical background, like Madain Saleh or Al-Ahsa's ancient castles. Although investors and businessmen in the tourism field are pushing for tourism visa, procedures for its issuance will only be clarified by the SCTA in the coming weeks.

Hard Rock to open first hotel in India

Hard Rock International Inc. is planning to open its first Indian property in March 2015. The company is planning to the current North 16 Goa Resort owned by Convention Hotels India into the new Hard Rock hotel.

The 135-room hotel in the town of Calangute will feature a restaurant, room service, swimming pool, courtyard and a poolside bar and grill, as well as a workout facility, meeting and event space, and a Rock Shop featuring Hard Rock's iconic merchandise.

Hard Rock Hotel Goa will be managed by Spectra Hotels & Resorts, a joint venture between Convention Hotels India and Spectra Hospitality Services. Convention Hotels India and Spectra Hospitality Services also are exploring other in-country hotel opportunities in partnership with Hard Rock International.

Circus Celebrations at Park Hyatt Goa Resort and Spa

Park Hyatt Goa  is all set to welcome Christmas and New Year with pomp and glory. The circus celebration started on 7th December 2014 with the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the hotel. The hotel is also offering a wishlist board for the guests where they can share their Christmas wishes and chances are that they may get it done.

Savour a delectable traditional Christmas Eve Dinner at the Village Square with chef crafted preparations and festive entertainment with DJ Mervin will be priced at Rs 7500 all inclusive with select beverages. The Christmas Day Lunch will be organised at Da Luigi with a special chef's choice menu to compliment the festive spirit. Christmas Lunch is priced at Rs 1500 plus taxes.

The grand entertainment - Celebration Circus at the Park arrives at the sea side lawns, just in time for the New Year Eve party on 31st December 2014. The New Year Gala Celebration is priced at Rs 13200 all inclusive. Celebrate the first day of 2015 with a scrumptious New Year Lunch spread at Village Square priced at Rs 1500 plus taxes.

For more details and reservations call 0832 272 1234 or visit www.goa.park.hyatt.com

Special Tourist Train for Goa, Maharashtra

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will launch a special tourist train for Goa and Maharashtra before the end of this year, announced Union railway minister Suresh Prabhu. IRCTC will launch the train for tourists in collaboration with the governments of Goa and Maharashtra and the two governments can decide on the exact tourist circuit the train will follow, Prabhu said. Margao railway station will have Wi-Fi facility for travelers by January 31, he said.

K Hospitality to be launched in January 2015

One of India’s largest F&B retail companies K Hospitality Corp is all to launch in January 2015 by consolidating all the brand businesses namely Global Kitchens, Grand Cuisines, Copper Chimney and Travel Food Services, under one single entity.

The business divisions are divided into: Hospitality and Food Services (which leading brands in the landside business), and Travel Retail (which is the airside / airport-centric business).

“The rationale for the brand consolidation is to centralise key functions, provide clear strategies for growth and expansion aligned to group strategy, improved governance and more efficient management of operations of each vertical,” said Varun Kapur, Executive Director, K Hospitality Corp. 

ITDC to Offer Hospitality Courses with help of Assam University

India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) has signed an agreement with Assam Down Town University (ADTU). As part of the deal, ITDC would offer Hospitality Degree courses in Hotel Management and Industrial Training to interested students.

“The joint endeavor is to conduct a three year Bachelors course in Hotel Management at the Assam Down Town University, Guwahati, with industrial training at ITDC Hotels,” said an ITDC statement.  

ITDC would help provide its expertise for the development of the curriculum of the course which is expected to help the students for their future as it would be industry oriented and there would be practical approaches to the new trends that are presently active in the hospitality sector. ITDC would also help the students to undergo the industry status through their vast experience and chain of outlets.

The three year Degree course would be conducted by the Assam Down Town University (ADTU) and would be scheduled in its campus in Guwahati. The programme would offer a joint certification from ADTU and ITDC to the students who would successfully complete their course.

The programme would commence from April 2015 and is expected to get students from the states, who are interested to be in the hospitality industry for long.

Mobile app for Surajkund Mela 2015

                       
 Haryana Tourism is all set tolaunch a mobile application for the 29th edition of the Surajkund International Crafts Mela, which would be held from February 1 to 15, 2015 at Surajkund in Faridabad. Craftsmen, weavers and artistes from across India and abroad will showcase their talent and one can savour delicacies from different states at the Mela. In order to make the Mela more visitor-friendly, Haryana Tourism has come up with initiatives like introduction of a mobile application (app), tie-ups with more payment gateways to ensure smooth online transactions and convenient entry to the Mela for online ticket customers, stated a release.

Sumita Misra, Managing Director, Haryana Tourism, said that it is the need of the hour to offer technologically-sound solutions for visitors. “A mobile app is being launched for the public, which can be downloaded on smartphones with iOS (Apple) and Android operating systems,” he informed. With this, the public can get every kind of information about the Fair, Events Schedule, Artiste/Craftsperson/Performer’s Profile (details including Category, Title, Thumbnail, Description, etc.), Location Map, E-Ticketing, Media coverage of the fair, Photo Gallery, Video Gallery, Information Screen, Contact Us.

Once the app is launched before the start of the Mela, it can be downloaded free of cost from Apple Store (for Apple iOS handheld devices) and Google Play Store (for Android-based handheld devices).

The mobile app, developed by Noida-based TekMindz, will have features through which the user will be able to trace his/her location in the Mela and follow their areas of interest in that particular zone. It will also carry the link of a visitor pass application already developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC), to make it convenient for users to generate their passes and save on any last minute hassles to get entry into the Mela. The app will have links to popular social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and WhatsApp for collaborating with like-minded people interested in the history and events at the Mela or about the rich heritage and culture of the Mela.

Also, the app will be integrated with Google Analytics for keeping a count of the number of visitors on the application, the place/location of those who have visited the application, etc. and subsequently generate actionable reports for increased analysis. The “Contact Us” section of the application will contain the location of the Mela premises with information and location of the nearby places to stay, recreate and other important tourist destinations with nearest airport/railway station and bus station.

Kerala launches Responsible Tourism

Kerala's statewide campaign focused on Responsible Tourism, 'God's Own Country, People's Own Tourism' was launched in Thiruvananthapuram on 18.12.2014. Oommen Chandy, Chief Minister, Government of Kerala, launched the campaign, which aims to link tourism with rural areas, is part of Kerala Government's Mission 676 and focuses on linking tourism with the mainstays of rural Kerala, including agriculture, traditional trade, village lifestyles and art forms.

The Chief Minister also released the logo of the campaign. It will be implemented through 112 selected local self government groups and as a participatory project is expected to strengthen both tourism and the lives of the people touched by it.