Visa to promote Ayurveda and Wellness tourism needed: FICCI

In support of Ayurveda and wellness tourism, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) advocated for a visa category specifically to promote the sector and tap the potential that the country’s wellness industry has internationally in the post-Covid environment.

This was one of the main points of discussion which cropped up at a webinar which had been organized by the Ayurveda Tourism Task Force under the Tourism Committee of FICCI which highlighted the unique strength of Ayurveda, in enhancing immunity in the human body and demanded policy measures to support ayurvedic tourism into the country.

Sajeev Kurup, Chairman, FICCI Ayurveda Tourism Task Force & the MD, Ayurveda Mana Hospitals began proceedings by asking for a visa specific to Ayurveda so that tourists who come regularly for ayurvedic treatments could avail of it. He also asked the government to bring in a rationalized protocol for interstate travel and quarantine norms so that travelers coming for treatments for longer durations were not inconvenienced.

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Sarovar Hotels organizes its third edition of “Sarovar Virtual Showcase”

“The virtual showcase highlighted the key USPs and value proposition of our three resorts to key tour operators from the Southern Chapter of Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI)”

In continuation to the previous two editions held of “Sarovar Virtual showcase” which were aimed at reaching out to corporate and leisure business decision makers respectively, Sarovar Hotels hosted its third edition, this time focusing on Kerala as a destination.

This edition was specifically targeted to showcase our three stunning resorts of Kerala located respectively in Poovar Island, Thekkady and Vayalar and to present the diversity that they have in their leisure portfolio in Southern market. The participating tour operators ranged from states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala.

The virtual showcase highlighted the key USPs and value proposition of our three resorts to key tour operators from the Southern Chapter of Association of Domestic  Tour Operators of India (ADTOI).  The participating resorts were Estuary Sarovar Portico, Poovar Island; Poetree Sarovar Portico, Thekkady; and Vasundhara Sarovar Premiere, Vayalar.

The key dialogues exchanged with the Tour operates were on Hotel’s USPs, safety initiatives and various attractive holiday offerings for their end customers, both Leisure and business.

The webinar was jointly flagged off by Sanjay Rai, Senior Vice president- Sales and Marketing Sarovar Hotels and P. P.  Khanna – President, ADTOI.  Additionally the following representatives were also part of the showcase; Swarup Dutta, Regional Director-South, Sarovar Hotels and Resorts ; Senthil Thangavel, General Manager - Poetree Sarovar Portico, Thekkady, Kerala ; Ayyappan Kutty, General Manager - Estuary Sarovar Portico, Poovar Island, Kerala ; Prashant Venugopal, Sales Head - Vasundhara Sarovar Premier, Vayalar, Kerala and Akshay Thusoo, Vice president-Sales, Sarovar Hotels and Resorts .

Luxury Hotels To Benefit From Vacayz, An Options Service For Hotels

The hardest-hit sector of the pandemic has undoubtedly been hospitality. By April of this year nearly half of the jobs that make up this sector were lost, a bleak statistic only made bleaker by the fact that of the 22m jobs lost in total this year it’s predicted they won’t return until early 2024.

Hotels, one of the biggest segments of the market left in the lurch, are either completely closed or operating at a skeletal capacity due to restrictions or little to no demand. The entrance of Vacayz to the market proposes to ease the stress hotels are feeling while giving consumers price benefits by mimicking the financial industry’s model of options in application to lodging.

“Travelers help hotels survive the pandemic by generating ongoing cash flow, and for consumers, it saves money on future travels,” explains Vacayz co-Founder Ally Wolodarsky. “People still want to travel, now more than ever. But when? And to where? Maybe they can’t even afford the same planned vacation any more since the pandemic affected their income. The purchased options secure an attractive booking price that can be used for up to 5 years.”

Like financial options, Vacayz gives its customers the ability to keep their travel options open as a traveler can book a hotel stay for a guaranteed discounted rate and flexible dates, or choose to resell the option at any time.

“The main benefit is the significant savings that come from flexible booking. It's a model that allows you to invest in future travel by buying the discount in advance, without having to commit to any dates,” she explains. “All discounts are fully secured and insured. In addition, in case your plans change, it's global and you can always resell your Travel Options, or change the location or hotel chain.”

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IHCL: Health and Safety Dominated Travel Trends in 2020

2020 has been one of change, which has altered the tourism and hospitality landscape forever. Health, hygiene and social distancing have been shaping travel, with reports indicating that more than 90% of people view health and safety as a key consideration, with more than 80% of travelers gravitating towards reputed brands for their travel plans. In fact, around 90% of people are keen to resume travel. The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) identified some of the key trends that have carved the path of travel in 2020:

Drivecations

More than 80% of people indicated interest in traveling with family and loved ones, resulting in the growth of driving holidays as people were keen to travel to destinations within close vicinity of their homes, leading to the discovery of offbeat locations. Some travelers were even comfortable driving slightly longer distances to ensure that they could maintain a comfortable level of social distancing. Destinations such as Goa, Rajasthan, Kerala, Uttarakhand and Karnataka, all driving distance from key cities, saw a rise in leisure travel in recent months.

Staycations

Confined to the safety of their homes, people have been seeking creative yet safe ways to spend quality time with their close friends and family. Staycations have become increasingly popular at city hotels across Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata, among others. Combined with minimal required travel, low on holiday planning time, cost and carbon footprint, staycations are perfect for travelers of all generations.

Workations

With the lines between work and play blurring in the past months, there has been a rising urge to escape the four walls of home and maximize work from rejuvenating environs like a beach, palace, mountains or by the pool. People are booking longer stays at hotels to balance time with family and inspire a burst of professional creativity.

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Hyatt Debuts New Office for the Day Package, Offering Remote Workers a Much-Deserved Change of Scenery

CHICAGO (December 3, 2020) – Driven by its commitment to continuously listen to guests, customers and members, Hyatt announces an extension of its popular Work from Hyatt extended-stay package to include a new Office for the Day option now available daily through May 31, 2021, at more than 400 Hyatt hotels in the Americas. Offering a much-deserved change of scenery to people still working remotely and the opportunity for guests to incorporate more wellbeing experiences into their work day, the Work from Hyatt: Office for the Day package starts at $65 per day and includes a private guestroom with the conveniences of an office combined with the comforts and amenities of a premium hotel experience.

With this new offer, guests may choose from more than 400 participating full-service and select-service Hyatt hotels in the Americas, across more than 100 markets in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, the Caribbean and South America. Top destinations include Austin, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Mexico City, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix/Scottsdale, Seattle, Vancouver and more. Guests are invited to check in as early as 7:00 a.m. and depart as late as 7:00 p.m., and enjoy emailing poolside, lunching with a view, taking an in-room mindful meditation session with Hyatt’s exclusive collaboration with Headspace and working out at the gym or in-room with Exhale on Demand during the work day.

“By continuously listening to our members and guests, we understand what’s most important them; they are prioritizing wellbeing now more than ever and want more flexibility and creative new ways to avoid burnout,” said Asad Ahmed, SVP commercial services, Americas, Hyatt. “Work from Hyatt: Office for the Day is perfect for guests who are looking for a convenient change of scenery with access to premium hotel amenities, more ways to experience wellbeing during the work day, and the opportunity to earn bonus World of Hyatt points and elite Tier-Qualifying Night credits.”

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DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Bangalore hosts Virtual Cake Mixing Ceremony

DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Bangalore hosted one-of-a-kind Virtual Cake Mixing Ceremony with the Digital mavericks of Bengaluru.

With the purpose of keeping the celebrations smaller, in-person and socially distanced, the hotel responsibly designed the virtual concept of ushering in the Christmas festivities. The food enthusiasts and influencers were sent a Cake Mixing kit well ahead of the event that contained massive varieties of candied fruits, assorted nuts, mixed spices, fruit peels, and all the important spirits along with a glass jar too to mix it all up. The fruit soaking ceremony was then organized online with a load of fun and a load of work, all amidst great cheer and fervour. The day of the event was rung in under the watchful eyes of Executive Chef Tanmoy Majumder.

After the virtual event, the mixing jars were brought back to the hotel from the bloggers’ homes and emptied in to large containers. Chef will now joyfully start to blend all the ingredients for an exotic dough preparation, store for a couple of days with occasional stirring to mature beautifully in time for Christmas and to be churned out as Christmas plum cakes by our pastry team.

On this occasion Subhabrata Roy, General Manager at DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Bangalore expressed, “We have always organized the tradition of cake mixing with a lot of enthusiasm and merry making. We didn’t want the pandemic to dampen the festive spirit and so we decided to take the celebrations online. It was truly ecstatic to watch the influencers and chefs participate in the mixing, thereby, celebrating the onset of the festive season. Welcome to the days of virtual networking!”

Tanmoy Majumder, Executive Chef at the hotel said, “The cake mixing is a Christmas tradition dating back to many years. It is a pre-requisite for settling the liquor in the mix of nuts, fruits and spices. The more the ingredients get soaked in good quantity of spirits, the better the taste. We are going to prepare the cake with mounds of almond, raisin, cashew nuts, topped with powdered cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise, orange and lemon peel, prunes, dry black currents, golden apricot and other exotic spices, mixed with bottles of liquor and wine. This will be kept till the dry fruits get fattened on the liquor. Then our chefs will combine flour with this mixture for the dough and bake it to perfection”

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The Pride Hotel ties up with a financial firm for the ‘Wedding at Pride’ initiative

The Pride Hotel has announced its alliance with a financial firm for the ‘Wedding at Pride’ initiative. The luxury hotel chain will now facilitate financial assistance to guests in order to make their dream wedding come alive and help them create special memories with grandeur and care at Pride.

To relieve the patrons from financial stress, the Pride Hotel has tied up with a financial firm to ensure finance doesn’t stop them in making their dream wedding come true.

“Every Wedding Event that is held at the Pride properties is seen as one of authentic distinction and storied elegance, and we aim to create an unmatched ambience that truly befits our guests’ dream wedding within the specified budget. And if one requires assistance, then our group has the financial partner to help make the event memorable” says Amit Sidana- VP Sales & Marketing, Pride Hotels Ltd.

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Meliá Hotels International Launches An Incentive Travel Programme For The COVID-19 Era: Individual And 100% Flexible

The COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions have caused numerous changes in the travel industry, forcing the MICE segment to completely reinvent itself and look for new ways to reactivate business travel. According to forecasts made by GEBTA and BRAINTRUST, travel for professional reasons at the end of 2020 will still be 50% below the previous year.

One of the segments that has been most affected is that of incentive trips, a traditional motivational tool that companies use to reward their best customers, employees or partners. For Meliá Hotels International, incentive trips represented 10% of all MICE revenues in 2019, and it has also been an important segment for travel agencies over recent years.

Given the current situation, the leading hotel company in Spain has taken a step forward in making incentive travel viable in the COVID-19 era, distancing itself from the more traditional concept of organised group travel and creating a new format in which flexibility and personalisation of the journey by the end user are key.

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An Initiative to Train & Certify the Rural Pockets to Boost Rural Tourism amidst Pandemic by NOM

An initiative to educate communities all across rural villages and empower them with various facets of health, hygiene, sustainability, and responsible tourism practices 

India, October 20, 2020: NotOnMap and Help Tourism in association with ICRT India (The International Centre for Responsible Tourism) backed by Booking.com, has come up with an ingenious project, “TraVival”. NotOnMap is a sustainable and Socially-driven initiative that works with an aim to empower local and rural communities. The initiative TraVival has come up at a time when the entire world is struggling to keep up with the pandemic; this project aims to aid rural India to manage the impact of COVID crisis on Travel and Tourism.

The initiative will be coming up with a series of 150+ training videos in over 18 regional languages divided in 12 modules for Homestay owners, Village Panchayats, Teachers/Youth and Women of villages and travelers across India thus covering all stakeholders of ‘Rural Tourism’ in India. The entire training will be kept as open source, free of any expenses and it aims to touch around 1 lac villages in India in next 1 year. The project is an outcome of 3 months of continuous efforts after conducting more than 30 webinars involving over 2000 community members and around 50 organizations from across 17 states in India.

NotOnMap is a sustainable and Socially-driven initiative with an aim to empower local, rural communities by helping them capitalize on their untapped culture and heritage value, realized the need for this in these times for rural pockets and created pool of expert think tanks from industry who came together to conceptualize, design and execute “Project TraVival- Training for Travel Revival” exclusively for Rural communities. Today in these times, when rural pockets of India are dried up economically and socially due to no business, TraVival plans to help in such rural parts categorically with the training for travel revival, and follow the extensive SOP for the COVID-19 prevention while enabling the business to sustain and grow.

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Time to explore Areas which are not on the map

COVID-19 Employee Health Check Platform

A robust platform for conducting health assessments when the frontline needs it most. Employee safety equals guest trust.

How does the Health Check Platform work?

• A mobile app that can record symptoms and gather a temperature check prior to entering the premises 

• Enterprise-ready reporting capabilities and printable summary reports instilling customer confidence  

• Can be integrated with Harri’s timekeeping system to collect PPE attestations 

• Supports confidence and trust amongst team members

  The Health Check-In Action

  Health Check Mobile App

• Built into Harri Live, a native mobile app for ops teams, managers can complete symptom screenings and employee temperature checks prior to employees entering the location 

• Ability to log symptoms results prior to the employee entering the workplace

• Employees who do not pass the screening process are signalled to be sent home and HR is notified for awareness

  Customer-Facing Employee Health Report

• Easily generate and print a Health Check summary for guest-facing purposes

• Options include a unique design for display on a restaurant front door and delivery and/or drive-thru orders

  Enterprise-Ready Reporting and Tracking System

• Robust tracking and reporting of health checks at the unit, area and enterprise level

• Proactive alerts for above-unit managers related to failed health check

  PPE In-Use Image Capture

• Employees punch into Harri’s Team Hub timekeeping system, creating a visual audit trail of PPE equipment in use

• AI-powered object-detection determines if a mask is present at the time of the clock in and produces alerts

  Employee PPE Attestations

• Employees attest to being provided PPE prior to starting their shift, complying with numerous local directives

Web Traffic Shows Early Signs of Positive Trend Across All Regions

The latest edition of our bi-weekly Pulse Report published earlier today, providing hoteliers from around the world with a snapshot on key market metrics for April 6-19.

Providing an in-depth look at On the Books, New Bookings, Cancellations and Web Traffic data, the latest edition of the Report included the latest demand signals for Latin America as well as APAC, EMEA and North America.

The Duetto Team added the Latin American data to the report following suggestions from subscribers. LATAM has proved a vital new component to tracking the impact of COVID-19 on the hotel industry around the world.

"The data shows us LATAM still has a lot of confidence for the latter part of the year. There's a lot of bookings, especially for the latter part of the summer," Lofton remarks.

Pulse Report data for LATAM On The Books vs. STLY by Stay Month as of April 19th showed that travelers with bookings in Latin America continue to show a higher degree in confidence in stay dates from September 2020 onwards.

Weekly New Bookings vs. STLY by Stay Month for Latin America also showed a slightly positive year over year trend for bookings in 2021, with new bookings for stays between May and July.

New Reservations Provide Future Outlook

Also new to the Pulse Report this time is the addition of New Reservations data. This was added because the Pulse Report team wanted to be looking as much to the future as possible.

In APAC, the data for new bookings shows increased pace for Q2 2021. In EMEA a similar pattern can be seen, with an uplift in new reservations for May-July 2021. For North America, new bookings for 2020 continue to fall behind previous year figures, but new bookings for 2021 are exceeding pace.

Hummus Toast Is About To Take Over Breakfast

Hummus Toast.

It’s easy to make with Sabra Hummus.

it’s the perfect canvas for pairing with savoury or sweet toppings, and it’s completely customizable.

This just maybe flavorful enough to become your new favourite breakfast.