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Vervotech Mappings and FCM Travel India team up to bolster travel accommodation industry

Vervotech, a pioneer in hotel mapping and room mapping, and FCM, a global travel management company, announced a new strategic partnership to deliver unified hotel content and accelerate the travel business as a whole. Currently, the adversity of accommodation space is poorly mapped content. Vervotech plays a significant role in bridging the growing gap between travel enterprises and customers. Through this partnership, Vervotech will deliver its highly accurate hotel mapping solutions to FCM. Powered by AI, Vervotech's hotel mapping solution deduplicates hotel content from multiple suppliers with 99.99 per accuracy and is completely agnostic to the source of the hotel content, while providing best-opinionated content to further improvise the end-user experience. Marking the agreement, Rajan B, Senior Director Partnerships at Vervotech, said, "We, as a company, are passionate about what we do. By joining forces with FCM, we empower the travel industry with unified opinionated and standardised hotel content. Vervotech and FCM have a shared vision to improve the hotel duplication bottleneck and deliver a seamless customer experience. Our disruptive technology is renowned in the accommodation content space, and this partnership opens up avenues of new opportunities." Anuj Razdan, Vice President & Head - Products & Industry Relations at FCM, expressed, "We are committed to delivering exemplary corporate travel management services to our customers. This partnership with Vervotech will help us optimise our hotel mapping process with their AI/ML technologybased hotel mapping product. We are confident that this collaboration will add significant value to our products and customer experience."

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Malaysia imposes stricter rules, booster requirements over Omicron threat

Malaysia, on Thursday, announced new Covid-19 restrictions, including banning mass gatherings and requiring booster doses for high-risk groups, as it reported its second case of the Omicron Coronavirus variant. Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said that authorities were also verifying 18 more suspected cases of the variant, believed by experts to be the most transmissible yet, with results expected by Friday. The second case was an 8-year-old travelling with family from Nigeria, where the family resided, via Qatar, Khairy told reporters. All close contacts, including 35 passengers on the same flight, have tested negative for the Coronavirus so far. Malaysia reported its first case of the Omicron variant earlier this month in a traveller from South Africa. To curb Omicron risks, mass New Year gatherings will be banned and those attending private New Year and Christmas celebrations must undergo Covid-19 self-tests, Khairy said. Malaysians over 60, and all adult recipients of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine, are required to get a booster dose by February to keep their status as "fully vaccinated", Khairy said. Singapore is considering a similar policy. This week, researchers in Hong Kong urged people to get a third dose of Covid-19 vaccine as soon as possible, after a study showed insufficient antibodies were generated by those of Sinovac and BioNTech to fend off Omicron. Malaysia has, temporarily, banned the entry of foreign travellers from eight countries in Southern Africa and designated nine countries as "high-risk", including Britain, the United States, Australia and India. All arrivals from these countries must undergo mandatory quarantine and be fitted with digital tracking devices, regardless of their vaccination status. Those from Britain will also be required to conduct daily self-tests during quarantine, Khairy said.

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Despite Covid-19, China expects 1 mn passenger trips on new Laos rail link

expects more than 1 million passenger trips to be made on a newly opened high-speed rail link to Laos during the peak Lunar New Year travel season early next year, despite Covid-19 travel restrictions. Since its opening on December 3, more than 300,000 passengers have travelled on the China side of the rail line, Chinese state media reported on Thursday. Laos said this week it would reopen for tourists on January 1. People living in five Laotian provinces along the Laos-China railway are to receive Covid-19 booster shots before the reopening to tourism. It is unclear how busy the line will be around the Lunar New Year, which begins on February 1. Permission from the Laotian government is needed prior to entry. Travellers also face lengthy spells of quarantine on both the Chinese and Laotian sides. Cargo transport has already begun. More than 100 million yuan (USD 15.7 million) of goods have been carried on the line between China and Laos as of Wednesday, according to Chinese state media. China will double the number of cargo trains on the line during nearly six weeks around the Lunar New Year, Chinese state media reported. The USD 6 billion railway, which links the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming to the Laotian capital of Vientiane, is an important milestone in China's ambitious Belt and Road network of trade and infrastructure links championed by President Xi Jinping. China, which holds a 70 per cent stake in the joint-venture project, hopes the 1,000-km (621.37-mile) line will eventually be extended through Thailand to Malaysia and Singapore. Economists have warned the project, launched in 2015, could make it hard for Laos, one of Asia's poorest nations, to repay external debt, much of it owed to China.

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Civil Aviation Minister says that reopening of international flights completely depends on the Omicron situation

With the Omicron variant going around everywhere, there is further doubt on international travel. Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia made it abundantly clear at an event recently that international travel completely depends on the spread of this new variant. The minister said at the event, “Keeping in mind the health, we cannot dissociate ourselves from COVID. We are working closely with the health ministry. When we tide over Omicron, we can look at going back to normalcy even vis-a-vis international travel but I cannot give you the date today." He further said that the matter is not incumbent on him, as there are a host of other factors such as consulting other ministries, and watching the situation as it unfolds in the next couple of weeks. As of now, India has reported some 40 Omicron cases. Last month the Directorate General of Civil Aviation had decided to restart commercial international flights to and from India. The proposed date for this was December 15. However, the decision was put on hold as the Omicron virus surged around the world. International flights now remain suspended until January 31. As far as domestic flights are concerned, before COVID 19, the minister said that the highest capacity was close to 4.2 lakh passengers daily, and now it is around 3.7 to 3.95 lakh per day. Scindia said, "Today, we are running 3.7 to 3.9 lakh passengers per day and on a seat load factor basis of 75-81 per cent, which is a very healthy seat load factor. Keeping that in mind, I was looking at opening up international travel but as you all are aware, just on the anvil of that the world got hit by Omicron."

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Lufthansa adds several new destinations for 2022

Lufthansa has announced its flight schedule for summer 2022, which includes several new international destinations being served from its hubs in Munich and Frankfurt. From 27 March, Lufthansa will launch its first flights between Munich and both Rio de Janeiro and San Diego. In addition, the carrier will resume services to Bangkok from the Bavarian capital. Lufthansa said it will expand its Munich fleet from 17 to 21 aircraft with the addition of four new Airbus A350-900 long-haul planes. Munich is also receiving six new European destinations – Kalamata, Menorca, Varna, Billund and Bergen. Meanwhile, Lufthansa's sister airline Air Dolomiti will fly from Munich to Brindisi. Fellow Lufthansa Group carrier Eurowings Discover will launch flights to Punta Cana, Cancun and Las Vegas. In total, Eurowings Discover will operate 22 short and medium-haul destinations from Munich, including new services to Samos and Skiathos. Lufthansa is due to fly its largest network to the US from Frankfurt thanks to the launch of flights to St Louis in June 2022. The carrier will also begin offering services to Stavanger, Liverpool and Rennes. Eurowings Discover will operate flights from Frankfurt to Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Fort Myers, Tampa Bay, Anchorage, Halifax and Calgary in North America, as well as Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, Kilimanjaro, Panama City and Male. In addition, Lufthansa will offer a temporary schedule of 25 flights between Frankfurt and Doha for the FIFA World Cup from 14 November to 19 December 2022. The carrier said its flexible booking conditions will remain in place, with all fares able to be rebooked in the event of disruption.

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Canada set to tighten travel rules in response to Omicron

The Canadian government is set to make an announcement regarding new measures to address the Omicron variant today. Earlier media reports say these new measures could include travel restrictions. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with premiers last night to discuss public health measures, including travel restrictions. Although CBC says no decision was reached, some of the items on the table include restricting non-essential travel and stricter quarantine measures. Officials are scheduled to make an announcement at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time. On Tuesday, after the Cabinet meeting, federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos had already hinted that his government might reinstate a travel advisory like the one that was lifted on October 21, which urged travellers to avoid non-essential travel outside of Canada. “We are concerned that Canadians will be stranded abroad because of the rapidly evolving measures that other countries may put in place, and also because of the significant risk of catching this variant, this virus, while traveling abroad,” he reportedly said after the meeting. Canada previously put increased restrictions on 10 African countries, among the first measures to combat the spread of the new variant. The affected nations include: Botswana, Egypt, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Foreign nationals who have been to any of these countries within the past 14 days are not allowed to enter Canada. Also, all travellers from countries other than the U.S. will need to complete an on-arrival COVID-19 test. They will then have to quarantine at home until they receive their results. If their test comes back negative, they can be released from quarantine. If it comes back positive, they must isolate for 10 days. Canadian provinces have begun to tighten their measures in recent days. Ontario, announced on Tuesday a tightening of rules in long-term care homes. The same day, Quebec asked employers to reinstate remote work until further notice. In Canada, the number of cases of COVID-19 is currently averaging at more than 4,000 per day, compared to 3,000 in recent weeks. The latest count of Omicron in Canada is up to 256 as of December 15. So far, all reported cases of Omicron in Canada have been asymptomatic or mild.

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