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Kerala rolls out ‘Foodie Wheels’, a cafe on re-used double-decker bus

A two-tier cafe in a double-decker bus alongside the Vaikom backwaters is one of the initiatives termed Foodie Wheels launched by the Kerala government to promote tourism and re- use the useless buses of the state transport authority, the KSRTC. The Foodie Wheels project has been launched by the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC). The bus, which has an air-conditioned area on the lower deck and an open-air cafe on the upper deck, was inaugurated by State Tourism Minister P A Mohammad Riyas in the presence of Kerala Transport Minister Antony Raju, according to the latter's post on Facebook. "You can sit here comfortably in the scenic atmosphere of Vaikom backwaters and enjoy the delicious dishes. This is one of the projects to transform and re-use the useless KSRTC buses," Raju said in his post.

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Turkey releases updated quarantine guidelines for Indian travellers

The Turkish Embassy in New Delhi has released updated quarantine guidelines for vaccinated travellers visiting Turkey from India and Nepal. In a Twitter post, the Embassy shared details on the new arrangement which now requires all the passengers to submit a negative RT-PCR test report not older than 72 hours before arrival in the transcontinental country. According to the guidelines, which came into effect on November 15, passengers travelling to Turkey from India and Nepal and those who have been in these countries within the last 14 days will be subject to the latest measures. To get exemption from mandatory quarantine in Turkey, fully vaccinated travellers (Those who have received full dose of vaccines approved by WHO or Turkish authorities and 14 days have elapsed since the last dose) have to show a proof of vaccination or a vaccine certificate. Both Covishield and Covaxin are approved vaccine for travel to Turkey. Travellers who cannot provide the vaccine certificate will be subject to quarantine in Turkey for 10 days and undergo mandatory RT-PCR test during the period. On the last working, if the test returns negative, the quarantine will end and visitors can move freely but if found positive, treatment will be conducted in accordance with the Covid-19 guidelines of the Ministry of Health. The quarantine period will be 14 days for those travellers who don’t take a RT-PCR on 10th day of isolation. The new guidelines also stated that young travellers or passengers between the age of 12 and 18, travelling with their parents, who cannot certify that they have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 must submit a negative RT-PCR test report taken no more than 72 hours before arrival in Turkey. Kids under the age of 12 will be exempted from PCR test and vaccination certificate application on entry. The updated quarantine guidelines are not applicable to transit and/or transfer passengers. Further, airline crew members will also be exempted from quarantine and PCR test requirements.

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Travel solution: IATA introduces digital travel pass for global connectivity

In order to solve global travel issues amid COVID-19, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has introduced IATA Travel Pass. This is a digital solution for travellers who need to show their vaccination, recovery, and test results to authorities whenever they are travelling. IATA Travel Pass is a mobile app that will help travellers in saving and managing all kind of verified COVID-19 certifications. IATA in a press release said. “Informing passengers on what tests, vaccines and other measures they require prior to travelling, details on where they can get tested and giving them the ability to share their tests and vaccination results in a verifiable, safe and privacy-protecting manner is the key to giving governments the confidence to open borders.” Not only this, the app will help government officials to verify the authenticity of tests or vaccinations. This will also help airlines to provide accurate information to their passengers on test requirements and if they meet the travel requirements. This certificate will be nationally and internationally recognised and provide travellers with accurate information on test requirements. The app has following modules: 1) Registry of health requirements: This will allow travellers to find information on travel, testing, and vaccine requirements for their trip. 2) Registry of testing and vaccination centres: To aid passengers in finding testing and vaccination centres before/after arrival. 3) Lab app: This authorises medical labs to issue test results or vaccination certificates to passengers. 4) Travel Pass App: A digital passport that will verify the test/vaccination certificate of passengers that meet the standards, and share the rest result or the vaccination certificate with authorities.

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'New era of UP': PM Modi inaugurates 341km long Purvanchal Expressway

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur district is the symbol of the state’s development and will strengthen its economy as he inaugurated the 341km road. “Those who have any doubt about the capabilities of UP and its people should come to Sultanpur today to witness their strength. Such a modern expressway has now come up where it was just a piece of land three to four years ago,” PM Modi said as he addressed a gathering in Karwal Kheri of the Sultanpur district. Targeting the opposition, PM Modi also said that the “earlier governments neglected the development of the eastern region" of the state. "The airstrip on the Purvanchal Expressway will give a message to those who neglected the country's security," PM Modi said. As he started his address, PM Modi invoked Lord Hanuman who killed the demon Kalnemi. “I bow to the people of that land," he said. The Purvanchal Expressway starts from village Chaudsarai in the Lucknow district and ends at Haidaria village on National Highway number 31, 18 kilometres east of the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar border. The key feature of the Expressway is the 3.2 km long airstrip to enable landing and take-off of Indian Air Force fighter planes in case of emergency. The expressway is 6-lane wide which can be expanded to 8-lane in the future. t It is constructed at an estimated cost of about ₹22,500 crore and set to give a boost to the economic development of the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh especially the districts of Lucknow, Barabanki, Amethi, Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who was also at the inauguration event, said, “The work of Purvanchal Express was completed in three years amid the Covid-19 pandemic. It will become the lifeline of the development of Eastern UP. Congratulations to the people of Purvanchal." The UP chief minister also said there is a focus on overall and inclusive 'vikas' across the state as part of a big development push. Along with PM Modi and CM Adityanath, Governor Anandiben Patel and other leaders were also present at the occasion.

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Expect a surge in inbound arrivals in a couple of months: BLS

Organisations across industries are harnessing the potential that Artificial Intelligence holds to revolutionise the way we work today. There is tremendous acceptance and implementation of technologies like AI in visa domain as well. AI is changing the travel Industry for a better customer delight. The industry is adopting an AI-first approach, banking on “relevance” becoming the winning factor. AI in travel and tourism is being used to predict travel choices, personalised services, complete bookings and manage in-trip and post-trip needs. The chatbots are the most commonly used medium that interacts with the travellers to understand the needs and help the person in getting the most relevant and up to date information. Shikhar Aggarwal, Joint Managing Director, BLS International Services, talks about how his company has adopted AI-backed application processing making the process easier, faster and effective. In an exclusive interaction with ETTravelWorld, Aggarwal speaks about inbound and outbound travel trends and the company’s journey on the road to recovery. ETTravelWorld (ETTW): How did Covid affect your business, based on your revenues in 2020 and 2021, compared to 2019? Shikhar Aggarwal (SA): We generated a revenue of INR 804 crore in FY19 and INR 786 crore in FY20. Revenues in FY20 were muted due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The major impact of lockdowns and shutdown imposed by governments was seen in FY21, where our revenue was INR 478 crore. While our visa business was impacted, our business from consular, citizen services and banking correspondent business performed wonderfully well during these times. And that is why when the industry showed negative growth, BLS maintained higher EBIDTA margins with continuous focus on streamlining the cost in line with level of operations. With vaccination drives at full swing globally and lower infection rate; the visa and consular business is starting to pick up. In Q2 FY22, we continued to deliver strong financial performance with yet another outperformed quarter, with revenues of INR 190.5 crore, a year-onyear growth of 45 per cent. We have surpassed the profits generated in FY21 in the first two quarters of FY22 itself. There has been significant improvement in profitability with highest EBITDA of INR 27.5 crore and EBITDA margin of 14.4 per cent in the last 7-8 quarters along with highest Profit Before Tax (PBT) of INR 28.5 crore in the last 11 quarters. We continue to be debt free with zero borrowings, cash and bank balances at all time high of INR 310 crore, consistently improving and further strengthening the balance sheet. ETTW: With revenues looking up, how has business picked up now that international travel has resumed? SA: With aggressive vaccination drive in all major countries, the travel business has started showing traction. All the major countries are opening up in a phased manner with specified Covid norms. In general, the mood for travel is upbeat and we hope the immunisation program will speed up the travel movement. To boost travel, few global tourism destinations like Spain, Italy and other countries are enticing the travellers with incentive schemes like reimbursement of airfare, offering a free night of accommodation and other innovative schemes. Hence, it’s a great time for travellers to pack their bags and plan their trip to grab the freebies. As a company, we are at the cusp of a growth trajectory with visible rebound in our visa and consular business. We are witnessing travel pick up across the globe and visa business has been ramping up month-on-month from June 2021 onwards. Our banking correspondent and e-governance business are the biggest beneficiary of financial inclusion and digitisation in domestic market. Our offices and centers have been reopening in a phased manner, witnessing significant pickup in visa applications. ETTW: Which destinations are popular among Indian travellers? SA: The trend shows that travellers from India have been actively applying visa for countries like UAE, Maldives, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Turkey, Kenya, Maldova, Malawi, Antigua, Egypt, Gabon, Kuwait, Madagascar, Tanzania and Tajikistan. For few destinations like Dubai and Kenya, we have seen an increase of 200–300 per cent in visa applications compared to pre-Covid times. ETTW: How have you been supporting international governments in visa processes and consular services? SA: We take pride that our tech-enabled services and seamless operations enables faster, convenient and simplified processing of applications (visa, consular and citizen services) for governments globally. We work with over 46 client governments including Diplomatic Missions, Embassies and Consulates and leverage technology and processes that ensure data security. We have an extensive network of more than 12,000 centers globally with a robust strength of over 15,000 employees and associates and processed over 52 million applications till March ’21. Amongst major global wins this quarter are Italy Visa Processing services contract in Russia; e-Passport renewal services contract for Republic of Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs in Italy, Qatar and Malaysia; National Identity Management Project for Nigerian citizens in London, UK to enroll them into national identity database. While in India, we partnered with National Health Authority to process Ayushman Bharat Cards across India; UTIITSL to undertake the verification, registration and e-card printing services across India; became the official service provider to support ICCR’s protocol services to VVIP Foreign and Indian delegations in India and overseas, partnered with e-commerce companies to provide last mile services; became the Authorised Ticket Reseller for EXPO 2020 Dubai. We also launched Immigration Consultancy services for Canada and renewed the contract with Royal Thai Embassy for visa services in India. Our focus is to build robust tech-enabled processes with efficient execution and investments in technologies to utilise exciting possibilities related to digitisation, last mile penetration and enhanced service experience. We continue to leverage competence and deepening presence with our existing client base by offering more and more services thereby increasing wallet share in the front-end & citizen, visa, consular, e-governance, attestation, biometric and e-visa vicinity. ETTW: You talk about building robust tech-enabled processes, how have you been leveraging the use of technology in your business? SA: BLS uses interactive methods to provide current status of the travel document that is being processed to the traveller instantly. With our conversational app, we have consistently reduced the amount of interaction required factoring intent and context into the conversation. For example, just a text to a chatbot saying, ‘current status of the application number xxxx1234’, accomplishes the task and shows the status of the application to the traveller instantly. Bots using Natural Language Processing (NLP) are deployed to accomplish more complex personalisation using AI. Travel documents like passports and e-residency cards recognition are being used to recognise a blocked or blacklisted traveller as part of security clearance. BLS uses the feedback mechanism to capture user experience and enhance it further. We capture the mood and sentiment of the traveller, based on analytics and AI built into the system, for continuous improvement in customer delight, hence, delivering better and efficient service. We are continuously up-scaling our technology interface for better security and data privacy while delivering seamlessly integrated tech-enabled services to the governments. ETTW: Since India has started issuing visas to foreigners, what is the kind of demand that you have been witnessing from tourists who are keen to visit India? From which countries have you witnessed a surge in demand for travel to India? SA: Travellers to India have been eagerly waiting for this news, visitors from countries like Canada, USA, Germany, France, South Korea, UK, Australia, Russia and Japan are very keen to travel. There has been an increase in number of applications for Indian visa in the last few days and a surge in arrivals is expected in couple of months. We have been handling Indian missions for over a decade by providing visa and consular services in countries like Canada, UAE, Russia, Singapore, China, Malaysia, Oman, Austria, Poland, Lithuania, Norway, Philippines & Hong Kong, and have seen surge in application for VFR tourism (visiting friends and relatives) also.

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Ginger Forays Into Coimbatore With The Signing Of A New Hotel

Ginger strengthens its footprint in southern India with the signing of a new hotel in Coimbatore. Commenting on the signing, Deepika Rao, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Ginger Hotels, said, “This development is in line with the brand’s growth strategy of expanding its presence in metros and key commercial hubs across India. Coimbatore is the second largest city of Tamil Nadu and a major industrial centre. We are delighted to partner with Geetha Kumar’s Hospitality & Healthcare Private Limited for the hotel.” Ginger Coimbatore will be located on Avinashi Road with convenient access to the Coimbatore International Airport and commercial centre of the city. The 72-key hotel will feature Ginger’s newly designed signature rooms and other facilities. With the addition of this hotel, Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) will have 17 hotels in Tamil Nadu, including four under development.

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