News

Bali surf school owner eagerly awaiting imminent return of foreign tourists

Surf school owner Halfia Londa is pinning all her hopes on Indonesia's plan to reopen the island of Bali to some foreign tourists from mid-October. Halfia's business at Kuta Beach is among hundreds of tourist businesses to have been crippled by the Indonesian government's decision to suspend all international flights to and from the popular island destination from April 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The closure stripped away most of Halfia's business virtually overnight, plunging her into debt. With very little income, she was evicted from her rented house and has been relying on the generosity of friends to get by. There was some hope this week when the government announced it would reopen Bali and the neighbouring islands of Batam and Bintan on Oct. 14 to travellers from 18 countries, including China, New Zealand and Japan. Previous plans to reopen the tourism hotspot have been repeatedly delayed. Visitors will be required to quarantine for five days at their own expense. Bali, where tourism accounts for more than half the economy, has been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. The once thriving holiday spot has been eerily quiet for months, with hotels, restaurants and beaches shuttered and thousands of hospitality jobs gone. Tirta Mursitama, an expert in international business at Binus University, said now was the time to seize the opportunity to innovate in Bali's hospitality and tourism sector. "We know that every business is changing, so there's a need to become innovative," he said "I hope that the arrival of tourists back to the island can give us a chance to work again, live our daily lives and to revive the economic opportunities," she said.

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Maharashtra Tourism starts a series of webinars on adventure tourism

In order to sensitise stakeholders about the recently announced Adventure Tourism Policy and create awareness about opportunities for adventure tourism in the state, Directorate of Tourism, Maharashtra has started a series of webinars on adventure tourism. The series started on October 11 will conclude on October 29 covering 8 different sessions and 8 different topics by experts from the respective fields. The timing of these sessions will be from 4 pm to 5.30 pm. Maharashtra government has recently launched the adventure tourism policy keeping in mind the huge potential for development of adventure tourism in the state. The policy focuses on regulating adventure activities conducted on air, land and water. Experienced practitioners and experts like the Joint Director of Directorate of Tourism Dr Dhananjay Sawalkar; Sky Diver and Padmashree Award recipient Sheetal Mahajan; Mountaineer and Shiv Chhatrapati Adventure Sport Award recipient Umesh Zirpe (GGIM, MMRCC); Founder of High Places Management Pvt. Ltd. Vasant Limaye; Scuba Expert Sarang Kulkarni; Everest climber Surendra Chavan and other dignitaries will address the webinars.

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Expo 2020 witnesses over 410,000 visits in first 10 days

Expo 2020 Dubai is off to a great start, as it welcomed 411,768 ticketed visits in its first 10 days. Expo 2020 opened its doors on October 1 and figures up to and including October 10 show that visitors belonged to 175 nationalities – not far off the 192 countries that are participating in the event, each with its own pavilion. One in three has come from abroad, with this proportion expected to increase as international travel ramps up. Dimitri S Kerkentzes, Secretary General of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), said, “Expo 2020 Dubai’s opening week has, undoubtedly, been a success. The numbers we are seeing are very encouraging and demonstrate the global desire for people to reconnect with each other and to imagine a better future.” The figures include all physical ticket-holders. They exclude representatives, delegations and guests of international participants, partners and other stakeholders, as well as Expo staff. Virtual Expo, virtualexpo.world, which launched on September 30, with three million people watching the opening ceremony live, has seen a further five million visits between October 1-10. Reem Al Hashimy, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation and Director General, Expo 2020 Dubai, said, “We are very happy with this wonderful turnout. The numbers achieved in the first ten days reflect the enthusiasm of the world to attend Expo 2020 Dubai. The coming days and weeks will be full of special events offering a visitor experience that will be rich, purposeful and entertaining, and we look forward to welcoming many more people from around the world.” A number of ticket options are open to visitors, with multi-day and season passes proving popular. One in five visitors have already visited Expo more than once, demonstrating that one day is not enough to enjoy the diverse and dynamic array of activities and entertainment on offer. Many of the country pavilions have also been impressed with the numbers of visitors so far. Joseph K Issa, Commissioner General of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, said, “We’ve been really busy since the show opened nine days ago, with a constant flow of visitors every day. People genuinely seem interested and inquisitive about what we have to offer and we are delighted to bring a flavour of Timor-Leste to visitors, businesses and investors from around the world.” Expo 2020 Dubai runs until 31 March 2022, with 200 pavilions in total for visitors to explore. As well as the attractions at each location, there are multiple daily events, with panel discussions and cultural performances.

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Indian tourist visa guidelines: No visas for tourists entering via land routes

As per the updated guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), those entering via land routes will not be issued visas. This means that those travelling from India’s neighbouring countries, and countries that share land borders with India, will not be able to enter the country on a tourist visa for now. As per the updated guidelines, the visa will be of single-entry type and will have a maximum validity of 30 days for now. As the land routes are not being considered for granting visas, tourists from neighbouring nations will have options to enter the country via air and sea routes. India shares land borders with a number of countries, including China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar. The latest MHA guidelines also clarified that foreign tourists would now have to apply for a fresh tourist visa to visit the country, as the ones issued before were not used, or the existing visa will remain suspended. Earlier, the government also announced that it will be granting free-tourist visas to the first five lakh applicants in a bid to boost tourism. Since India is a popular long-haul destination, the latest move might prove to be a dampener for foreign tourists who were planning to visit the country. However, because of the COVID-19 situation across the world, the government is taking cautious decisions to reopen the country gradually for inbound tourism.

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Government Allows Airlines To Operate Domestic Flights At Their 100% Pre-covid Capacity

After reviewing the current situation of Covid-19 pandemic and looking at the growth of domestic air travel in the country, the government has announced to restore scheduled domestic air operations in the country without any capacity restrictions from October 18. With this, airlines can operate flights of their pre-Covid domestic services. Airlines are currently operating at 85 per cent capacity since September 18 when the government last reviewed capacity from 72.5 per cent. The civil aviation ministry said the decision was taken after taking in view the current status of scheduled domestic operations viz-a-viz passenger demand for air travel. On Monday, airlines carried about 266,000 passengers on 2307 flights across the country. “The airlines/airport operators shall, however, ensure that the guidelines to contain the spread of Covid are strictly adhered to and Covid appropriate behavior is strictly enforced by them during the travel,” the order said. After a complete ban on scheduled domestic flights during the nationwide lockdown in 2020, flight operations resumed after a two-month gap with a capacity of 33 per cent capacity of what they used to operate before Covid-19 pandemic. Going forward, the government gradually increased the capacity to 80 per cent in December 2020 when the number of daily Covid-19 cases dipped. However, the capacity was again reduced to 50 per cent in June 2021 owing to second wave of the pandemic. Since then, the capacity has only been increasing. The move is expected to provide much-needed relief to airlines who have been demanding to remove the restrictions on capacity as well as capping on air fares. Domestic air travel in India has made rapid strides with increased consumer confidence, dipping virus infections and intent to explore domestic destinations in absence of many options for outbound travel. The ongoing festive season has only increased the demand for air travel when a large number of travellers are moving from one part of the country to another.

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Asia's airlines ramp up flights, offers as tough COVID travel curbs ease

Asia-Pacific airlines have lost billions of dollars this year, with jets grounded in COVID-19 transportation freezes. Now, as some of the world's strictest pandemic-related travel rules begin to ease, they're ramping up flights and ticket offers. Asian travel agencies and carriers told Reuters they're seeing a surge in bookings and travel enquiries as countries like Malaysia and Vietnam allow domestic flights to resume from this week after months of strict lockdowns. India is lifting a domestic capacity cap, while Singapore, Thailand and Fiji are opening without quarantine to vaccinated international travellers from select countries. While airline industry group IATA does not expect a significant improvement in Asia-Pacific international travel until "later in 2022" - predicting cumulative losses of $11.2 billion this year, narrowing to $2.4 billion next year - carriers from AirAsia Group to VietJet Aviation, Singapore Airlines, Fiji Airways and Qantas are already increasing capacity. "The most important thing is practically all governments in the Asia-Pacific region with maybe one or two exceptions are abandoning their COVID-zero strategies and moving to a sort of COVID-normal framework," said Association of Asia Pacific Airlines Director General Subhas Menon. "Vaccination rates are also beginning to ramp up. While curbs are easing, a full return to normal operations is a long way off. IATA estimates global aviation industry losses from the pandemic will be a towering $200 billion for 2020-2022, and losses in Asia alone were close to $50 billion in 2020. International travel in the Asia-Pacific region was at around 4 percent of 2019 levels in August. And though the relaxation of restrictions will open the way for some tourism, initially it will mean a comparative trickle: Thailand expects only around 100,000 foreign visitors this year, down from nearly 40 million in 2019. Still, there's pent-up demand from those who have longed to be able to take a break overseas. Dickson Ng, a 24-year-old consultant based in Singapore, said he plans to travel to Europe in January. "We don't know if these VTLs (vaccinated travel lanes) could be rescinded, right now there's opportunity and there's COVID fatigue, so I think getting out of the country will be a good thing," he said.

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