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The Himalayan gap in India’s trekking scene

The Himalayan gap in India’s trekking scene

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Staff, 2022-12-09 20:43:56,

In 2022, according to the Indian Mountaineering Federation, 33 foreign and 104 Indian expedition permits have been issued. About 50 to 60 percent of tourists apply for permits which cost foreigners $100-$200 and Indians Rs1,200-Rs1,600. Yet, not many services are offered for the fee and there are several restrictions. For instance, satellite phones are banned, or, in special cases, require permission. This while the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation mandates the need and use of satellite phones. 

Also, long processes to obtain permits often lead to illegal trekking and many trekkers go unaccounted for as they set off on their own without permits, backpack in tow. 

“India currently has no information on who has entered its natural heritage. Registration of adventure companies and a model law (in progress) will ensure a safer environment,” says Kala. 

A single-window access will greatly help the industry, says Praveen Sood, general secretary, ATOA-M, which has carried out 65 rescues in its lifetime. “In the West, one pays a membership per peak. Under its gambit, rescue and insurance is covered and compulsory. That could be a simple solution,” Sood adds. 

Adopt global safety standards 

Sood looks at India’s neighbour for inspiration. “Nepal started Trekkers’ Information Management Systems (TIMS) 10 years ago with internationally certified guides and pilots, professional experts, and rescue stations. India needs this,” he says.

The TIMS that…

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Asian, African fans relish ‘affordable’, close-to-home World Cup | Abdel Fattah el-Sisi News

Asian, African fans relish ‘affordable’, close-to-home World Cup | Abdel Fattah el-Sisi News

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Staff, 2022-12-06 00:33:58,

Doha, Qatar – It’s the first time that four teams from Asia and Africa have made it to the knockout stage of the FIFA World Cup. In-form Morocco are still in the fray. But for many fans from those continents, including the Middle East, there’s another reason to celebrate the ongoing tournament: It’s simply easier and more affordable to attend.

Saudi Arabia and India sit at the top of the list of countries with the most applications for Hayya Cards – which fans need to enter Qatar for the World Cup – according to figures released by FIFA after the completion of the tournament’s group stage.

While Saudi Arabia played at the World Cup and pulled off its first big upset, beating Argentina 2-1, India has never come close to qualifying for football’s premier event. Still, visitors from India accounted for 34 percent of the total arrivals during the group stages.

Mohit Kayan, who came to Doha from Mumbai, said the reason is simple: the World Cup is in Qatar, on the Arabian Peninsula, which is part of West Asia. “It’s a proud moment for all of us [Asians] that the continent is hosting its second World Cup [after Japan and South Korea in 2002], especially since it is so close to India,” Kayan told Al Jazeera.

Kayan arrived in Doha for a match-day visit via Dubai, where his friends joined him on a shuttle flight. “We arrived on the morning of the game, took a bus to the stadium and will now head back to Dubai after spending a few hours at the fan…

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Indians and the grey gap year: From solo travel to road trips, senior citizens are travelling more

Indians and the grey gap year: From solo travel to road trips, senior citizens are travelling more

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Staff, 2022-11-11 03:00:00,

Better financial stability, less need to support the younger generation, and the desire to enjoy life after being cooped up at home during the pandemic is seeing the silver generation stepping out more today

Better financial stability, less need to support the younger generation, and the desire to enjoy life after being cooped up at home during the pandemic is seeing the silver generation stepping out more today

In the middle of her solo trip to Mizoram last month, Geeta Garud, 69, had an epiphany. “I was on a narrow ledge, making my way behind a waterfall, trying out something I wouldn’t have in my younger years. And I realised how going solo was such a liberating experience!”

Before going on her week-long holiday, she was hesitant about travelling alone. Garud had asked friends and family but found no takers. Yet there she was, alone, relishing a challenging trek. “Why was I being dependent on others? Being alone gives you a sense of freedom.”

She ended up having many firsts. She danced impromptu at the Anthurium Festival in Reiek, waded into a river, and went horse riding. “I had opportunities to try horse riding when I was younger, but couldn’t work up the courage. This time I thought, if not now, I may never get another chance,” says Garud, who was an athlete in her youth and played cricket. She was at her farm in Kopargaon during the lockdown, and had felt stifled by the lack of social connections. It motivated her to travel as soon as things eased….

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Assam playwright, Oz director, S African producer recreate ‘Aladdin’

Assam playwright, Oz director, S African producer recreate ‘Aladdin’

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Staff, 2022-10-09 05:28:55,

Mumbai-based Assamese playwright Lakhinandan Boruah has teamed up with veteran Australian director Glenn T Hayden and producer Anjil Naidoo of South Africa to recreate middle-eastern folk tale ”Aladdin” that opened in Durban late last month.

”Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp” features a cast of 20 actors and dancers from across the world and its background score and songs are composed by Pranashan Singh and choreographed by Bertwin D’Souza and Shampa Gopikrishna. The dance cast consists of a few Mumbai-based dancers.

Boruah says ”Aladdin” over the years has been told by many storytellers in different ways and so ”our approach was to remain more truthful” to the folk tale than the other western adaptations.

”If we read the ‘Tales from 1001 Nights’, we’d find that there were multiple genies in Aladdin’s story. We found it very interesting. So, we kept multiple genies in our adaptation, and it turned out to be a wise decision as it helped us explore different dimensions of Aladdin’s character,” Boruah told PTI.

”We also kept the evil magician from the original story as the main antagonist. Similarly, Aladdin’s mother plays a prominent role in our play. We wanted the women in the story to be strong. Our princess and Aladdin’s mom feature as very strong women in our adaptation,” he says.

After opening in Durban on September 30 with an international cast and crew from South Africa, Germany, India, Australia, USA and other countries, ”Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp” is…

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Best hotels for business travelers in Asia-Pacific

Best hotels for business travelers in Asia-Pacific

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Staff, 2022-09-11 18:17:31,

Business travelers are on the road again. So there’s no better time for CNBC Travel to name the best hotels for business travel across Asia-Pacific.

CNBC joined with the market and consumer data firm Statista to produce rankings of the “Best Hotels for Business Travelers.” A second list of rankings for hotels in Europe and the Middle East will be published next month.

In total, we analyzed more than 10,000 four- and five-star hotels in 117 locations to produce a list corporate travelers can trust. We did this using a three-step process:

  • Asking business travelers and hotel industry professionals to answer a CNBC reader survey which ran from May 3 to June 7, 2022.
  • Reviewing more than 1 million hotel data points, which included objective information (location, business facilities, food, leisure activities and room characteristics) and subjective reviews (gathered from Google, TripAdvisor, Expedia and similar websites).
  • Weighting the data to prioritize the hotel characteristics deemed most important in the reader survey.

For full details about our research methodology, click here.

From Adelaide to Yokohama, here’s the full list — complete with final scores — of Asia-Pacific’s top hotels for business travelers, many of which are highlighted below.

Australia

Melbourne

  1. The Como Melbourne – MGallery
    Operated by the French hospitality company Accor, this hotel has suites, apartments and loft-style penthouses. Its customer…

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monkeypox: Indians turn globe-trotters despite high fares and Monkeypox threat

monkeypox: Indians turn globe-trotters despite high fares and Monkeypox threat

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Staff, 2022-07-27 14:18:45,

Despite high airfares, the new threat of Monkeypox, and visa issues for some European countries, all bets are still on the Indian traveller and online travel platforms and airlines continue to see an uptick in overseas bookings.

Indian carriers are seeing higher passenger occupancy levels on their international flights than what they recorded pre-Covid, executives and industry watchers said. IndiGo, India’s biggest carrier by market share, is filling up more seats on its flights to the Middle East than it did more than two years ago, when Covid-19 was yet to hit global air travel. “Flights to the UAE and Saudi Arabia are doing extremely well,” said a person in the know.

Vistara is clocking passenger load factors of up to 80% on some of its flights.

Deveekaa Nijhawan, a spokesperson from Qatar Tourism, said with less than four months to go for the FIFA World Cup that the Arab nation hosts, the response from India has been “incredible”.

“We are expecting more than 1 million tourists for the FIFA World Cup, and we anticipate that India will be one of the most significant contributors. We look forward to accelerating our efforts to maintain momentum and fully unlock the potential of Indian travellers,” she added.

Qatar saw a steady increase in visitor arrivals from India with double-digit growth from 2019-2021, with India ranking as the highest source market.

Demand for travel to Singapore is also high as the Southeast Asian country has eased entry norms, said a person in the know. Of the 1.5 million visitors that Singapore received in the first half of this year, Indians represented the second biggest group with over 219,000 visiting the city state.

GB Srithar, regional director, India, Middle East, South Asia & Africa at the Singapore Tourism Board, said July numbers were healthy and the island continues to receive “good” visitor numbers from India. “Changi Airport is already seeing a restoration of about 70% of India’s pre-Covid flight capacity, covering over 180 weekly services,” he added.

A spokesperson for Singapore Airlines in India said the carrier is restoring its India network to pre-pandemic levels in the coming months. “SIA operates 73 flights a week from eight cities across India. This will increase to 80 flights a week by August 2, 2022, and 91 flights a week from September 1, 2022,” she said, adding there was robust growth in both leisure and corporate segments. EaseMyTrip CEO Nishant Pitti said European countries such as France, Spain and…

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Indian airline safety in focus after series of technical glitches | Asia | An in-depth look at news from across the continent | DW

Indian airline safety in focus after series of technical glitches | Asia | An in-depth look at news from across the continent | DW

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Staff, 2022-07-25 09:20:23,

India’s biggest airline, IndiGo, recently said that it had diverted a plane to Karachi in neighboring Pakistan due to a “technical defect.”    

The flight was meant to go from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This happened just a day after an Air India Express’ flight from Calicut, India to Dubai in UAE was diverted safely to Muscat, Oman after a burning smell came from a vent in the forward galley.

In a separate incident, a live bird was found in the cockpit of another Air India Express’ flight while it was flying from Bahrain to India.

Another airline, SpiceJet, said on July 5 that a Boeing 737 aircraft from New Delhi to Dubai made an emergency landing in Karachi due to the malfunctioning of a fuel indicator light.

These and other mid-air technical malfunctions, which have led to a number of unscheduled landings in recent weeks, have drawn public attention to the issue of safety in one of the most rapidly expanding and cutthroat civil aviation markets in the world.

Scrutiny over safety issues

After the SpiceJet incident, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s aviation regulator, issued a warning.  

Officials said a review of several incidents involving the carrier’s planes since April 1 showed that “aircraft either turned back to the originating station or continued landing to the destination with degraded safety margins.”

The regulator recently grounded two Airbus SE A320 aircraft of Go First, the South Asian nation’s second-biggest airline, and a Boeing Co. 787 jet of Air India Ltd.,  after they reported incidents.

“We have begun a special two-month long audit for all Indian airlines to understand shortcomings, whether there is a lack of maintenance engineers and if quality assurance systems are being followed,” said a DGCA official, who asked not to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

“It is meant to check if airlines are sticking to laid-down standards and safety oversight. There will be no compromise on safety,” the official added.

After the recent incidents, India’s Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia held one-on-one meetings with the heads of airline companies to review air safety norms.

“Passenger safety is paramount. Even the smallest error hindering safety will be thoroughly investigated and course-corrected,” Scindia said on Twitter.

Strong demand for air travel

India has seen a surge in demand for air travel since the…

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Beam Suntory travel retail focus, Dole juice innovation, fresh produce shelf life booster and more

Beam Suntory travel retail focus, Dole juice innovation, fresh produce shelf life booster and more

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Staff, 2022-07-14 23:22:00,

‘Elevate experiences’: Beam Suntory on the importance of travel retail for India business success​

Premium spirits MNC Beam Suntory believes that the revival of travel retail is especially important for its India business to thrive, with the firm outlining how it plans to achieve growth in the category.

Beam Suntory owns multiple premium liquor brands in India, from the award-winning Teacher’s whiskey to Jim Beam bourbon, and its focus in this area has meant that it has had to face multiple challenges from alcohol taxes to travel bans in the past two years.

Beating the ‘baddies’: Dole to focus on clean label and fortification for juice product innovation in APAC​

Fruit product heavyweight Dole has revealed plans to focus on developing more clean label and fortified juice products for the Asia Pacific market, citing rising consumer interest in the region as a major motivation.

Although Dole, formally the Dole Sunshine Company, is already a well-known name in the region when it comes to fruit products and juices, the firm believes that it is important for it to push forward even further when it comes to developing products with a health and wellness focus given rising consumer awareness in the region.

Slashing spoilage: Indian bioactive sachet innovation could boost fresh produce shelf life​

Chennai-based start-up Greenpod Labs has invented bioactive sachets that claim to reduce the spoilage of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The bioactive ingredients contained in the sachets could uniform ripening and minimise microbial growth, thereby extending the shelf life of produce, explained Greenpod Labs CEO Deepak Rajmohan.

“The economic loss of food waste costs India USD$12b. Despite India being the second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables, 40% of it is lost before it even reaches the consumer. We have to solve this. If you can solve it for India, you’ll solve it for all developing countries,”​ he said.

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India Tourism: India should allocate funds to develop ‘high-end’ tourism, focus on hosting global biz events: Report

India Tourism: India should allocate funds to develop ‘high-end’ tourism, focus on hosting global biz events: Report

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Staff, 2022-07-10 00:03:00,

The government should allocate funds for developing ‘high-end’ tourism to bring in wealthier visitors, besides focusing on making India the leading country for hosting business events to revive the tourism sector, a report has said.

The ‘Rebuilding Tourism For the Future 2022’ report, prepared by Nangia Andersen LLP in association with Ficci, said post COVID, a new term ‘Bleisure travel’ was coined, which is the rise of professionals who are mixing businesses with leisure activities.

The trend has been seen in young professionals who had the option of work from home, and they decided to find a place where they could work as well as enjoy nature.

Nangia Andersen LLP’s Head of Government & Public Sector Advisory Suraj Nangia said, “Travellers and local tourists are embracing technology for a better experience, including making reservations and finding out what the best travel options are.”

He believes that artificial intelligence (AI) tools and metaverses will be widely used in the future to provide a virtual experience before actual travel begins.

The report suggested that for the tourism sector to recover, India should develop itself as the leading country for hosting business events, as well as promote high-end tourism.

“Focus should be placed on improving the attractiveness of the India’s already strong offer and become the ‘World’s Meeting Place’, with the creating more business events, attracting more to our shores, and growing international audiences — leveraging the attendance of government to do so,” it said.

The report noted that India has immense potential for development of world-class adventure activity infrastructure.

“The government should develop a Roadmap for Adventure Tourism to promote a structured and sustainable development. This niche…

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Centre to give focus to eco-tourism, adventures in new policy- The New Indian Express

Centre to give focus to eco-tourism, adventures in new policy- The New Indian Express

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Staff, 2022-06-05 20:46:00,

Express News Service

NEW DELHI:  Despite vast swathes of natural resources, India ranks quite low in global adventure tourism. However, the tourism ministry believes that the country holds great potential to become a global marketplace for adventure activities, sports and eco-tourism.

With the tourism ministry holding a consultation on proposals to introduce reforms and provisions in the new National Tourism Policy to take the Indian tourism sector to a new height, it has formulated two separate policy frameworks to encourage stakeholders to work proactively towards developing adventure and eco-tourism under the National Strategy for Adventure and Eco-tourism.

Ranking of states on adventure tourism, creation of eco-tourism blocks in forest areas, and training cum certification programmes for the workforce involved in tourism services are among several suggestions in the policies to provide impetus to the development of adventure and eco-tourism in the country.

According to the Adventure Tourism Competitive Index (ATDI) for 2020 released by the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) together with George Washington University International Institute of Tourism Studies (GW), India stood at 96th position in the world.

The ministry will conduct a ranking of the states on adventure tourism, with the key objective to foster competitiveness and encourage states to work pro-actively towards developing adventure tourism with the over-arching objective of promoting sustainable tourism, reads the National Strategy of Adventure Tourism.

Both the documents have been circulated among all government ministries, departments and stakeholders for further action. Professionals organising adventure sports activities and tours in the country have lauded…

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