Holiday Quenchers Travel and Tourism Services

21/08/2017

http://hillpost.in/2017/08/himachal-mass-tourism-not-sustainable/109286/

Mass tourism in Himachal is slowly but surely decimating the natural beauty of the state and turning its once idyllic towns into urban nightmares.…

26/10/2014

Stop. Take a deep breath. And walk, fly or catch a train away from the city and into a world where the average pace of life is slower than slow. "It is not down in any map; true places never are."
~ Herman Melville.

22/06/2014

Modi brings in 'achche din' for tourism....

The scorching summer affecting most parts of India seems to have had no bearing on the tourism industry. Rather, the tourism sector got a boost at around the same time that the new NDA government took charge.

21/06/2014

जहाँ कदम कदम पे मौत घूम रही है
आपकी फिराक़ में ....
अगर जिगर में है दम तो कुछ दिन तो
गुजारिये ईराक में .....
- इराक़ टूरिज्म

17/04/2014

's Mission in updates advisory, suggests avoiding travel to the eastern part of the country.

14/04/2014

"Rail tickets could cost more at counters"

Buying a railway ticket at a counter might become costlier. To encourage online ticket sale, the Indian Railways is examining a proposal to levy a 'special fee' on the physical sale of tickets.

Going against the traditional model followed by e-commerce giants, such as Flipkart and Myntra, as well as various airlines that offer discounts online, the railways has chosen a different path. The national transporter will increase the prices at ticket counters to offer 'cheaper' prices online.

Senior railway officials, however, did not comment on the quantum of difference between online and offline prices or what would be the gains for the railways. However, officials agreed that promoting online ticketing will be the way forward to bring in efficiency and cut costs.

"We are working on various innovative methods to incentivise the consumer to buy online. Apart from time flexibility and convenience, we are exploring options to offer consumer better prices to encourage online ticketing," said D P Pande, member (traffic), Railway Board.

Other proposals the railways is currently considering are offering sale of tickets for special holiday/festive trains run on Holi or Diwali exclusively through online. Recently, the railways had launched premium trains, whose tickets were exclusively sold online. The reasons for choosing a different path are obvious. With the railways having one of the lowest passenger fares in the world, officials argue that there is no scope to cut fares to promote online ticketing.

Considering the politically-sensitive nature of any passenger fare increase through budgetary announcement, the railways has for the past one year chosen to alter fares outside the Budget. Through the fuel adjustment component, passenger fares were raised up to 3.5 per cent in 2013.

Former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal had set the trend by raising passenger fares up to 25 per cent in January 2013 outside the Budget.

Recently, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) reported 580,000 ticket-booking in a single day - the highest number so far. IRCTC, which books about 50 per cent of the reserved category tickets online, contributed Rs 14,800 crore in railway revenue for calendar year 2013.

Railways' total passenger earnings for 2013-14 would be around Rs 40,000 crore.

In the coming days, railway ticketing would not be the only category to be bigger online than at the counters. According to a recent Nielsen survey, Flipkart is the largest single retailer of books, beating the likes of Crossword and other physical stores. Experts suggest that the next to follow suit are categories such as electronics, movie tickets and garments and accessories.

In 2007, the IRCTC web portal was selling just about 32,000 e-tickets a day. Last year's figure was 385,000 tickets a day, which has grown to 463,000 tickets a day - an annual growth of 20 per cent.

While the volume of tickets booked has been persistently growing for IRCTC, the share of online ticketing in the total income of IRCTC dropped from 30 per cent in 2011-12 to 23 per cent in 2012-13. Reason: IRCTC's catering business has yielded better returns.

Although IRCTC charges a convenience fee of up to Rs 20, the fee is among the lowest in the travel segment with online air booking attracting Rs 100. Other ticket booking portals such as bookmyshow.com charge about Rs 50 for a movie booking.

11/04/2014

29/03/2014

"Three religious tourist circuits in J&K under Centre’s consideration"

Three mega religious tourist circuits in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) "are under active consideration of the Centre", the State Assembly was informed yesterday. Ghulam Ahmad Mir, Minister for Tourism, Government of J&K, said approval for the Rs 150-crore tourist circuits, namely Sufi Circuit in Kashmir, Pilgrimage Circuit in Jammu, and Buddhist Circuit in Ladakh, were under active consideration of the Centre, and the state government had addressed the issues raised in this regard, PTI reported.

Mir was replying to supplementary questions raised by some members to the main query of Congress MLA, Ashok Kumar in the Legislative Assembly today.

Minister said construction of a ropeway at Patnitop had already been cleared under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The government has been vigorously following environment clearance for the project from Supreme Court, which is expected within a month, he added.

Mir said the government was encouraging youths to take part in water sports at Baglihar and Ranjit Sagar Dams, and for this purpose, incentive was being provided to purchase equipment. He said as many as 152 tourism projects at a cost of Rs 628.86 crore had been sanctioned by the Centre for J&K, and 75 of them had been completed, while works for remaining 77 projects were at various stages of completion.

Mir said seven central projects of Rs 18.22 crore had been sanctioned the Patnitop Development Authority (PDA). "Moreover, Rs 3.50 crore is being extended by the state for upgrading tourist-related infrastructure through PDA (Priority Development Area) in several areas including some of Ramban constituency," he said.

13/03/2014

"Goa to celebrate Shigmotsav from March 16-30, 2014"

The Shigmo Festival or Shigmotsav, the annual fiesta of Goa, will this year be held from March 16-30. The parade will take place across various parts of the state.

Shigmo in Goa is essentially a festival of the masses, though it is celebrated under different names and in different ways in various parts of India, a release stated. It is the festival of farewell to winter celebrated on the full moon day in the month of Phalguna (March), the last month of the Hindu calendar.

In Goa, Shigmo begins with Naman or collective obeisance of villagers from the ninth moon day to full-moon day. During these days, they are to abstain from non-vegetarian food and intoxicants. Tradional Shigmotsav elements like Taranga, Ghudi's , Lalkhi will be placed at various locations.

Dilip Parulekar, Minister for Tourism, Women & Child Development, Government of Goa, said, “Our focus is to preserve and promote the rich Goan art and culture and showcase it to the world. There will be lively décor, colorful parades and various traditional dance groups consisting of women and men dancers will give vibrant performances.”

Attired in traditional finery, various groups consisting of women and men dancers give vibrant performances of various dances. These are interspersed with small groups that move along the route with their traditional Goan drums.

20/12/2013

Great Indian Travel Bazaar renamed as Jaipur International Travel Bazaar:

Over the last six years Great Indian Travel Bazaar (GITB) done a magnificent work putting Rajasthan on the global tourism map. The annual inbound travel trade show on the calendar of international foreign tour operators, co-organized in April every year by FICCI and the Department of Tourism, Rajasthan and Ministry of Tourism is now up for a bid from firms and re-scheduled for August 2014. The travel mart, if at all it is organized, would be called Jaipur International Travel Bazaar and not GITB.

After the first edition of GITB, a memorandum of understanding was signed between FICCI and the department of tourism for five years. “The GITB was a concept suggested by FICCI and the name was jointly registered between the two. The then minister tourism Bina Kak announced at the GITB 2013 inaugural that the seventh edition of GITB would be organized in Jaipur in 2014 and the dates would be announced in due time. We had been following it up with the department regarding the memorandum but so far, there has been no development. Now there is very little time to put GITB together,” said Gyan Prakash, director FICCI Rajasthan.

According to sources, the tourism department is keen on being transparent about the bidding for the event. So, they have now come up with an advertisement inviting ‘Expression of Interest’, re-christening the fair as Jaipur International Travel Bazaar 2014 scheduled to be organized from 9-10 August and the last day of submitting the bids is somewhere in January.

Rated among the travel fraternity as the number one travel trade show, B2B meetings and inbound tourism were the focus of GITB. In 2012, 259 buyers from 54 countries participated in the exhibition with an organization 8,200 meetings to sell India world over. The event provided an exposure to the best tourism products from across India under one umbrella. In the sixth edition in 2013, the numbers went up with more than 9,000 meetings being held. Ironically, it is said there wasn’t a single scheduled B2B meeting at the tourism department stall in 2013.

“Its ironic but the department that is supposed to facilitate tourism has completely finished an event that was doing Rajasthan immense good since the last few years. This was the single significant tourism mart in North India where 279 international buyers and sellers from 57 countries had come down to our door-step for business. FICCI, over the last six years, had developed a large database and infrastructure to host a show of this magnitude. The tourism stakeholders are up in arms and it is certainly not going down well with them,” said Randhir Singh Mandawa, general secretary, Heritage Hotels Association of India. This is a great loss to the tourism industry in Rajasthan, he added.

GITB was co-organised by the tourism department and FICCI. It is also supported by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), leading national and regional associations like Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO), Hotel & Restaurant Association of Rajasthan (HRAR), Indian Heritage Hotels Association (IHHA) and Rajasthan Association of Tour Operators (RATO).