Sri Lankan Airlines recently launched its dedicated vacations brand titled Sri Lankan Holidays in Mumbai with a multi-pronged objective of driving tourism to Sri Lanka as well as enhance yields on flights to key Far East destinations. Sri Lankan Airlines currently operates the maximum number of flights for an international airline, out of India.
Although the airline has been formulating promotional packages for Sri Lanka and Malaysia in the past, it is now looking to organise this format of promotion with a purpose driven brand. Says Lal Talgaswatte, regional manager - western and central India, Sri Lankan Airlines, “Sri Lankan Holidays was launched with the objective of creating an individual brand identity which will compliment the airline in so much as support our yields and increase tourism to our country but the separation of the two brands is important.” While the concept, Talgaswatte says, had been mulled over for a long time, the launch had been put on ice for a while due to some infrastructural lags.
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The Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Mr Praful Patel, today brushed aside the resentment over the stalled construction of the terminal of Sri Guru Ramdass International Airport and assured the public that a bigger and modern complex would be built.
Addressing a gathering during the flag-off ceremony of the inaugural Air-India’s Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham-Toronto flight here today, Mr Patel said top priority was being given to restart the construction of the ultra-modern airport. He, however, said the project could be delayed by another six months as the Ministry of Civil Aviation, in consultation with the Airport Authority of India (AAI), was preparing a
Emirates Holidays, the tour operating arm of Emirates Airline and one of the largest wholesale tour operators in the Middle East, declared a revenue of Dhs 355 million (US$97 million) for the financial year ended 31st March 2004 - an increase of 23 per cent over the previous year.
Around 100,000 tourists travelled with Emirates Holidays over the past twelve months, with the top destinations proving to be the U.A.E, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Mauritius, the Maldives, Singapore, Lebanon and India. The six destinations growing fastest in popularity were Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, Austria, Hong Kong and New Zealand.
The past
In a novel effort aimed at creating awareness about preservation of ecological balance and promoting tourism, a private sector hospitality company has ventured into the field of wildlife and adventure tourism.
Country Club India Limited, a Hyderabad based company with an assets base of Rs 500 crore, has acquired its first wildlife property and launched the "Country Club Bush Betta Resort" spread over 20 acres next to National Park at Bandipur in Karnataka.
A prototype of the jungle resort was launched by Union Tourism Minister Renuka Choudhary here last night.
The company proposed to invest about Rs 20 crore in acquiring and
India plans to hold tourism road shows in major Chinese cities this year to woo more tourists to Western and Southern parts of the country, official sources said here.
"We are planning to hold a comprehensive tourism road show in China in by October-end to attract more Chinese tourists to India," Regional Director (East Asia), Indiatourism, G Venkataraman said.
The road shows would be held in cities like Beijing, Dalian, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu and Indiatourism will be cooperating with Air India to woo more Chinese tourists to newer Indian destinations in Southern and Western India, which would also help reduce pressure
India on Thursday announced plans to send a boatload of tourists to view an active volcano as an eruption in the Andaman archipelago gained in intensity.
The tourists will view the volcano on remote Barren Island which is spitting lava, ash and boulders up to a height of 330 feet.
"There are lots of tourists and local residents eager to see the active volcano and a ship is scheduled to sail out Friday for Barren Island," Kuldip Singh of the Andamans' tourism department told AFP by telephone.
"This will be the first volcano tourism venture in India and it is