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Wednesday, 03 January, 2018, 12 : 06 PM [IST]
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HOPE DAWNS AFTER SHAKY TIMES: FORECAST 2018
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After some roller coaster rides in 2017 due to various policy-level developments, the travel & tourism industry is
hopeful of steadily returning back to track in 2018. Despite the challenges faced last year, the industry is positive
that the government will help businesses grow across every vertical of tourism industry. TravelBiz Monitor
spoke to a cross section of travel service providers on how promising will 2018 be amidst the challenges that
they foresee for the year.
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Zubin Karkaria, CEO, VFS Global Group
India is one of the few global travel markets
recording double-digit growth rates, and the
outlook remains positive. Outsourcing of visa
services also remains strong. I am convinced
that this is a huge opportunity for Indian travel
and tourism companies to tap into. However, the
way to do business is changing rapidly with the
digital medium playing an ever increasing role,
and companies need to leverage technology and
have very strong customer and market orientation to succeed. Developing
geopolitical situations around the world are near term challenges. |
Peter Kerkar, Group CEO, Cox & Kings Ltd.
We believe that this year would be promising as demand for travel is
growing at double digits in India. Demonetization of 2016 and the
implementation of the GST in 2017 have brought about an attitudinal
change when it comes to buying travel. Travellers prefer the organised
players as they are now assured of a level
playing field. There is a boom in domestic air
travel, and this augurs well for leisure and
business travel. In the last quarter of 2017,
many new airlines have started operations
and existing players are adding capacity. This
indicates that outbound travel will also grow
connecting new markets and destinations.
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Vishal Suri, Managing Director SOTC
Travel
There is dynamic growth in all verticals across
all industries related to travel such as aviation,
infrastructure, policies that augment and boost
business. The geopolitical uncertainty is also
one of the biggest challenges. The emerging
middle-class, rise in disposable incomes,
smartphone penetration, emergence of tech-
savvy millennials and changing consumer traveller behaviour is an
opportunity that will lead to introducing new experiences. The advances
in mobile technology have revolutionised the way we live and the way
we do business, and the world of travel is no exception. With mobile
data reiterating the Indian travellers’ shift to e-commerce, coupled with
India’s booming smartphone market, we would continue to invest in
enhancing this channel. Thus, travel technology will increasingly be used
to optimise revenue and enhance customer service experience. We will
continue to focus on seamless customer service and strengthen our Omni
channel presence. Visa process is getting simplified and streamlined,
thereby maintaining quick turnaround periods and on-time delivery to
enhance the overall travel experience. MICE is another segment that
will continue to contribute substantially to the growth of the business.
Corporate entities expanding their business interests globally will see
a further rise in Business Travel. The primary value proposition for us
is to continue to be consumer centric. Personalisation and excellence in
service is at the center of what makes us valuable.
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Rajeev Kale, President and Country Head
Leisure Travel and M.I.C.E, Thomas Cook
India Group
India’s brand image for tourism is changing
in the minds of the people. Owing to our
pro-tourism government, there has been a
significant change in industry in India. They
have implemented various schemes and
opened up avenues that will strengthen the
tourism industry. The E-visa scheme and Udan
scheme are examples of such developments that will play an instrumental
role in boosting tourism. The aviation industry is also growing at a fast
pace. Airlines offering more options as well as competitive airfares is
directly impacting the tourism sector. Demonetization was a big challenge
and another challenge is with more holiday bargains on the Internet than
you can imagine, along with a host of small agencies and big hitters vying
the attention of potential travellers, loyalty is becoming rare in today’s
market.
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Sriram Rajmohan, CEO & MD, Club7
Holidays Ltd.
Year 2017 started with challenges of post
demonetization. We took this challenge in our
stride and grew our business by more than
150% in 2017 summer. GST implementation
had created moderate slowdown with our MICE
and FIT customers. However, 2018 Summer
looks exciting for travel and hospitality. We
have received an overwhelming response for
our Summer 2018 tour bookings. However, we are closely watching the
industry and external factors for volatility. We at Club7 are geared up to
face the new challenges ahead.
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Claudio Zemp, Director India, Switzerland
Tourism
Bookings have started early and look strong for
2018. We definitely see an increase in interest
for the winter season. Our new product, First
Ski Experience, caters to Indian guests who
travel in winter and want to spend an afternoon
on the slopes. You will get skis, instructor, outfit
and ski pass in one ticket. It’s never been easier
to sell this activity to guests from India.
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Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager – India, Tourism Australia
India is today among the fastest growing economies in the world. The
stability of the economy and the increase in the disposable income of
middle class households has led to a rise in the
outbound travel market. Massive opportunity
lies there. The idea is to tap into the rising
aspirations of these new age travellers and
promote Australia as the most desirable
destination in the world. While the introduction
of the electronic lodgment of visas for Indian
passport holders will give us an edge, the direct
aviation access and capacity on the India–
Australia route will remain a key challenge.
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Sheetal Munshaw, Director, Atout France
India
India outbound represents today an
unprecedented growth opportunity. The travel
patterns have changed dramatically in the
last couple of years. An earlier price-sensitive
market is today a value-conscious one with
more emphasis on experiences which has
certainly given further impetus to not just
the quantity, but also the quality of outbound
tourism fro, India.
The Indian market is no longer just a summer market. This enhanced
seasonality has also played an instrumental role in increasing traffic
throughout the year ex-India. In a nutshell, travel is now a lifestyle and
not a luxury in India it is part of the new age DNA who prioritise travel
for a slew of reasons, which is a very encouraging trend for all outbound
players. In terms of challenges they seem few and far between vs the great
Indian opportunity that lies ahead. The only thing to truly watch out for
would be to find ingenuous and new marketing methods to keep pace
with the maturity of the market and appease to the new age traveller’s
ever evolving palate. And of course to hope that India will not foresee any
drastic fiscal reforms in 2018 that would have an impact on travel.
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Alpa Jani, Acting Hub Head MEISEA, South
African Tourism
India is one of the most booming outbound
travel markets in the world and has always
been an important focus market for us. In fact,
it is the 8th largest international source market
for South African Tourism.
Indian travellers at times face a challenge
with regards to availability as they tend to book
much later than their American and European
counterparts, and South Africa’s peak season also coincides with Diwali
and New Year. We try to turn this into an opportunity by showcasing
destinations beyond top tourist spots. Another challenge is direct air
connectivity between India and South Africa, but efforts are on to increase
seat capacity on relevant flight routes ex-India.
In 2018, we look forward to welcoming the Indian cricket team set to
tour South Africa starting this month and also the travelling cricket fans.
Our trade and consumer efforts will be focused towards driving awareness
and demand for our adventure and wildlife offerings and we will also be
equally focused on promoting the new regions of South Africa. We are
excited about re-connecting with all our trade partners through our annual
roadshow which will travel across 5 cities this
year – Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, New Delhi
and Ahmedabad.
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Soraya Homchuen, Director, Tourism
Authority of Thailand, Mumbai
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has
launched a campaign ‘Amazing Thailand
Tourism Year 2018’ to support the government’s
national tourism development plan featuring an
action-packed schedule of unique Thai local experiences and international
events. The campaign will highlight activities based on 13 core niche
products like wedding and honeymoon, medical and wellness, leisure,
MICE, night tourism, etc. This year, the emphasis will be on inclusive
tourism, that maintains a balance between the economy, environment and
benefits the Thai society.
The campaign’s overarching objective is to ensure that Thailand remains
a preferred destination and delivers quality product, thus boosting the
average length of stay, expenditure and repeat visit.
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Hassan Madah – Director, Israel Ministry of
Tourism, India
2017 has been outstanding for tourism and
2018 will be better. We recently announced
relaxed visa rules for Indian tourists who
have completed travel to any of the Schengen
countries, US, Canada, Australia or Israel, and
we will soon implement express visa services
through VFS for quicker processing. Air India
and Arkia announced they will soon start
connectivity between India and Israel. We collaborated with Dharma
Productions on a song in ‘Drive’ with Jacqueline Fernandez and Sushant
Singh Rajput, showcasing some fun and unique attractions in Tel Aviv to
the Indian moviegoers on the big screen.
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Todd Arthur, Vice President, Sabre Travel
Network Asia Pacific
Rolling-out the New Sabre Red Workspace
across APAC is our main priority for 2018. As
we continue to invest in our platform, listening
closely to our client’s needs is essential, as
their success is also ours. Sabre is committed
to transforming the industry by providing
efficient, multi-channel distribution, and
implementing new standards and technologies
that address each market’s unique needs.
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Dr. Ankur Bhatia, Executive Director, Bird
Group & Member of CII’s Core Committee
on Aviation With the consistent surge in domestic tourism,
2017 started on a positive note for aviation,
travel and hospitality industry. India became
the third largest aviation market as domestic
air traffic showed consistent growth. The
hospitality industry however faced several
roadblocks, but has made an encouraging
recovery in the last quarter. The industry’s dependence upon technology
is growing to improve efficiency, accelerate profitability, and we expect
GDS to become more deeply embedded across these sectors.
2018 for aviation, travel and hospitality industry will be a promising
one as domestic travel and MICE picks up resulting in business growth.
With the upcoming Union Budget for 2018-19, we are looking forward to
reforms supporting the industry. While the government is aggressively
marketing brand India globally, it is imperative to focus internally and
address issues around taxation, infrastructure and inconsistent regulations
imposed by various states to achieve the potential of these industries. We
also hope the Union Budget will empower each of the industries to take
full advantage of varied opportunities ahead.
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Sandeep Dwivedi, COO, InterGlobe Technology Quotient
The year 2018 is going to play a vital role in making travel & tourism
industry one of the key growth drivers in Indian economy. Government
initiated reforms like e-visa extension, launch of UDAN along with clean
India movement during last year, has already acted collaboratively in
positioning India as one of the top travel
markets by 2022. However, all this growth
and success has also brought the travel sector
face to face with certain shortcomings such
as: Secured Payment Gateway. To overcome
this challenge IATA has mandated the PCI
DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standards) Compliance for all IATA-authorised
travel agencies to ensure complete security for
all types of online payment transactions. This
is a great step for the security of online transactions within the industry.
And together with Travelport, we are committed to help our customers
achieve necessary PCI DSS certification through a simple, low-cost and
streamlined process.
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Rajesh Magow, Co-founder & CEO India,
MakeMyTrip Online travel space is treading on a faster
growth and keeping with this momentum we
foresee significant opportunities in 2018. One
of the biggest opportunity lies in the online
hotel booking segment, which remains underpenetrated,
literally in the low double-digits.
We have about 55% of the business now coming
from hotel and holiday packages and 45% from
flights. We are looking to grow the contribution from hotels and to about
70-75% in the next 3 years or so. Another opportunity in the travel tech
space is the intersection of mobile and Artificial intelligence. This space
will find huge growth in travel market and the products will become more
personalised and consumer-centric. We are already making significant
investments focussing on products and tech that will take online travel
experience to the next level. |
Manmeet Ahluwalia, Marketing Manager,
Expedia in India
Today millennials are more keen on experiences
than acquiring materialistic possessions. With
travel being a priority, we are witnessing
interesting trends that could become a rage in
2018:
- A new trend that will catch up fast in
2018 is digital detox. A concept where people
avoid technology while on vacation.
- Get up and go- One interesting trend that is picking up with the
Millennials is to just pack their bags and go out exploring. These
sudden plans will be one trend to check out in 2018 and they are
fast becoming a stress buster for the new thrill-seeking working
generation.
- Experiential travellers have started recognising the fact that the
rush on weekends/extended weekends at times comes in the way of
enjoying the vacation and relax completely. Hence they have started
planning their trips on weekdays and we expect the weekdays to
catch up w.r.t. bookings.
- Married women travelling solo/ with female friends, seeking for a
break from household chores and responsibilities.
- Group travel catching up again- This is where families or 2-3 couples
will come together to enjoy a vacation where they stay together
and book fancy villas or havelis as either homestays or customised
properties to enjoy quality time with family and friends.
- Women bikers have grown in India over time and prefer to go on
trips with their own set of gangs.
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Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com
The Indian travel market is growing in double digits and we expect
this trend to continue in 2018 as well. The government push towards
digitization of the Indian economy coupled with
the increasing penetration, especially in Tier-II
and III cities, of smartphones and cheap and
widespread access to mobile data are going to
only further accelerate the growth of the online
travel market. Therefore, we see tremendous
upside for increased penetration of online travel
which makes it imperative that OTAs continue
to invest in customer acquisition and market
expansion.
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Neelu Singh, CEO & Director, Ezeego1
Adapting to evolving travel preferences and
rising demand for innovative offerings, will
be the biggest challenge at the same time
the biggest opportunity for travel providers
in 2018. Indians have finely tuned in with the
global travel ecosystem, and they will continue
to drive the travel and tourism industry at an
increasing rate. The growing propensity to
travel is thereby redefining the travel patterns
of travellers. To keep up with that, diversification of travel offerings,
personalisation and innovation is critical for travel providers to shape the
travel needs and offer the right product to the right traveller.
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Vikas Bhola, Head of Indian Sub-Continent,
Booking.com In 2018, we foresee an increase in booking
preferences towards non-hotel and ecofriendly
accommodation options. Villas, B&Bs,
apartments and home stays are some of the
options that will gain popularity in 2018. We
need to ensure that we have the broadest
and widest range of accommodation options
available to satisfy their needs. Hence, our
team is constantly working towards bringing more partners on board and
making more accommodation options available to travellers. |
Vasudha Sondhi, Managing Director,
Outbound Marketing
The challenges that we witnessed in 2017 are
most likely going to continue. The mass FIT and
family group travel has been typically fuelled
by the small to medium business persons, who
are still grappling with GST and trying to work
within a framework. Therefore their travel for
leisure has either been cancelled or postponed.
2018 may also see big election campaigns which
will again be a deterrent to travel. The years that see the best spend on
travel is when there is a huge feel good factor in the market with business
as usual and positive policy decisions. 2016 and 17 have been tumultuous
years, 2018 may be marginally better if we have a good budget year.
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Ankush Nijhawan, Managing Director,
Nijhawan Group of Companies 2018 will be a phenomenal year for the industry
because despite demonetisation and GST,
outbound travel grew at double-digital rate in
2017, and this year it will only augment further.
The demand for destinations like Seychelles,
South Eastern Europe and Scandinavia will
gain momentum. The challenge for the industry
would be to keep up with the fast pace at which
technology is growing because its adoption is imperative in this dynamic
and competitive atmosphere. |
Joseph Fernandes, General Manager India,
AVIAREPS
Social media and access to content especially
videos is driving Indians to want to ‘Experience
what they see’. The burgeoning number of
aspirational Indian travellers is the opportunity
that awaits the travel industry in 2018.
However, the present travel infrastructure like
airports and air connectivity just isn’t enough.
The challenge in 2018 would be managing the
growing demand for travel with current infrastructure.
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Lubaina Sheerazi – COO, Blue Square
Consultants
We hope to expand our scope of services to
include a wider spectrum of clientele and
penetrate through newer geographies that
will enable us to explore varied opportunities
and enhance our skill set. We are strategically
aligning as a full-fledged PR agency wherein
we would delve into more associations with the
Indian film fraternity and other similar areas.
To further expand our footprint in India, we are
also looking at having more offices in key traveller centres. Every time
a new client comes on board we view it as an opportunity to learn and
grow.
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Sujit Nair, Founder & Group MD, Akquasun
Holidays Pvt. Ltd
2018 looks promising for outbound tourism with
opportunities created by increase in disposable
incomes, and with the Indian economy going
strong, outbound travel will continue its growth
trajectory this year as well. The upward trend
will be complemented by launch of flights
to destinations like Bali and the Philippines,
offering newer options for travel. As far as
challenges for the year are concerned, we will realise the implications of
GST only this year, and we wait to get more clarity from the government
on the taxation front for outbound travel.
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Ratna Chadha, Chief Executive, TIRUN
Travel Marketing, India Representative of
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
I just see opportunities for the cruise segment
in 2018, because challenges are taken care of
by dialogue. The opportunities for the segment
are huge because hitherto cruise tourism was
not even an area of focus. Any development on
the cruise tourism front is better for the country,
people, because if there is brand visibility it will
create economies of scale, promote domestic tourism. Our coastline has
been ignored for too long and now is the time to realise its true potential.
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Naresh Rawal, Vice President – Sales,
Genting Cruise Lines We are optimistic of the steady growth as
cruising today is fast reaching the wider leisure
market in India, especially with the emergence
of new visible trends in the local cruise tourism
market. Indian vacationers no longer take long
annual holidays they prefer 2 or 3 short holidays
throughout the year as they are spoilt for choice.
Hence, we see a upward graph wherein guests
are also choosing for longer cruise itineraries i.e. 5 nights & 7 nights.
Year on year we are finding an increase in the number of guest celebrating
their special moments, cruise weddings are getting very popular.
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Manoj Singh, Country Head – India,
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd
There has been a paradigm shift among the
outbound Indian travellers opting for cruise
holidays, as against traditional holidays. We
have witnessed tremendous growth in our
luxury business from Indian market. Regent
Seven Seas Cruises has seen great response;
this is one of steady space for us in the coming
year. To further develop the brand in India,
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings will focus on promoting Norwegian Bliss,
the newest ship to be launched in June. We strongly believe this market
has potential to grow at an Alaska. By 2025, the group aims to introduce
seven more vessels across all three brands. With more and more Indians
opting for cruise holidays 2018 looks promising year for us.
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Kunal Sampat, General Manager, India,
MSC Cruises
Looking at the growing demand for cruise
holidays in the India market, there are loads of
opportunities and multiple segments getting
generated, which is a good sign. The major
challenge for India market has been the late
booking trend as compared to developed
countries. With the increase in Corporate
culture, Indian travellers have started planning
their holidays in advance, however there is still miles to go before we
can see India becoming a part of developed market as far as cruising in
concerned.
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Anju Tandon, CEO, ARK Travels
Year 2018 will belong to the consolidators. Next
year will be all about the survival of the niche
market players. We have to wait and watch
what government has planned for travel and
tourism industry in the upcoming budget but
we hope the industry will see upheaval. Cruise
tourism is bound to grow and with investments
flowing in from both government and private
sector the future looks much brighter.
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Sunder G Advani, Chairman, WTTCII (World
Travel & Tourism Council India Initiative) MICE and cruise tourism are huge areas which
India needs to step into aggressively. Userfriendly
policies, which spur growth and help
keep money in the local economy is the need
of the hour. 16 million Indians travel abroad
every year; this is an enticing and lucrative
outbound market for many countries and
tourism boards. Why doesn’t the Government
incentivise domestic holidays (air ticket, hotel stay, transportation services
taken for 2 or more people at a go, paid for by
electronic transactions) taken by Indians, with
income tax sops? The money stays and flows
in the local economy, it spurs more jobs and
it’s a win-win for both the government and our
citizens. |
Subhash Goyal, Honorary Secretary, FAITH FAITH is confident that 2018 will be a much
better year for the travel and tourism industry
as compared to 2017. We are still recovering from the aftermath of
demonetisation and GST. Things are slowly coming back on track, and
we hope 2018 to be the year of stabilisation. We predict both inbound and
outbound tourism to grow by 15 to 20% in 2018. FAITH demands that the
government should work on framing policies and decisions that favour the
industry e.g. to have biometrics at the airport for easy e-visa processing
and exemptions of taxes on foreign exchange for travel agents.
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Praveen Chugh, President, TAFI
India’s travel and tourism industry is expected
to grow at an average annual growth rate
of about 7% from the year 2018 onwards.
The tourism industry is looking forward to
expansion of e-visa Scheme which is expected
to double the tourist inflow to India. In 2018, air
fares in India are expected to increase by about
9%. At the same time, hotel prices are forecast
to increase by about 3% to 4%. Meanwhile,
ground transport prices are expected to increase by about 2%.
Despite drastic fluctuations in the rupee value recently, number
of outbound tourists from India continue to grow. As a result, India is
emerging as the world’s fastest growing outbound market. It is predicted
that India will account for nearly 30 million outbound tourists by 2018.
In the year 2018, we expect that the Internet, technology solutions,
software & hardware and communications modes have made the
processes of travel industry a lot easier for every participant.
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Capt. Swadesh Kumar, President, ATOAI
Adventure Tourism expects a significant
growth in 2018 as the Ministry of Tourism
given has given their full support to our
initiatives to celebrate 2018 as the Year of
Adventure Tourism and a lot of promotional
activities are being planned. We do sincerely
hope this will be a major step towards the
growth of adventure tourism in the country.
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Jagat Mehta, President, Enterprising Travel
Agent’s Association (ETAA)
Year 2018 looks positive for the travel and
tourism industry. Government of India has
become quite active in its role and therefore we
are seeing a lot of infrastructural development
happening for example building of cruise
terminal in Mumbai which will help cruise
tourism grow leaps and bounds. Numbers
are tend to grow be it for inbound, be it for
outbound or be it for domestic tourism. The challenges that I foresee in
2018 are the OTAs and reduction in airlines commission for travel agents.
Travel agents need to adapt to the technological trends to stay in the
competition. Also, the travel industry demands an input tax credit of 5%
on tour packages from the Government.
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Mahendra Vakharia, President, OTOAI
(Outbound Tour Operators Association of
India)
Delays in visa processing is a major concern
affecting the Outbound Tourism and
affecting the working of many tour operators.
India is recording good growth in numbers
of outbound tourists, which includes leisure,
business, mice, convention, VFR, religious,
honeymooners, weddings and adventure
seekers. So there are plenty of opportunities for operators if they
create unique and out of the ordinary itineraries. Also the shadow of
the GST demon is fading away and this will also help the operators to
effectively create opportunities.
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Tadesse Tilahun, Regional Director,
Indian Sub-continent, Ethiopian Airlines
We genuinely hope discovering more of the
world for business or pleasure is part of our
esteemed customer’s New Year Resolution.
Despite lingering political and economic
conditions affecting the aviation industry, we
are pleased to report that we carried nearly 9
million passengers to more than 100 international destinations across
five continents during the year. Our passengers were delighted to
board 92 of our youngest fleet of aircrafts besides the newly introduced
B787-9. We have also been honoured with several awards such as
Skytrax for the Best Airline in Africa, African Airline of the year 2017,
Airline Reliability Performance Award, and Cargo Airline Award for
Network Development and Outstanding Food Service by a Carrier
in Africa award. Looking forward we are expecting 2018 to be even
more promising.
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Shikhar Aggarwal, JMD, BLS
International We resolute to turn around all the
challenges into yet another business
opportunity. We provide high quality
service, secured operations coupled with
technology and commitment to highest
customer satisfaction. We have set newer
benchmarks for service delivery with swift
rollouts and excellence in execution of all our contracts. BLS supports
the consular framework with streamlined processes and work flows
which has brought us amongst the top three players globally in this
niche sector. |
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