Author: Anurag Yadav

Why shouldn’t New Zealand be on the top list for the Indian outbound? The best way to experience any destination is to get out of the overtly too-well-planned itinerary mould which supposedly gift wraps a destination. In the case of New Zealand, it is such a charming place that very few staid coach tours under a timekeepers watch can ever hope to deliver perfectly. Just last month, a two week self-drive trip through New Zealand drove the idea with still more conviction that the country needs to be lived in and not traipsed through to get what it’s all about.…

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If tourism is one of the visible spin-offs, let proven experts handle the town’s civic maintenance. Some local municipalities do work hard on sanitation but the usual narrative is that the littering habit is inherent in the common people. However, there is no reason to be smug and not step up to hold our own bull by its horns. It is time to pick and select one example and work on it. It’s easy to blame the teeming public for littering. Despite almost a decade of Swachh Bharat initiatives, what meets the eye leaves much to be desired. Special occasions…

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What exactly can handle the impressions of strict security contrasted with great-experience needs? After sailing seamlessly through immigration counters at airports in 60 plus countries in the the last decade and a half, to be asked to step aside for further questioning at the Ben Guiron airport in Tel Aviv came as an irritant, howsoever minor. Especially since they allowed me to go without asking a single question. The world today is cautious, suspicious and should definitely be on guard. However, from the tourism standpoint, how smooth, unobtrusive and efficient this process can be may define tourism friendliness to starry…

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Hopefully this could soon be a statement and not a question as far as public responsibility towards cleanliness is concerned. With the G20 mood pervading the country, especially the urban centres, there is a flurry of activity to put forward the country’s best foot (and face). The thing is, like most things, a well turned out city is as much the result of government attention as it is about responsibility at the citizen level. In India, till a decade back, a behavioural change direction was never the pivot in the sanitation policy. Thankfully the Swachh Bharat hype, which drew snarky…

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Every time a new tech surprises us, sceptics have a field day. I remember the day my dad came home excited- gushing over a new ‘electronic typewriter’ acquired by his office. He was excited that it automatically jumped to the second line without him having to manually crank the typewriter lever. Ten to one I suspect very few readers will even know about a lever that had to be cranked to move to the next line while typing. As it is, most would prefer to say ‘writing’ instead of ‘typing ‘since no one writes anyway. In the nineties, there were…

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As technology comes centre stage, it will be wise for its beneficiaries to also watch their back. A few years back an American journal had reported that a certain company had utilized data analytics to determine that Mac users may pay higher rates for hotel rooms than their PC-using counterparts. Deductions about just any consumer behavior have always been used by analytics to manipulate customer segments. As AI and the keen arm of IoT extends deeper, many raise concerns over how much customers (read guests in travel parlance) would be comfortable with having their info being dabbled with. As personal…

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It’s time for a fresh start since in present times nostalgia might survive in only just one place- the past. There is an expected sense of excitement at the much vaunted and awaited change in the ownership and consequent management in air India. There is barely a word yet from its new owners on any meaty or tectonic shifts from how the company operated so far. Legions of pundits are rushing forth with I-told-you-so’s, homilies and advice. Let’s also add our two-bit to the mix. The sudden revival of interest in the Maharaja logo is a case in point. Experts…

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It seems a rose will not smell the same if called by another name. In India, a lot of barbs are thrown at ‘babus’ across the world. The unwieldy power that staid bureaucrats exert on hapless citizenry often throws up the implementation of the law or regulations in letter and not spirit. Unfortunately this babu-dom is universal. Covid has laid bare a host of inequities, false narratives and fault-lines in policies across the world resulting in unequal practices impacting travel opportunities. Having arrived in London just last week, these hiccups for me are just too evident to be ignored. The…

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What is happening in Afghanistan is the onset of another affliction for the world’s ailing tourism economy. It was at a CAPA conference at Mumbai in the earlier part of this century where I met a young man from Kabul whose calling card mentioned his name in only one word- Javed. His designation was CEO of a yet-to-be-launched domestic regional airline of Afghanistan. Things weren’t rosy at all even at that time in his country but his remark impressed me deeply. He voiced something to the effect that just because climate isn’t conducive one shouldn’t stop planning for the…

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Indian aviation’s’ game-changing move is a treasure in the making. Let us try to spin some positivity in bad news. Reading the figures given by CAPA, one can say the percentage increase between last fiscal’s losses for Indian airlines over this year is not much. Last year it was USD 3.9 billion, this year it is USD 4.1 billion. However cynical this optimism might sound, there is definitely something to celebrate. If I recollect right, there was hardly a serious attempt earlier to get more industry experts on board planning panels as has happened just recently. The cursory industry delegation…

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