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About India Outbound Magazine

India Outbound, a brand of Media India Group, is India’s only B2B travel media platform, that encompasses a print magazine, a website, an online TV channel and dynamic social media platforms, entirely dedicated to the promotion of foreign destinations and products in India. India Outbound is a niche platform not just for tourism destinations and products to promote themselves to the Indian travel industry, but also for decision makers to build/change their strategy in a context where the Indian outbound market is not only growing but changing with new dynamics. India Outbound brings to you the latest trends of the market with in depth analysis.

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Union sell-outs accelerate and increase job cuts at Lufthansa

German flag carrier Lufthansa has reportedly decided to speed up its layoffs and increased the number of layoffs to 50,000 workers globally instead of 30,000 that it had announced earlier, despite a bailout package of Eur 9 bn announced by the German government. According to a report in Focus-Online, a German magazine, says that the already announced reduction of over 29,000 jobs will not be stretched out to the end of next year, but will be completed in the next three weeks, by the end of the year, meaning compulsory redundancies are unavoidable. The airline and its subsidiaries, Eurowings, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines have slashed their schedules, fleet and staff, with air travel not expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels before 2025. “But that is by far not all,” the article states. The airline had also sold off its catering subsidiary LSG’s European business, with 7,500 employees, and next year, another 10,000 jobs are to be slashed in Germany. “Those who stay at Lufthansa should forgo their salary — others will be laid off,” Focus-Online writes.

At Lufthansa, the role of the unions took drastic forms. In recent months, all three aviation unions have signed agreements that dwarf all the concessions and give-backs made by the unions. The pilots’ union Cockpit (VC), the Independent Flight Attendants Organisation (UFO) and service union Verdi, which represents the approximately 35,000 ground workers and acts as Lufthansa’s de facto in-house union, are seeking to outbid each other in terms of the social cuts. According to their own statements, they have offered the Lufthansa board of directors a €1.2 billion cut in employee incomes.

Indians can now enjoy visa-free travel to Oman

Indian citizens who wish to travel to Oman can now stay in the country for up to 10 days without an entry visa. India is one of the 103 countries whose citizens are exempted from visas to enter the Sultanate. However, the visitors must have a confirmed hotel reservation, health insurance and a return ticket, the Royal Oman Police said on its official Twitter account.

The Gulf state resumed international flights on October 1, but only citizens and people holding valid existing residency and work visas could enter. Last week Oman had said that it would resume granting tourist visas to people visiting on trips arranged by hotels and travel companies.

Air India to start Hyderabad-Chicago non-stop flight from Jan 15

Hyderabad is all set to get a non-stop connectivity with the United States as Air India will launch a direct flight from the city of Nizams to Chicago from January 15. The Indian national carrier will operate the flight bi-weekly, GMR-led Hyderabad International Airport has announced. The airline will operate a Boeing 777-200 aircraft, with a seating capacity of 238 on the route. In addition to Hyderabad-Chicago direct flight, Air India also plans to connect Bengaluru and San Francisco from next month.

Hyderabad-US-Hyderabad has been the largest unserved passenger origin and destination market between India and the US, with a potential of over 700,000 passengers annually. Hyderabad also offers convenient proximity for passengers originating from nearby cities like Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam, Nagpur, Bhubaneswar, Rajahmundry, Bhopal and Tirupati, pushing an additional demand of approximately 220,000 passengers annually.

GMR goes on to say that Hyderabad is the second home to the US giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Google. The Telugu diaspora from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is one of the fastest-growing community in the US. India is the second-largest source country for foreign students going to the US each year and every fourth student travelling abroad for studies from India is from these states. Also, Hyderabad is one of the leading pharma cities and a vaccine manufacturing hub of India, says GMR. The direct connectivity to the U.S. would provide the much-needed impetus to its pharma industry for air cargo uplift. This flight could play an important role in providing the logistic support to transport Covid-19 vaccines between the two destinations, it says.

Emirates offers special holiday season rates for India

The Emirates Airlines has announced an end-of-year flight ticket rates targetting the Indians looking for a change of scene. These rates are available on tickets bought on or before December 19 and valid until May 31, 2021. People looking to travel to India are also getting these special offers, with a flight to the south Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram. Closer to UAE, tickets to Beirut, Jeddah, Medina, Cairo and Amman are priced reasonably low (AED 1425--1995). This is the second time the airline has released holiday offers to promote travel as global air connectivity makes that slow return to recovery. “Take advantage and fly back home to visit family and friends - or discover a new city as the world opens up again,” Emirates said in a statement.

Kolkata bids for Skål International World Congress 2023

Amidst uncertainty in the travel and tourism industry due to a very slow projected recovery in the next two years, with very little chance of physical trade and networking events to actually take place, Skål International is upbeat that it will host its 2021 World Congress in Quebec City, Canada. In 2022, the event is supposed to take place in the cities of Opatija and Rijeka of Croatia.

With the formation of its new executive board under the leadership of the president Carl Vaz, Skål International India has devised a new plan with consumer-focused brand identity and based on that strategy has decided to be more visible and communicative. As part of this broader plan, Skål International Kolkata - one of the 14 clubs in India, has announced an early bid to host Skål International World Congress 2023, the biggest global convention.

Skål International India comprises members across up to 42 verticals of the travel & tourism industry – including hospitality (hotels & resorts), aviation, travel agents, tour operators, OTAs, ground transport, tourism boards, marketing consultants specialising in tourism, top travel media and several stakeholders from international and local government representatives. The members are majorly owners or decision-makers at their respective companies and are heavily tilted towards outbound tourism businesses. With the blow of Covid-19, outbound tourism being completely shattered, many agents and operators are looking out for new businesses in domestic or inbound markets to survive.

“We are passing through the most difficult time and we have to help ourselves. Kolkata has never hosted a mega scale global event of tourism industry where stakeholders from all over the world assembled here. By announcing Kolkata’s bid to host the Skål World Congress in 2023, Skål International Kolkata club intends to grab the opportunity to resume international businesses,” said Sanjeev Mehra, president, Skål International Kolkata.

Skål International holds an annual World Congress each year in a different country. As the world's largest association of travel and tourism industry professionals at decision-making levels, it gives an opportunity to all its worldwide members to discover incredible destinations and ground realities of the travel trade.

“With over 1,150 members across 14 clubs, India is one of the largest national committees in Skål International. Kolkata would be a fine venue to bring Skålleagues from across the globe together, with a focus on growing the industry in a post-Covid world,” says Carl Vaz, president, Skål International India.

IATA to launch universal Travel Pass in early 2021

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has announced that it is in the final development phase of the IATA Travel Pass, a digital health pass that will support the safe reopening of borders. Governments are beginning to use testing as a means of limiting the risks of Covid-19 importation when re-opening their borders to travellers without quarantine measures. IATA Travel Pass will manage and verify the secure flow of necessary testing or vaccine information among governments, airlines, laboratories and travellers.

“Today borders are double locked. Testing is the first key to enable international travel without quarantine measures. The second key is the global information infrastructure needed to securely manage, share and verify test data matched with traveller identities in compliance with border control requirements. That’s the job of IATA Travel Pass. We are bringing this to market in the coming months to also meet the needs of the various travel bubbles and public health corridors that are starting operation,” said Alexandre de Juniac, director general and CEO of IATA.

IATA Travel Pass incorporates four open-sourced and interoperable modules which can be combined for an end-to-end solution. It includes a global registry of health requirements, global registry of testing/vaccination centres, a Lab App and a Contactless Travel App. The Lab App should enable the passengers to create a ‘digital passport’, receive test and vaccination certificates and verify that they are sufficient for their itinerary and share testing or vaccination certificates with airlines and authorities to facilitate travel. This app can also be used by travellers to manage travel documentation digitally and seamlessly throughout their journey, improving the travel experience. The first cross-border IATA Travel Pass pilot is scheduled for the launch in the first quarter of 2021.


India Outbound is a publication of Media India Group