With Onam and Raksha Bandhan just around the corner, the festival season is ready to kick off in full swing. As people embrace the celebratory spirit, companies anticipate a surge in sales this year. Consumer durables firms are expecting strong growth of 40-50 per cent in the premium segment during the upcoming season. Appliance makers also foresee increased demand for cooling appliances - refrigerators and air conditioners - which were impacted by unseasonal rainfall.
India's largest online travel agency, MakeMyTrip said that it is premature to assess the impact of Omicron variant on overseas tour bookings. Others in the travel sector however are worried about cancellations in the coming days as countries tighten travel restrictions. "It is too early to assess the impact of the new Covid-19 variant on outbound travel. "Additional protocols are already set in any case from several countries which will help contain the variant coming to India.
'India is an equity market with a breadth and depth of companies to invest in.'
The issues include not getting refunds on airline and hotel bookings, getting charged a service fee even if airlines have waived cancellation charges and so on. Complaints are piling up on Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels as more and more people cancel their travel plans due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Travel from India increased significantly after resumption of direct flights in March, Turkiye Tourism Board said, with destination weddings contributing to arrivals
Indians are preferring long-haul foreign locations this summer, says report.
Hotels are using a combination of platforms to reach out to the guests. These include online travel agents among others. hotels in India are offering guests an option to pay now and stay later.
For Indians, Sri Lanka is one of the favourite venues for destination weddings. But last month, when a family from Delhi chartered a Vistara Airbus A320 to Colombo, it packed much more than the standard paraphernalia of clothes, gifts and jewellery. The family ferried meals from Delhi for all the guests and to cover their entire stay in Colombo due to the food and fuel shortages in the island nation.
Ronnie Screwvala-led edtech unicorn upGrad, has filed a suit for trademark infringement against another EdTech company called Scaler. The suit has been filed in the Delhi high court for violation of intellectual property relating to upGrad's trademark. It has also sought damages of more than Rs 3 crore. upGrad accused Scaler of using its brand name 'upGrad' through Google Ads to appear on top of search results on Google Search Engine and in turn gaining illicit benefit.
As regular promotional discounts and offers rolled out by well-funded apps determine the demand trend, online hospitality aggregators face growing discontent from restaurants and hotels over commissions and pricing power.
The increase in bookings has also meant a significant reduction in overall costs for the online travel agencies and a consequent narrowing of losses.
Education technology, grocery, fashion, food delivery and UPI payments surpassed volumes or revenues of February, in the September-October period.
Infringements related to brand names and trademarks are a never-ending story. In the latest dispute over a brand name, the Tata Group has objected to the word 'Tata' used in oktatabyebye.com, a travel community site owned by MakeMyTrip.
Gurgaon-based mmt admin (commonly known as MakeMyTrip) has been using the domain name 'oktatabyebye.com'. Tata Sons has contended that it is confusingly similar to its 'Tata' brand and the travel portal runner has no rights or legitimate interests to use it. In May, Tata Sons had moved the Geneva-based WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center demanding transfer of disputed domain name.
Makemytrip.com, a travel-related portal, remained inaccessible for a large part of the day owing to an unprecedented surge in traffic, after Air India and JetLite slashed fares.
The mood at the Hotel Investment Conference South Asia (HICSA), the annual hospitality industry conference was rather upbeat. But hotel brand operators and owners remain cautiously optimistic of the outlook and are living on a hope that a third wave of the pandemic doesn't become a reality. Having just survived the unprecedented zero revenue situation, the two day confrence organised by consulting firm Hotelivate, was dotted with anecdotes and best practices adopted by the hotels of all hues.
According to experts, this will have major impact on new investments by Chinese players in companies, such as Paytm, Ola, BigBasket, Byju's, Dream11, MakeMyTrip, and Swiggy, when they go for follow-up funding. Chinese investors, such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi, are active in the Indian start-up space, and have collectively invested billions of dollars.
Four visits annually, 14-day stays on average, high spends...any wonder the tourism ministry is taking cognizance of them.
An industry source said the Act would create high-entry barriers for new service providers and limit customer choice
Online travel portals and airlines say the demand from companies is being led by essential services sectors like pharmaceutical, oil and gas, and power.
Holidayers, including those who would head overseas between April and June, are set to escape to the hills, beaches, and resorts in the country. This is to fend off the heat and beat the pandemic blues, indicates the initial bookings and online search trends.
For large start-ups the US market is considered to be a preferred destination, as Indian investors were seen as hesitant to pay the kind of valuation private equity investors or the US markets pay. However, Zomato's listing has quashed these notions.
Anticipating a weak demand in the traditionally lean January-March period, most domestic airlines on Tuesday reduced fares massively after no-frills carrier SpiceJet announced a steep 50 per cent discount on base fares and fuel surcharges across sectors.
When Sen boarded the plane with her wheelchair-bound mother, she was told by the cabin crew that rules do not permit wheelchair-bound passengers to sit on emergency exit seats.
With 2015 having multiple weekend breaks, travel agents and online travel portals expect a holiday rush this year.
While airlines are seeing improved demand and industry-wide seat occupancy has increased to over 60%, it is road trips which are generating higher traction. Booking trends show that customers are also choosing homestays or four- star and five-star accommodations, as hygiene and safety is a priority now.
Domestic budget carriers SpiceJet, Indigo and GoAir have rolled out another sale offer with fares starting from Rs 1,699 for a limited period on domestic routes.
No-frills carrier SpiceJet has put ten lakh seats on the block with base fares starting as low as Rs 999, which are lower than a 3-AC train ticket, for a one-way journey under a limited period offer.
Earlier in 2012, the Gurgaon-based firm with 5,000 employees and top line revenue of close to $100 million, had put on hold plans for a Nasdaq listing citing market conditions.
Find out what Steve Jobs, Tim Cook and Deep Kalra did when they received angry, negative feedback from customers.
It is all about hitting the ball high and timing it right.
Not just e-commerce players, even spirits majors are banking on artificial intelligence and chatbots to offer newer, quicker, smarter services. Shivani Shinde Nadhe reports.
Modi will get the maximum chunk of the session time.
While Google has market capitalisation of almost $753 billion and Facebook commands one of $515 billion, it is the wealth of user data they have that one fears
Yatra sees 15-20% cancellations in confirmed bookings to France.
While fares on the Delhi-Mumbai route have risen 45 per cent, Delhi-Bengaluru and Mumbai-Bengaluru tickets are priced 57 per cent and 42.5 per cent higher, respectively.
A fundraising boom in the domestic market and tightening of the regulatory framework for overseas issues are responsible for this trend.
Websites that are not mobilefriendly will drop down in rankings
Niyo is also offering bonuses and ESOPs, taking the total stock grants to over Rs 100 crore for all eligible employees.
