Author: HBI Staff | Hyderabad
(Source: Reuters) A second stimulus package India is poised to announce in coming days will be worth around 1 trillion rupees ( 13 billion) and focus on help for small and medium businesses weathering the coronavirus outbreak, two senior officials said on Wednesday. Last month, India outlined a 1.7-trillion rupee (USD 22.6-billion) economic stimulus plan providing direct cash transfers and food security measures to give relief to millions of poor hit by an ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown. “The second package could be focused largely on MSMEs,” one of the senior government officials, with direct knowledge of the plan told Reuters,…
According to Pymnts, Online food delivery platform Swiggy has raised USD 43 million as part of its ongoing Series I round to develop and expand its new businesses, according to multiple reports on Monday (April 6). New investors included Ark Impact, Korea Investment Partners, Samsung Ventures and Mirae Asset Capital Markets. Swiggy raised a total of USD1.42 billion across 11 rounds and has a valuation of more than USD3.6 billion. The initial Series I round in February raised USD113 million, led by existing investor Prosus N.V. with participation from Meituan Dianping and Wellington Management Company. “Swiggy has built a sustainable…
ccording India Today, The cascading effect of the global coronavirus pandemic is crippling the country’s tourism and hospitality industry at an “astonishing pace”, an industry body said. Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTA) has come down by about 67 per cent annually in the January-March quarter, while for domestic tourists, the figure is lower by nearly 40 per cent, according to statistics published by the tourism ministry, the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) said. “Disruption due to coronavirus could result in 18-20 per cent erosion of nationwide occupancy across the hospitality sector, and 12-14 per cent drop in average daily rates (ADRs)…
The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) through member hotels has voluntarily offered the Government access to over 45,000 hotel rooms from across the country. The rooms have been set aside to quarantine inbound tourists who may require quarantining as well as for others who are stuck in the country because of the travel ban. The rooms are also open for doctors and health care workers who are unable to commute daily from their homes while doing a splendid job of fighting the pandemic. The hotels range from five-stars to standalone properties and have been selected based…
According to the Economic Times, Oyo has written to hotel owners invoking ‘force majeure’ clauses on their agreements as the Covid-19 pandemic has severely impacted the business of their hotels. Oyo states in the letter that since hotel revenues have dwindled and are unlikely to improve in the next few months it is constrained to exercise its ‘force majeure’ rights in suspending payments of the monthly benchmark revenue or any other amounts payable to them. But, a number of angry hotel owners said Oyo cannot invoke ‘force majeure’ as the clause was never included in the original agreements. Oyo did…
India’s leading digital payments and financial services platform Paytm today announced that it has launched a special hotel listings page on its app. The aim is to support temporary accommodation needs of the medical frontline forces fighting COVID-19. The company has rolled out this initiative in partnership with more than 300 hotels including acclaimed chains and star-rated properties that are pitching in to support healthcare heroes in 60 plus cities. This initiative will enable medical practitioners to search and book a room in hotels nearest to the hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities they are working in. The list would…
According to LiveMint, As India’s massive restaurant industry continues to deal with an unprecedented lockdown that has caused several restaurants to suspend dine-in facilities, and forced some to temporarily shutter down—it is trying to salvage the millions it employs. The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) said it is encouraging employees of restaurants that are temporarily shut to those who are currently out of jobs to take up temporary employment with online grocer BigBasket that is scrambling to fulfill orders across cities as the three-week shutdown has increased the demand for its services, but disrupted the movement of its supplies…
Ixigo, a 13-year-old travel and hotel booking service in India, said on Monday it is cutting the salary of its entire staff as the firm grapples with severe disruption in its business due to the coronavirus outbreak that has pushed New Delhi to issue a nationwide lockdown. Aloke Bajpai, co-founder and chief executive of Ixigo, said the leadership at the firm has agreed to take a 60% pay cut while the rest of the staff, about 200 people, have agreed to have their salaries reduced between 20% to 50%. Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, the other co-founder, have decided to forgo…
According to Business Today, Travel firm MakeMyTrip has announced salary cuts as tourism sector have taken a massive hit due to the coronavirus outbreak. MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra said that the pay cut will happen across top and managerial levels of the company. Moreover, the salary cut has been done across MakeMyTrip (MMT) Limited subsidiaries – Goibibo and redBus. Besides, the company might also lay off about 400 employees who are not on its payroll. “MakeMyTrip has about 650 people employed for backend and support services. It has plans to fire 60 per cent of its total headcounts in these…
The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India hosted the eleventh webinar “an epic called India- a land of myriad stories” on 28th April 2020 as part of its ongoing engagement with industry and its audiences on the overall theme of ‘Dekho Apna Desh’ . The objective of this webinar series is to create awareness about and promote various tourism destinations of India – including the lesser known destinations and lesser known facets of popular destinations. The Dekho Apna Desh Webinar Series has been able to get some of the best tourism industry experts, City and Heritage walks practitioners, story tellers…
