Top tourism, hospitality players take pledge for travellers' safety

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SME Times News Bureau | 22 May, 2020
Top travel and hospitality companies led by MakeMyTrip on Friday came together to make a safety pledge to prioritise safety of travellers, maintenance of high-hygiene standards and adherence to new travel protocols in harmony with the new normal.

The Centre has set new safety procedures along with price points for the recommencement of India's domestic passenger flight services from Monday.

The expansive guidelines, notifications and circulars not just outline the safety standards of social distancing, but also thermal screening, passenger and air crew behaviours.

"As travel opens up in a calibrated manner, the travel and hospitality industry is taking the lead in committing itself to a shared responsibility of keeping travellers safe at all travel touch points," Deep Kalra, Founder and Group Executive Chairman of MakeMyTrip, said in a statement.

Other key stakeholders include Ajay Singh, CMD, SpiceJet; Vinod Kannan, Head, Vistara; Puneet Chatwal, MD & CEO, The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL); Sunil Bhaskaran, MD & CEO, Air Asia India; Anil Chadha, COO, ITC; Vikram Oberoi, MD & CEO, The Oberroi Group; Ritesh Aggarwal, CEO-OYO Hotels & Homes; Priya Paul, Chairperson, The Park Hotels; and Rajni Hasija, Director, IRCTC, among others.

"As restrictions lift and travel gradually resumes, we want to be able to provide our customers a sense of reassurance for their safety and well-being when they book travel again. Going forward, travellers will be able to choose and book travel offerings with new safety standards on the goibibo platform," said Vipul Prakash, COO, Goibibo.

The hospitality sector and restaurants have been among the worst hit due to the pandemic and the nationwide lockdown, but to their displeasure, there was nothing specific for the sectors in the mega economic package announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Indian tourism travel and hospitality is said to impact 10-12 per cent of employment which is believed to cover almost 5 crore plus direct and indirect jobs.