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Abroad Ahoy! It's Raining Travel Deals This Summer

Deals seem to be the flavour of the moment as the summer holiday season draws near. The slowdown and concerns about swine flu notwithstanding, credit-crunched Indian travellers can look forward to one silver lining: outbound packages to various destinations will see valueadditions as well as price drops of between 10% and 40%.

"While corporate travel may have taken a backseat, leisure travel is not hit and people who have the moolah are expected to splurge," said TRAC Representations director Kavi Ghei. TRAC Representations is an organisation representing 15 international national tourism organisations, airlines and hospitality groups in India.

All this comes at a time when the industry estimates the overall business for the 2009 holiday season will see a fall of over 15%. The challenge is that much more as slowdown apart, the industry is faced with the elections coinciding with peak holiday season. Stakeholders of the aviation, hospitality and trade are thus working to lure customers with value-for-money deals.

According to tourism circles, destinations like the Far East, including Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, will see a cut in packages of 10-40% as compared to 2008, while for Europe, the drop could be in the range of 10-20%. Australia and New Zealand are seeing cuts of around 10% with discounts for island getaways like Mauritius being in the range of 15% to 25%.

Source: Economic Times ABROAD AHOY! IT'S RAINING TRAVEL DEALS THIS SUMMER

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By ugesh sarkar, Section Tourism
Posted on Thu Apr 30, 2009 at 03:04:43 AM EST

Tourism Malaysia director (India) Mr Manoharan said: "Our focus will be to bring within the ambit of the larger Indian middle-class price-competitive holidays in Malaysia, featuring all inclusive `short-breaks' packages, for three nights/four days. The average package starting from Rs 19,999 to Kuala Lumpur and beyond includes air tickets, return airport transfers, accommodation in star category hotel on BB basis, half-day city tours and value additions like free entry to various attractions such as KLCC Aquaria, KL Tower and Bird Park."

Rajeev Nangia, associate director (operations) at TRAC, for Mauritius Tourism said the average hotel package cost for this holiday season has depreciated by around 17.5 %, wherein travellers can get deluxe resorts at $452 (Rs 23,500) for six nights.

Switzerland Tourism country manager Ritu Sharma, in turn, said tour operators were offering packages at least 15-20% lower than last year, thanks in part to the fact that airlines are offering discounted fares.

Kiran Nambiar, regional manager for India and South East Asia, Tourism New Zealand said packages to New Zealand would work out significantly cheaper since round-trip tickets this year were down to as low as Rs 40,000-43,000, from around Rs 50,000 last year.

"The favourable exchange rate has also brought down the cost of accommodation, meals, activities," he said. He added that while three cases of swine flu had been detected in New Zealand, they had been contained and the destination was safe.

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