Mangaluru: BWF felicitates Beary Academy chief

Bengaluru, May 29: The hotel industry is one of the worst-hit industries due to lockdown, along with the tourism industry. Bengaluru's hotel industry has incurred a loss of around Rs 1200 crore during the lockdown period however, the hotels here are likely to open in June if the State government issues guidelines for the resumption of their services.

Speaking to media, PC Rao, President, Bangalore Hotelier's Association said, "It's not only the loss of business, but we have lost the customer base as well. 
We don't expect any good future for the next six months. There will be a slow down in the business even after opening."

"We have requested our CM to give first preference to the hotels. We are going to restart our business in June if granted permission. Around 10 per cent of the hotels cannot open at all. They are in the stage of merging or closing down position. Few hotels may open after five or six months," he added.

He continued saying that many hotels are for sale but there are no buyers. There are around 21,000 restaurants in Bangalore, 3500 hotels with rooms and restaurant which has an average turnover of Rs 20 crores per day, Rao informed.

"We expect losses of around Rs 1200 crores in these two months. We are giving special online training to all the hoteliers and to our managers particularly to deal with the COVID-19 situation, including how to deal with the guests, employees, how to start the hotel services. 

Each and every manager has already been trained and we are still continuing it. We will conduct face to face meeting as well and brief the managers," said Rao.

New Delhi, May 12: Air India is planning to operate 149 repatriation flights to 31 countries between May 16 and May 22 during the second phase of the Vande Bharat mission to bring back home Indians stranded abroad amid the coronavirus-triggered lockdown, officials said. During the first phase of the Vande Bharat mission, Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express are scheduled to operate total 64 flights between May 7 and May 14 to bring approximately 15,000 Indians from 12 countries on a payment basis.

"In the second phase, Air India and Air India Express will operate 149 flights to countries such as the USA, the UAE, Canada, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Malaysia, Oman, Kazakhstan, Australia, Ukraine, Qatar and Indonesia," the airline officials stated.

Other countries to where the national carrier would operate flights between May 16 and May 22 are Russia, Philippines, France, Singapore, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait,

Japan, Georgia, Germany and Tajikistan, officials noted.
The flights during the second phase will also be operated to Bahrain, Armenia, Thailand, Italy, Nepal, Belarus, Nigeria and Bangladesh, they mentioned.

India has been under lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 70,000 people and killed around 2,290 people in the country till now. All scheduled commercial passenger flights have been suspended for the lockdown period.