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Impact of COVID19 pandemic on Indian Travel & Tourism sector and the way ahead

  The Travel and Tourism industry across the world celebrated 27 th September as World Tourism day. Since its initiation in 1980, the purpose of this day is to raise awareness on the role of tourism in everyone’s life and how it affects social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide. Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay In 2020, the day was celebrated amid a global crisis caused by COVID19 which has brought the world to a standstill. It is ironical that while we celebrate this day, COVID19 has made our families confined to home, avoid socializing with friends, avoid a long drive, avoid having a nice dinner with family, avoid a spa session, the list is endless. Everything that hospitality industry stands for and caters to has been constrained by the pandemic. The COVID19 outbreak, lockdowns and life After COVID19 outbreak several countries across globe declared long term total lockdowns including closure of industries, businesses, educational institutions and do...

Using Artificial Intelligence in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

 Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a buzzword for recent years and it has impacted many business sectors including banking, agriculture, manufacturing and retail, many sectors have benefited by Artificial Intelligence. The concept of artificial intelligence has existed earlier, evolved over the years and has no straightforward definition. We invented computers to execute tasks and programming languages to define tasks. AI is an evolved technique to train a machine to take certain decisions and execute tasks.   Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay  Basically AI refers to a mechanism performing tasks on behalf of human beings that would normally require human intelligence to carry out. The tasks could be learning instructions, processing data, taking decisions, or listening and interpreting communication. Understanding AI with real life examples When we talk about AI, we talk about automation, where processes are executed with little or no human involvement. And the applicati...

E-Schooling during COVID19 lockdowns, beginning of a digital journey for the teaching community in India

The digital lingo and related ecosystem didn’t existed in many Indian schools & households till April 2020. In recent years few schools took small steps towards Digital Transformation by collecting online admission forms, online payments, using online modules like Google Classrooms to send homework, requesting PPTs from students on occasions to name a few. The primary schooling function in India is offline as the country lacks infrastructure to support the digital transformation process across Schools, Teachers, Parents and Students. The infrastructure deficiency includes technology savvy teachers, robust internet connectivity, and availability of devices with teachers and students, professional apps and sites as an example. Image by  Atalbihari   | In photo Kavita Baddar From April 2020, as concept of online learning being prominent and unavoidable, all schools across the country have been scheduling classes on a daily basis. All started with swift actions like provid...

MOOC, Massive Open Online Courses, a popular e-Learning medium amid COVID19

Prior to COVID19, many educational institutes had initiated the online mode of teaching, in form of guest sessions, collaborative activities across schools, but to a limited extent. Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC) user base has seen a gradual growth so far and their credibility is becoming equivalent to a course from regular university. A lot of MOOC platforms where launched in the past decade but very few of them are able to make a mark and being considered as reputed ones.  Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay MOOC platforms gained steep popularity during the COVID19 outbreak as many working professionals took the lockdowns as an opportunity to gain certifications related to variety of subjects related to their domain or related ones at a minimal cost. The Indian Government has already started initiatives like SWAYAM, a MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) platform, which hosts educational multimedia content of all courses taught in classrooms from Grade 9 to post-gr...

List of 10 popular eduTech platforms best suited to learn from home, especially during COVID19

  After COVID19 outbreak several countries across globe declared long term total lockdowns with measures like closure of industries, businesses, educational institutions and domestic as well as international travel. Schools and colleges around the globe switched to e-schooling related online platforms and apps as they wanted students to continue with course curriculum and save academic year. Switching to online learning platforms has been challenging for students, teachers and parents as well. For teachers and students the challenge is in adapting new apps while parents have challenge in terms of keeping children busy across the day while limiting their screen time, making devices and internet available to attend online classes etc. The mantra of new normal during COVID19 is analyse the problem, find solution, adapt it and move on. Everybody is doing it, including education segment.  There are various online applications and platforms available for Teachers and Students ...

10 reasons to keep your landline phone in 2020

With mobile phones dominating communication sector, we are possibly be asking our-self if there is any need to continue a landline phone at home. Well, it would not be a necessity, however there are lots of reasons a landline is still good to possess around. If you’re pondering ditching that landline and live with a cellphone alone, here are 10 reasons you would possibly wish to rethink. Your home phone could be a better tool for contacting local SOS numbers like 911 in any emergency. After you decision from a landline, emergency team can see your home address and locate you. This might be life-saving if you’re in a very position a mobile is not charged, there is no power or you’re unable to speak clearly and emergency services got to notice you. With changing times, you tend to buy a new cellphone every year, which indirectly takes out a lot of money from your bank balance. However this can be one thing you don’t have to be compelled to worry conc...

Wish-list based online startups in Travel & Hospitality Segment

Wish-list based online startups in Travel & Hospitality Segment How TripThirsty works TripThirsty connects armchair explorers with fantastic deals that turn travel dreams to reality. That is, user and his/her friends collect places they want to go to in wishlists, and the company works out group discounts for you behind the scenes. Use is very simple – start creating wishlists of places one want to visit and once a place is wishlisted, TripThirsty’s deal search engines go to work. That is, if multiple people, especially (Facebook) friends are interested in a particular trip the TripThirsty team will try to find group deals for them that they cannot get otherwise. This means, all such exclusive offers will come with a certain deadline. How TripThirsty back-end works Typically, tour-operatorers/TA/OTAs/Resorts who are looking to fill the last few seats in a tour can use TripThirsty for help with filling those seats. No customer information is provided to ve...