Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, FCM Travel Solutions India, Flight Centre Travel Group Australia’s Indian subsidiary, answers your questions on Travel — howtos, trends, recommendations and more. Send in your questions to: askrakshit@in.fcm.travel.
I am travelling to Egypt around Easter. Do recommend some ‘mustvisit’ places we could include in our itinerary. Also advise me on the visa procedure and the duration of its processing.
Spring is a wonderful time of the year to plan a vacation to Egypt. You must visit the amazing Pyramids of Giza and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and include a cruise trip along the magical Nile to visit the fantastic sites in Luxor and Aswan. If you have enough days, you could also add a day trip to Alexandria from Cairo to your itinerary.
Regarding the visa procedures, tourist visa for Egypt can be obtained from the Embassy of Egypt in New Delhi and the Consular office in Mumbai. You can get the visa in 2 to 3 working days, which is valid for a period of 90 days.
I’ve booked my family of three (including a toddler) on an early morning flight to Barcelona. Do you think our hotel will be able to arrange for an early check-in?
The standard check-in time for hotels is between 1-2 pm and check-out time between 10-11 am. Any requests for early check-ins or late check-outs are completely at the discretion of the hotel and usually depend on availability of rooms. You could write to the hotel, requesting for an early check-in and get an email confirmation to avoid any last-minute problems. However, since you’re travelling with a toddler, it would be prudent to book for an extra night, before your scheduled arrival, to ensure guaranteed availability of a room.
I’m going on a multi-country trip in April. Though my passport has a validity of 3 years but it has only 2 pages remaining. Do you think obtaining a visa will be a problem?
Most embassies require a minimum number of pages on your passport for issuing a visa. While two or three pages should not be a problem for getting a visa, you might run into trouble at the immigration stage. Since your trip covers multiple countries, your passport should have enough space for entry and exit stamps from each one of these. I would recommend that you get your passport re-issued before applying for your visa.
I’m travelling to Italy with some friends and have made my hotel bookings through a travel agent. However, I’ve been told that some hotels in Rome charge a tourism tax over and above the tariff. How does that work?
Some cities like Dubai and a few European countries like Italy, Spain and Switzerland generally levy a tourist fee/city tax on your hotel stay. This tax is not included in the price of the accommodation and is payable in cash when checking out of the hotel. The amount is charged on a ‘per person, per night’ basis and varies basis the category of hotel you have chosen.
Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, FCM Travel Solutions India. (Image: Agnecies)
Flight Centre Travel Group, headquartered in Australia, is one of the world’s largest travel management companies. In India, the group operates an extensive portfolio of corporate and retail travel brands including FCM Travel Solutions and Corporate Traveller (corporate travel management),Travel Tours (leisure travel), FCM MICE (incentive travel and events) Travel Money India (foreign exchange), FCM InComing (inbound travel) and Travel Air Representations (travel wholesalers).
