Brands
Mayur Hola to lead a refreshed proposition for Havas Creative as new NCD
Mumbai: Havas Group India has announced the appointment of Mayur Hola as national creative director for Havas Creative, effective immediately. Hola replaces Nima Namchu, who moved on from the agency in November last year.
Based out of Gurgaon office, he will be closely working with Havas Group India chairman and chief creative officer Bobby Pawar to lead a refreshed creative proposition by leveraging the group’s integrated capabilities.
Having worked across agencies like Mc cann, TBWA, and Grey, Hola’s last stint was with Contract Advertising as ECD and EVP. Leveraging expertise and experience on a variety of brands across sectors which include, Nescafe, Pan Vilas, Tata Docomo, National Geographic, Truecaller, KFC, Dominos, Droom, and Truly Madly, Hola is credited with numerous award-winning campaigns, across industry forums like Effies and Abbys.
Commenting on the appointment Havas Group India chairman and chief creative officer Bobby Pawar said “Mayur has got a great body of work. He is a really good creative director, people and clients want to work with him. But that is not why I picked him to be National Creative Director, for Havas, I chose to work with him because he is not afraid of venturing into the unknown, trying new things or new ways to do traditional stuff.”
Mayur Hola added, “It takes a village to raise a brand and the Havas village is physically and philosophically integrated to help brands produce tech enabled, measurable work. In addition to that, having access to the Vivendi Group Companies, (UM, Dailymotion Gameloft) is super exciting. Now to make sure that the creative product looks and works as well as the promise is on paper. I look forward to going back to the future, with Bobby and Rana who are so full of verve and bring with them such a positive whirlwind of change.”
Brands
AI becomes key tool for Indian travellers, Agoda report finds
68 per cent plan to use AI for trips as 33 per cent already rely on it.
MUMBAI: Holiday planning is getting a software upgrade less “Where should we go?” and more “What does the algorithm say?” Indian travellers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to map their journeys, with new data from Agoda’s 2026 Travel Outlook Report suggesting that AI is fast becoming central to how trips are imagined, planned and booked.
While 33 per cent of respondents said they already use AI tools for travel planning, a far larger 68 per cent indicated they are likely to rely on it for their next trip pointing to a sharp acceleration in adoption in a market already comfortable with digital-first travel.
What travellers want from AI, however, goes well beyond basic search. The report shows 38 per cent are looking for recommendations on local attractions and activities, while 37 per cent expect personalised itineraries. Destination discovery remains a key use case at 29 per cent, with dining suggestions (23 per cent) and budget management (22 per cent) also emerging as practical applications.
The shift reflects a broader change in expectations AI is no longer a novelty but a planning companion expected to work across every stage of the journey, from inspiration to execution.
Trust levels appear to be keeping pace. Nearly 88 per cent of respondents said they either trust or feel neutral about AI-generated recommendations, including 53 per cent who expressed clear confidence. This builds on earlier trends, with Agoda’s 2025 survey showing nine in ten Indian travellers already using apps to book travel suggesting AI adoption is more evolution than disruption.
The company has been testing this appetite through initiatives such as its 2025 AI-powered Vacation Planner campaign, which generated customised itineraries and visuals based on user inputs, delivered with a layer of celebrity-led engagement.
For platforms like Agoda, which aggregates more than 6 million properties, over 130,000 flight routes and 300,000 travel activities, AI offers a way to navigate scale without overwhelming users turning abundance into relevance.
As AI continues to embed itself into everyday decision-making, India is emerging as a market where travel planning is not just going digital, but decisively intelligent.
