Category Archives: Agents

IAAI recommends IATA GoLite accreditation to IATA-accredited agents

With the financial security renewal of IATA-accredited agents scheduled for 30 June 2021, the IAAI director board recommends GoLite accreditation to travel agents in India after doing an extensive study on the IATA accreditation services. Since the IFCO TOKIO General insurance company withdrew their insurance guarantees for travel agents, the IAAI director board studied various services – Standard (with and without Easy Pay) Go Lite and Global (multi-country) regarding its application, facilities and benefits. In the absence of an insurance guarantee, agents’ are forced to provide a bank guarantee or Joint Bank guarantee under travel associations, which are more expensive than the existing insurance guarantee system. Through virtual meetings, the IAAI director board has considered the various aspects that constrain agents’ survival. It feels IATA Standard Accreditation is a ‘white elephant’ in the present economic turmoil and frustration due to the pandemic situation for most of travel agencies as they are SMEs. A travel agent has to annually spend around USD 783 for IATA Standard accreditation and using BSP link facilities in addition to the financial guarantee and other expenses. Biji Eapen, President of IAAI, says, “In the present scenario, this expenditure may not be a viable business solution for most of agents in India and foreseeing that the present pandemic situation may continue much longer and delay in the redemption of international flights may take 2 years or more to reach the level of pre pandemic situation, IAAI National committee would like to suggest IATA Accredited Travel agents to convert their accreditations to GoLite accreditation. Even though it curtails credit facilities, it drastically reduces overall costs and empowers IATA Accredited Agencies to survive this unprecedented difficult situation.” Eapen adds, “Since …

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TravelBullz enters preferred partnership with Vervotech

TravelBullz is happy to announce the preferred partnership with Vervotech, SaaS Company.  Founded by a team of passionate entrepreneurs in 2018, Vervotech’s vision is to organize all accommodation data with Vervotech Hotel Mapping and Room Mapping using large-scale aggregation, AI-based processing, and ever-evolving ML models. With this preferred partnership, TravelBullz will gain express access to UNICA, a hotel mapping platform with an accuracy of 99.99% and a coverage of 98%. This enables all 150,000 hotels under TravelBullz express access to unified content through UNICA and its seamless integration into existing platforms. With the commencement of this deal, TravelBullz’s clients will reap the following benefits: Real-time content updates along with content insights. Better conversions with de-duplicated inventory. 99.99% mapping accuracy and 98% mapping coverage with reduced processing time. Opinionated Content to deliver a more streamlined user experience. In accordance with TravelBullz’s Dynamic Packaging Module that was launched back in March 2020, integration of UNICA into our existing platform is expected to enhance all travel components with opaque hotel pricing, providing hotel chains greater flexibility for yielding packaged rates. Sanjay Ghare, Co-Founder & CEO at Vervotech said, “This is an extremely crucial time for the global travel industry and we are looking at changes at an astronomical level. It is important that the businesses operating today under such circumstances are not only aware but are also prepared to integrate the latest technologies in the market in order to circumvent the shortcomings. We feel that strategic mutual partnerships are the key to overcoming the challenges that are plaguing the industry today”. According to Nidhi Gupta, Global Head Supplier Partnerships & Activities of TravelBullz, “We are constantly working to revolutionize the way business is transacted in …

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JK Mohanty writes to PM Modi for stopgap measures to battle cash crunch

In his letter to the PM, JK Mohanty, Chairman, IATO – Eastern Region and Co-Chairman, FICCI – National Tourism Committee, has suggested measures to battle the financial crunch, including extension of moratorium for a year with minimal interest rate, one-time rescheduling of principal and interest dues of borrowers in hospitality in line with revised estimated cash flows of each project, among others.

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Prateek Hira nominated as Chairman of FICCI Tourism Committee, UP State Council

Prateek Hira has been appointed as the Chairman of FICCI Tourism Committee, Uttar Pradesh State Council. Prateek Hira brings 27 years of experience in the tourism industry and expertise on the subject with many tourism researches to his credit. The committee shall advise the government of Uttar Pradesh primarily on the issues plaguing the tourism industry and will work closely with the government of Uttar Pradesh to revive tourism in a time-bound manner after the present situation of pandemic eases. A detailed white paper will be presented to the government that will enlist the measures required for the earliest revival of tourism. The government of Uttar Pradesh has resolved to create employment opportunities through tourism and make tourism a key driver of growth and FICCI through its Tourism Committee under the chairmanship of Prateek Hira will be a catalyst to make this happen soonest.

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Adventure tourism guidelines must be implemented uniformly across India

Sharing his views on how adventure tourism in India can be developed, Mandeep S Lamba, MRICS, President (South Asia), HVS Anarock, says, “The government’s adventure tourism guidelines should be implemented and executed uniformly across the country to ensure consistency. It is imperative to establish high standards of safety by leveraging the best practices from popular global adventure travel destinations such as New Zealand, Australia, and Brazil.”

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‘MoT must provide tourist guides with monthly Covid allowance’

Calling tourist guides the backbone of tourism in India, Tapan Kumar Mishra, National Tourism Awardee for Best Tourist Guide (Odisha), says, “If taxi drivers are eligible for a monthly Covid allowance of Rs 5,000 by the Delhi government, why not tourist guides from the Ministry of Tourism? Kerala has provided one-time help of Rs 10,000 to 328 guides. Why is MoT asking them not to take up any other job without providing them any help during off-season or during a pandemic?”

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Tourism industry looking at another year of losses: MTOA

Prabhulal Joshi, President, Maharashtra Tour Organisers Association (MTOA), believes the industry is looking at another year of losses due to the second wave of infections. “Post October, things had picked up, bookings had started for the April-May holiday season. But everything now has again come to a standstill. The combined loss to the industry is estimated to be nearly Rs 200 crore,” he says.  

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Spain Tourism announces winners of its webinar series: Sonal Swamy

Winner of Amazon voucher on participating in all the webinars organised by the Tourism Office of Spain – Mumbai recently, Sonal Swamy, MD, Syrisa Travels, says, “The webinars were amazing, interactive, incredibly interesting, very useful and packed with great content. I enjoyed every bit of it especially the part of Seville which got back pleasant memories of my trip around the coast of Spain. I can’t wait to get back to Spain!”

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High-value leisure travellers and Umrah segment from India target audience for AlUla

The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) has introduced AlUla in Saudi Arabia as a heritage and cultural destination to the Indian market. Melanie de Souza, Executive Director, Destination Marketing, said, “We see great potential in promoting tourism to AlUla from India. Besides high-value, leisure travellers, we will promote AlUla as an extension to an Umrah tour.” Sharing details of their promotional strategy, she adds, “We have started our promotional activities with trade to promote and showcase AlUla as a leisure and MICE destination through our India partner, Beautiful Planet Destination Marketing. We have been working with travel trade to create awareness and interest in AlUla and build visitation. We have been engaging with travel trade through webinars, trainings and presentations. We will closely work with key travel trade partners on joint promotional activities. In addition, we will continue to participate in trade shows to showcase the destination. Furthermore, we will continue to disseminate monthly newsletters to travel agents across India to keep them updated about AlUla. Once the borders open, we will implement roadshows and travel trade famils.”  

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