Category Archives: Agents

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has announced that it will hold its national elections in July 2021 via electronic-voting for the safety of its members. The term for the team coming in this election would have been 2020-2022, but due to the delay this team will only have an effective term of 2021-2022. As per regular procedure, TAFI was supposed to have its national elections in 2020. However, due to COVID its chapter elections were delayed, which affected the national elections. The final dates will be announced soon.

Thomas Cook India & SOTC Travel have announced a two-pronged strategy: ‘TravShield’ and ‘Holiday First and Pay When You Return’ to cover every aspect of physical and financial safety. While the former is a comprehensive safe travel commitment to safe guard customers, the latter provides customers the flexibility and benefits of paying only once they return from their holiday.

New research from GlobalData reveals that travellers prefer booking directly with companies, leaving Online Travel Agents (OTAs) behind. In a recent poll, a total of 39% of respondents said they would typically book directly, followed by 17% that said they opted for OTAs and price comparison sites. Flexible cancellation and straightforward refund policies offered by direct booking are the reasons stated by the respondents for choosing direct booking.

Research is the very cornerstone of Phillip Island Nature Parks (Melbourne) operations, informing wildlife management and environmental programs within the Parks and helping us to understand and respond to threats to Phillip Island’s wildlife.   Phillip Island Nature Parks’ research program is diverse in scope, covering both terrestrial and marine domains. Its functions include producing evidence-based information to guide the development of policy and wildlife management programs specific for Phillip Island, and with application regionally and internationally.   Our research team is an authority on little penguins, seals and other seabirds. Little penguin research on Phillip Island has been ongoing for over 50 years – one of the longest continuous seabird studies in the world.   In the 1980s, the future of the penguin population was uncertain. A housing estate on the peninsula was presenting many dangers to the colony; Little Penguins were being killed by cars, foxes, dogs and feral cats. Their habitat was being destroyed by houses, fire and weed invasion.   A scientific paper prepared by Phillip Island Nature Parks’ research staff predicted that, if nothing were done, the world’s most famous colony of Little penguins at the Penguin Parade could be extinct on Summerland Peninsula by the year 2000. This colony was the last remaining of the original 10 penguin colonies on Phillip Island prior to European settlement, and the findings set off alarm bells across the community and Government.   A major program of revegetation and regeneration commenced, and still continues today. The penguin colony began to rebuild and grew from 12,000 to 30,000 breeding birds. More and more of the Peninsula is being used for nesting as the penguin habitat is progressively re-established and …

The Korea Travel Expo, scheduled from 22-24 June 2021, will offer Indian agents a chance to meet around 9 DMCs. Some of the DMCs are participating for the first time in the India market and are excited to meet Indian buyers,” said Young-Geul Choi, Director, Korea Tourism Organization. Register at www.koreatravelexpo.com, email Jaspreet at jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call +91 9650196532.

According to Rajiv Subramanian, Vice President, Cleartrip, “There are very initial signs of recovery with reduced caseloads and relaxation of restrictions by several states. Traffic and booking volumes have almost doubled from a couple of weeks back. Share of round trips and advance bookings has also seen an uptick. This recovery should continue with more cities seeing reduced caseloads and accelerated vaccination.”

Arvind Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, said that he has written to Commerce Secretary as well as Revenue Secretary to release 2019-20 SEIS payments on priority. “I also spoke to Principal Advisor in the Ministry of Finance for the same,” he added. Inbound tour operators in the country have been pleading the government to clear their SEIS dues for a long time.

Representative heads of six travel trade associations from Gujarat met the State Tourism Minister Jawahar Chavda on June 8 to urge for support to the trade for survival and revival in these challenging times. The six associations include the state chapters of TAAI, TAFI, IATO, ADTOI and Global Travel Agent Association (GTAA) as well as state-specific trade association of Tour Operators & Travel Agents Association of Gujarat (TAG). The minister heard the delegation out and has promised to look into the issue.  

Members at a recent educational seminar conducted by Indiatourism Mumbai that was attended by more than 50 participants, requested to re-open e-visas for foreign tourists. NS Rathor, Chairman (Western Region), IATO, says, “Since international travellers start planning six months in advance, this would be the tight time to open up e-visas which would allow them to plan for the upcoming tourist season. It is important that our next steps are planned so that inbound tourism can open up smoothly and safely.”

The General Authority of Civil Aviation, UAE has suspended all inbound passenger movement to the UAE from India until July 6, 2021. This excludes UAE nationals. Passengers are advised to reschedule their tickets for travel at a future date. Dubai’s Emirates had earlier said that passenger flights from India would remain suspended at least until June 30. The suspension of incoming passenger traffic from India to the UAE began on April 24. It was extended on May 4 by the UAE’s National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority (NCEMA) in light of a deadly second wave of Covid-19 currently affecting India.