Category Archives: Agents

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) has reviewed its annual membership subscription renewal for the year 2021-22 in view of the pandemic’s second wave. It has therefore decided to reduce its renewal fee by 40% for all active, associate and allied members. The rebated annual membership subscription shall be only applicable if the same is paid and credited to TAAI account latest by 31 May, 2021. Thereafter normal annual fees shall be payable.

The Tourism Office of Spain – Mumbai will conduct their next webinar “I Travel Because Its My Turn” for travel trade professionals on April 22 at 3pm IST. This interactive session will be conducted by representatives from the AVE Cities Network. Attendees stand a chance to win Amazon vouchers on attending all the webinars. To register, contact Jaspreet Kaur at jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or 9650196532.

DidaTravel has announced that it has raised “hundreds of millions of yuan” in its Series B financing round that had Alibaba as the lead investor. Rikin Wu, Founder and CEO of DidaTravel, says that the proceeds will be dedicated to the company’s continuous expansion and development in the days to come.

Three female bikers — from Assam, Nagaland and Mizoram – are on a road journey to promote tourism in the north east region. The trio who are promoting their trip on social media are touring all the 7 sister states of the Northeast Indian region within a span of 7 days.

The recently-held AGM of the Tour Operators Association of Assam (TOAA) in Guwahati was marked by the formation of the new Executive Committee where Debajit Borah was selected as the new President, Rajkumar Das, Mukul Medhi and Dipak Sarma as Vice Presidents, Kundol Roy as Secretary, Nipan Sarmah as Treasurer, Pranjal Bora and Sushmita Hazarika as Joint Secretary along with 10 new EC members. The outgoing President is Ranjeet Das.

Virtual networking hub, GPS Connect 2021-22, a year-long platform for tourism industry is now open for registrations and will be held virtually from 1 May, 2021. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) said, “Exhibitor participation starts from as low as Rs 1,500 and gives an opportunity to businesses of all sizes located anywhere in the world and interested in developing business from India to exhibit and optimise their returns and stay connected year long.”

The government has directed airlines to serve or sell in-flight meals from April 15 only on those domestic flights that have a duration of over two hours, in wake of the sharp surge in Covid-19 cases. However, there are no restrictions on inflight meals on international flights as of now. The move is aimed at preventing the passengers from taking off their masks while on the aircraft.

As part of its #UnitedWeStand trade engagement initiatives, Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has launched a Whatsapp channel that offers the latest updates on Destination Singapore and STB’s various initiatives in a real-time fashion. STB India had recently organised its first Virtual Trade-show series, under the theme “Charting Our Pathways to Tourism Recovery”, over four days in January for South, North, West and East India regions. Over 45 Singapore tourism stakeholders (comprising airlines, attractions, cruise, DMCs and hotels) attended the event. More than 2,500 buyers logged in from all over India and each booth had an average of 400 unique visitors.   The Virtual Trade-show was aimed to update the Trade fraternity about refreshed tourism offerings and experiences as well as new norms adopted by Singapore as part of Safety Management Measures to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for re-start of tourism.   GB Srithar, Regional Director, India, Middle East & South Asia, Singapore Tourism Board , says, “There is much work that lies ahead. Our theme ‘Charting our Pathway to Tourism Recovery’ is an invitation and request for all of us to come together, share and exchange ideas and jointly configure the tourism journey ahead from India to Singapore. It is a rallying call to prepare and be ready, whenever the restart comes. My team and I will continue engaging and working with the trade.”   To subscribe to STB’s WhatApp Channel, click this link: http://bit.ly/stbindia            

Atout France organised the first virtual edition of its B2B alpine showcase Grand Ski in its new avatar ‘Destination Montagnes – Grand Ski’ in the last week of March for buyers worldwide. A total of 150 French suppliers met 465 tour operators from 59 source markets including 15 agents from India. Sheetal Munshaw, Director, Atout France India says, “Over the years, we have proactively tried to develop winter tourism through various initiatives and we are pleased to see that the concept of travelling to France in the winter has found favour with the discerning Indian traveller. The event was perfectly in sync with our strategy to showcase France as a year-round destination to Indian travellers.”

Sharing the idea behind organizing a virtual roadshow dedicated to MICE, Anil Srinivasan, Executive Director at JTB India, says, “The feedback we received from our corporate customers is that their channel partners were not very happy about doing more virtual meetings and events. They are keen to do offline events now and resume physical travel. We had been waiting for an apt time to launch our virtual roadshow – MICE Engage 2021 – where we could bring the buyers to meet exhibitors from the travel domain such as NTOs, hotels, airlines, etc.”