Category Archives: Agents

The Maharashtra Tour Organisers Association (MTOA) has a new team at its helm. The association held its AGM on Sunday, July 28, 2019 in Mumbai. The new committee members have been elected for a term of three years from 2019 to 2022. The new MTOA President is Prabhu Joshi of Heena Tours, and the elected Vice President is Vishwajit Patil of Raja Rani Travels. Chetan Dunakhe of Madhuchanda Travels is the new General Secretary of MTOA and the Treasurer is Rajan Parekh of Arihant Travels. The two Joint Secretarys are Amol Hendre of Eventures and Dhiraj Nishar of Choice Tours.   Speaking about the focus areas for the new team, Joshi said, “MTOA has completed 50 years and to celebrate this milestone we plan to celebrate on a grand scale. The new as well as the old committee will jointly take efforts to organise the 50th year celebration event which will be announced soon. Both our past presidents Sudhir Patil (Veena World) and Atul Mohile (Contour) have taken great efforts to take MTOA to greater heights and their contribution for the association is invaluable.”  

Association of Domestic Tour Operators (ADTOI) is all set to open two new chapters in Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Tamil Nadu after its convention, revealed PP Khanna, President, (ADTOI). “Once we are free from the convention, we are planning to start two more chapters, which are almost ready, which will be in MP and Tamil Nadu. By September-October, we will have new entrants in the ADTOI family,” he adds.

The Global Panorama Showcase(GPS) has kick-started in Lucknow. Elaborating on the 2 days B2B travel trade, outbound  event focussed on Tier-II Tier-III cities, Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS informed that ,”This is our second year in Lucknow, we had a very good response last year. The market has accepted that this is an E-event and have downloaded the app and pre registered. Through Lucknow we hope to reach the travel fraternity in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand. This is a very promising market, and we hope to empower through knowledge, networking and face to face business interactions.’

Neeraj Malhotra, Co-founder and CEO, Ganpati Travels has been re-elected as the Chairman, Northern Region, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI). Gaurav Dogra, Founder, Plan Your Holiday was re-elected as the Hony. Secretary uncontested. Manish Saxena, Executive Director, Century Travels is the new Hony. Treasurer. The election was conducted at Shangri-La’s Eros Hotel, New Delhi. On being declared the Chairman, Malhotra said, “I am thankful for the members in the region to come in big numbers and vote for me. I am truly overwhelmed and I will be continuing my pursuit to educate the members of the region, and bring technology to them to boost their businesses.”  

After the conclusion of the travel season, EBIXCASH World Money has now launched an exclusive campaign for the ongoing season aimed at aspiring students planning to study abroad for the fall. Titled ‘Ready to Study Forex Fest’ the campaign will allow them to pay/remit their university fees using EBIXCASH. The company also has exciting prizes for lucky winners. The campaign will last from July 18, 2019 to September 30, 2019. It is aimed at students aspiring to study overseas this season and it will be eligible for university fee remittance/card purchase  with EBIXCASH World Money. Offers include free ISIC Cards, assured prize on every remittance/payment, daily prize of travel accessories worth INR 10,000, weekly prize of L-care smart watches, monthly prize of American Tourister luggage bags and a mega prize of five laptops which will be given to lucky students.

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has launched its online marketplace for members—TAFI Connect. Ashwani Sharma, Chapter Chairman, TAFI-North, said “TAFI Connect would be the online tool for members to conduct their business online with a huge inventory of hotels and packages. It would also allow them to do business with each other,” he added. Pranita Baveja, Founder & CEO, Traviate.com, showcased the features of TAFI Connect and even gave them a demo of the product. Members can now enroll themselves and be live on TAFI Connect to use its services and grow their businesses.  

EBIXCASH World Money has recently won three awards in different categories. It won the Pinnacle Award as the ‘Best Outperforming Partner – Terminal Services’ by Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru in recognition of the outstanding services rendered for the FY 2018-19. It was also awarded an award under ‘Order of Merit’ for ‘Students University Remittance Solution’ by Skoch Group at the Skoch Awards 2019 in the Fintech category. EBIXCASH World Money also received the VISA Award for being one of the largest issuer of Visa travel cards in India with card loads of US$500 Million in 2018.  

Ebix will be acquiring Yatra Online via merger, as part of a definitive agreement signed between the two travel giants. Following the completion of the transaction, Yatra will become part of Ebix’s EbixCash travel portfolio alongside Via and Mercury and will continue to serve customers under the Yatra brand. The transaction will create India’s largest and most profitable travel services company, and a leading online travel platform poised to capture significant international growth opportunities. Ebix Chairman, President and CEO Robin Raina, commented, “The acquisition of Yatra would lend itself to significant synergies and the emergence of EbixCash as India’s largest and most profitable travel services company, besides being the largest enterprise financial exchange in the country. Over the last few months, we have evolved a detailed synergistic plan, that once fully executed can provide between 40 to 75 cents of accretion to the Ebix non-GAAP EPS. We are excited by the cross-selling opportunities that this combination provides us, while further strengthening our future EbixCash IPO offering.” Dhruv Shringi, Co-founder and CEO of Yatra Online. “We are pleased to announce this agreement with Ebix, which provides our shareholders with the opportunity to participate in the significant upside potential of one of the fastest growing multinational On-Demand software and E-commerce services companies in the world. Over the last several years, we have built Yatra into one of India’s most well- recognized e-commerce brands, growing into the leading corporate travel services provider and one of the largest consumer travel companies. Becoming a part of Ebix’s EbixCash travel portfolio will enable us to continue on that path. As part of a larger diversified organization with the necessary scale and resources to be a leader …

Madhavan Menon, Chairman & Managing Director, Thomas Cook (India), has categorically denied a rumour floating against it on social media platforms. He said, “We have witnessed robust performances across all our key travel and foreign exchange businesses and continue to remain at a healthy financial position having prepaid our obligations and are debt free at a holding company level. We are bullish on both the foreign exchange as well as the inbound and outbound businesses. We are scouting for new investments and are looking for the right opportunity.” In a statement, the company claimed that they want to clarify that Thomas Cook (India is part of Fairfax Financial Holdings, is a completely different entity from Thomas Cook PLC and has been an independent company since August 2012. It also claimed that Thomas Cook (India) is financially strong, profitable and maintains a positive outlook in the travel and tourism sector and continues to witness strong growth. The statement said, “Cash and bank deposits balance of the Thomas Cook India Group (consolidated level) is at Rs. 10588 Mn. as of March 31, 2019. On a standalone basis Thomas Cook India is debt free upon pre-payment of Rs. 670 Mn debenture obligations ahead of schedule. This has been made possible using stable and strong cash flows that the Thomas Cook India Group is generating year over year. Group generates an annual free cash flow of around Rs. 2000-2500 Mn. As earlier reported, for the Financial Year ended March 31, 2019 on a comparable basis, the Group’s consolidated revenue from operations increased by 18% from Rs.56 Bn. to Rs.66 Bn. Consolidated PBT increased by 985% from Rs. 53 Mn. in FY18 to Rs. 573 …

Russia has offered India to mutually abolish visas for tourist groups & E-visas to Russia slated to start in 2021. Tourism professionals of the two countries discussed the expansion of air connectivity between Russia and India, the mutual promotion of tourism between the two countries, as well as the facilitation of the visa regime between the countries, including preparations for the introduction of an electronic visa in Russia since 2021 and the possibility of introducing group visa-free travel between the countries.This proposal was made by the head of the Federal tourism Agency Zarina Doguzova during the Second Russian-Indian strategic economic dialogue in Delhi. The Indian side expressed interest in the joint development of a draft government agreement on visa-free group travel for up to 21 days. According to the press service of the Federal Tourism Agency, the Second Russian-Indian strategic economic dialogue is taking place in India, within the framework of which a round table “Tourism and inter-territorial communication” was held on July 10, 2019. The moderator of this event, dedicated to the development of tourism between Russia and India, was the head of the Federal Agency for tourism Zarina Doguzova. The round table was also attended by Maya Lomidze, Executive Director of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR). As a result of the round table, it was decided to establish a joint working group between representatives of the tourism authorities of the two countries, representatives of business and the expert community to develop a joint action plan to increase tourism exchanges. According to forecasts, in the future, mutual tourist flows may exceed 1 million people annually. Mutual steps to increase tourism exchanges between the countries Zarina Doguzova …