Category Archives: Agents

Considering the option of Joint Bank Guarantee for hotels and discussing its viability, Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India, says, “We are open to consider Joint Bank Guarantee option but it would require a prior and complete scrutiny and understanding of the JBG terms and conditions. For instance, the JBG  should be given by either the TA or a renowned association on behalf of the agent so that there is a guarantee for payments for the hotels and the TA can enjoy extended credit.” 

The Amravati Tour & Travel Association (ATTA), which is a small 23-member association based in Amravati, will be hosting its second edition of the three-day B2C Travel Expo 2019 from November 29 to December 1, 2019 in Amravati. The association, which is in its third year now, is led by Babanrao Kolhe, President, ATTA, alongside Vishwanath Arora, Vice President, ATTA. Speaking to TravTalk, Arora said, “This is the first time that a travel trade association is conducting a B2C expo. We saw huge success in its first year with more than 50 booths and so we decided to organise it again this year. It will start from November 29, 2019 and end on December 1, 2019. Last year, we were supported by MTDC and Genting Cruise Lines. The aim is to get more and more big travel companies to Amravati as there is a huge market here. We hope to get good support from companies this year too and we are in discussions for the same.”

The Enterprising Travel Agents Association (ETAA) jointly with Rajasthan Routes Trails recently organised an educational familiarisation trip for its members to Rajasthan. The trip was hosted by Rajasthan Routes Trails Pvt Ltd and had 25 participants from cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Satara and Nagpur. The group travelled across Rajasthan starting from Udaipur and covering Kumbhalgarh, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer and Jaipur. The itinerary included sightseeing of prominent monuments, temples and other attractions and visits to hotels from across various categories. Besides enjoying the gracious hospitality of the sponsoring hotels and the main host Rajasthan Routes Trails Pvt Ltd, the members also enjoyed some local and traditional activities like camel rides, jeep sand dune safaris, jungle safaris, authentic Rajasthani cuisine and shopping in the local markets. This is the second year in a row that ETAA and Rajasthan Routes Trails Pvt Ltd collaborated for an educational tour.

Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi, along with Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) organised a workshop for OTOAI members on Ramayana Trail, where Jeevana Fernando, Assistant Director, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLPB) gave a presentation on the Ramayana related sites in Sri Lanka to the attendees. The event was chaired by Austin Fernando, High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to India along with Mahendra Vakharia, President, OTOAI. The idea behind the workshop was to position Sri Lanka’s rich Ramayana heritage as a popular pilgrim package and to create awareness among the OTOAI members about locations of the Sri Lanka Ramayana Trail. The OTOAI members gave a positive response towards the workshop and discussed possible itineraries with Fernando for the same.

The fourth edition of Global Panorama Showcase Kolkata kick-started at The Lalit Great Eastern, Kolkata with slew of announcements related to its upcoming plans. With a target of reaching out to 25 destinations with EDWIN (Educational Destination Workshop) in next five years, Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, announced new EDWIN program with Trulyy hotels at its properties in Gujarat and Rajasthan. He also announced special booking packages with Trulyy providing 30, 40 and 50 per cent discount with membership program.  According to Anand, The Oberoi hotels has also proposed a special membership plan for the GPS members. He also briefed about sustainable and responsible tourism initiatives of GPS including rain water harvesting programme, restricting single-use plastic and counselling the clients on code of conduct in hotels abroad.

Tourism Association of Bihar (TAB) recently celebrated its Foundation day. The event was inaugurated by Y. Nilkantham (Director , India Tourism,  Patna) , Sumit Chatergee (Principle , IHM , Hajipur). Nilkantham shared insight regarding tourist flow in Bihar where he said that by 2020, Bihar will host more foreigners than Goa. He also encouraged the associates of the association to actively participate in programmes organised by India and state tourism . He said, “Two way traffic from other states or from Nepal  should be created to promote Bihar so that adequate revenue could be generated .” The Foundation Day also saw the presence of delegates from Nepal Tourism Board.  

On the concluding day of the convention, PP Khanna, President ADTOI and Convention Chairman said, “The convention is a success, we were expecting around 400 delegates, but have been impressed by over 500 registrations, including some of the local travel agents. Sessions were quite interactive, and people enjoyed the same. It’s very necessary to focus on what the different states are doing to promote domestic tourism. Subsidies the states are providing top private entrepreneurs, investment plans and success stories of PPP were deliberated upon in the sessions. Full halls themselves indicate the popularity of the sessions.” Elaborating on trends in domestic tourism he said, “An important trend is to work with the state to promote domestic tourism in the state. For developing tourism, the requirement is of better infrastructure in the state, cleanliness, safety and security, availability of amenities, among others. Essentially education and  skill development is required in the states  to promote domestic tourism. State specialists programmes are also required so that the travel agents and tour operators can be imparted more knowledge about the destination and they become specialists to promote their states. Each and every state in India has so much to offer. Travel agent need to connect with their counter parts more, as knowledge excellence goes till the last point. Gujarati tour operators can fabricate the packages for pan India tour operators.

The 9th annual convention of Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI), supported by Gujarat Tourism as host state, was inaugurated at Hyatt Regency Ahmedabad. Speaking at the ceremony, Vasan Aahir, Minister of State for Tourism, Gujarat, said, “We are very glad that ADTOI has brought their annual convention to Gujarat. Rann of Kutch is the ideal example where tourism has been a means for developing an undeveloped destination, while giving employment to many people. We are developing many destinations in a similar manner in Gujarat.” ADTOI also unveiled its new logo at the inauguration ceremony. PP Khanna, President, ADTOI, welcomed the delegates at the convention and felicitated the dignitaries, which included Pradipsinh Jadeja, Minister of State- Home, Energy, Parliamentary Affairs, Law, Justice (Minister of State), Police housing, Border security, Civil defense, Gram Rakshak Dal, Jail, Prohibition and Excise, Coordination between voluntary organization, Non Resident Gujarati Department, Protocol (all independent charge), Government of Gujarat; Aashima Mehrotra, Director, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India; S.J. Haider, Principal Secretary, Gujarat Tourism; Jenu Devan, Managing Director, Gujarat Tourism; and Ashwani Lohani; CMD, Air India.

More than 1800 meetings are expected over two days at the sixth edition of Travel Luxury Show, scheduled from September 14-15, 2019 at the Crowne Plaza Jaipur. Over 60 buyers and thirty exhibitors will be part of the event. The show offers participants an opportunity to have one-to-one meetings with exhibitors belonging to luxury hotels, destinations promoting luxury holidays and other products targeting high-end travellers from the country. The event allows exhibitors to interact with travel trade luxury buyers across India, focusing on Tier II, III cities along with Tier I cities. Guaranteeing over 60 pre-scheduled B2B meetings per exhibitor, the table-top event acts as the perfect business platform for attendees. Apart from that industry veterans attend the show as keynote speakers. There is a networking dinner as well, where participants get to meet and interact with more buyers.

The Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) will now start promoting outbound tourism to neighbouring countries in a bid to help its members expand their horizon of business as well as improving bilateral ties with the countries to get more tourists to India and simultaneously send tourists from India to such destinations. The association invited Dubai Tourism, TCEB and Thai Airways to discuss their plans to work together. The association is also working to promote outbound operations for its members with an intent to develop a model of cross-border tourism. In a first such interactive meeting organised for IATO members who do outbound or want to do outbound, IATO introduced its members with the idea and intent to promote outbound tourism as well. Sharing more details, Rajiv Mehra, VP, IATO & EC Liaison, Outbound Tourism Promotion Committee said that they are first looking to target the neighbouring countries like Thailand, Dubai, Vietnam and can further move on to other countries. “Let us learn things and promote India for inbound tourism to our neighbouring destinations and also for outbound tourism so that more Indian tourists travel abroad. Whatever less business is coming to India, let us get it filled up with such initiatives,” he said. The association is planning to organise such ‘Outbound Knowledge Forum’ bi-monthly now on with talks going on with at least three other NTOs.