Category Archives: Agents

With an intent to focus on supporting its members and foresee the trend and updates of the tourism industry, the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), organised its first of the series ‘Knowledge Conclave’ in Delhi. The conclaves are meant to support TAAI members with a vision for the future and upgrade them with executive education. Sunil Kumar R, President, TAAI, “The objective of these Knowledge Conclaves is to help our members unlearn, update and upgrade their knowledge. Over the two-day conclave, we will have five different sessions on executive education including sessions aviation trend, technology and optimising business opportunities. With 120 members attending the conclave in Delhi, TAAI members can attend Conclave in other cities as well, if they miss out.” After Delhi, the Knowledge Conclave will take place in four other locations across India during June-July 2019. In Mumbai, the conclave is scheduled on 19-20 July. These five conclaves are based on geographical location and members of respective TAAI regions and chapters are invited to attend the conclaves.

Multizebra is another trend-setting product from the Multilink stable, which is touted to be the future of a modern travel industry. Multizebra is a market place for DMCs and travel agents across the globe. While the DMCs may upload their static packages and component rates, the travel agents can log on to the portal and create a quotation for any destination in a few clicks. Sharing this news is Nikhil Shah, Co-founder, Multilink. He says, “Traditionally, the travel agent sends a query to a DMC and wait for two to three days for them to revert with the quotation. Then the travel agent has to make some changes and send it again to the DMC for revised quotation which again takes about two to three days. This entire process takes about a week and sometimes more. Meanwhile, the end-traveller either closes with another travel agent or in a few cases even cancels the tour. This results in loss of precious manpower, time and loss of revenue.” What does Multizebra is cuts off all the unnecessary time consumption and waste of manpower and provides the convenience of quoting a query in a few clicks which takes about five to 10 minutes. “As of now we have already on-boarded more than 40,000 agents across the globe mainly from the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia and the UAE,” Shah reveals.

Atlas Travels Online and OYO have come together to provide the hotel brand’s worldwide inventory on the Atlas Travels Online platform. Together, they will offer 10 per cent cash back on booking any OYO hotel on Atlas Travel Online portal This offer is valid for 30-days starting from June 25, 2019. The offer is extended only to Atlas Travel Online’s network of 20,000 travel partners. The two companies will conduct joint roadshows across the country to showcase the benefits of this promotion to the travel partners. Hussain Patel Director, Atlas Travels Online, says, “We have predominantly been known for our Air deals and offers, however in the past year we have experienced great momentum in our hotel booking segment. Almost 40 per cent of our business comes from hotel bookings and we have direct relationships with our suppliers. OYO is undoubtedly the largest and the fastest growing hotel chain and we are excited with our partnership as our travel partners have a great deal to benefit from.” With regards to the partnership, Gaurav Ajmera, COO, India and South Asia, OYO Hotels & Homes comments, “Our single-minded focus is to make standardised and trusted quality accommodation at affordable prices accessible to travelers across the globe. We are pleased to partner with Atlas Travel Online, a renowned travel portal, to extend our offering to the portal’s customers and together provide guests across geographies memorable travel experiences. We strongly believe that this partnership will be extremely beneficial for the modern day traveller.”

Royal Air Maroc, Morocco’s national carrier, is offering 5 per cent commission to agents on Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) India. Earlier the IATA commission that the airline was offering was only 3 per cent. The airline is represented in India by APG India, and does not have a any direct connection from India as of now.

The Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) has signed an agreement with the Tourist Guides’ Federation of India to increase the guide fee by approximately 10 per cent effective from October 1. The new rates will be valid for a period of two years till September 30, 2021. Sharing more information, Rajeev Mehra, Vice President, IATO said that the agreement has been signed keeping in view the interest of certified tour guides across the country. “IATO President, Pronab Sarkar and TGFI President, Ajay Singh have signed an agreement to hike the fee. The fee and allowances agreed upon should be paid in full and are not negotiable. There will ne no extra charges in addition to the rates agreed upon for escorting groups.” It was also decided that a suitable imprest amount may be given to the guides before the commenecement of their agreement with the mutual understanding in case o outstation trips involving minimum one overnight. Usage and guides and fee structure shall be as per the laid down policies of the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India.

After the success of its inaugural Tourism MasterClass last month, PATA India Chapter is now all set to organise its next educational workshop, an exclusive Business Management MasterClass titled, ‘Entrepreneurial Leadership-The Buck Stops Here’ on July 3 in Delhi. This MasterClass is targeted to attract owners/business leaders and aims to add to their knowledge and business management skills. The session will be conducted by Ashutosh Garg, mentoring expert from the corporate world, who has been a Corporate Leader at ITC on the one hand and a very successful and Professional Entrepreneur on the other, having established the 2nd largest pharmaceutical retail chain in India, Guardian Pharmacy. He has also worked in leadership positions at Lockheed Martin and Hughes. Recognised as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum and as an active member of Young Presidents Organisation, he brings rich experience both in running businesses in India and overseas. Registration are open now and the last date of enrolling is June 25, 2019. Limited seats on first come, first serve basis.

The Association of Domestic Tour Operators (ADTOI), along with the Govt. of Gujarat is set to organise its next convention in Ahmedabad, Gujarat from August 16-18, 2019, announced PP Khanna, President, ADTOI at their General House Meeting and GST session held at Hotel Samrat in New Delhi. PP khanna will be the Convention Chairman, while Anil Rajput and Sanjay Saxena will be the Co-Chairman. The venue of the convention has not been decided. Right now, committees are being made for the convention.

The 48th Skål Asia Congress will be held from June 27-30, 2019 in Bengaluru The three-day Congress will be held at Taj MG Road and will welcome around 300-odd delegates from all over the world. Sharing more information on this is Ranjini Nambiar, National President, Skål International India, who says, “There will be around 100 foreign delegates, more than 150 Skåleagues from India and about 50 guests that include sponsors and government dignitaries. Our chief guest will be the Tourism Minister of Karnataka SA. RA. Mahesh who has accepted our invitation.” The event will have two panel discussions and three keynote speakers. Gujarat Tourism will also be part of the Congress.  

 Vivek Jain, Managing Director, Griffon, a cruise specialist in India, has revealed that it is currently working on developing a portal dedicated to the travel agents. He says, “We plan to launch this portal by Diwali time around October 2019. It will be a B2B website which will have real-time inventory of two to three cruise companies that we promote in India. This will allow agents to log in and get real-time availability of inventory, get real-time rates and even make bookings on time limits. So they will be able to get full information with regards to the availability of these cruise liners. It will also have all the ship information, as well as excursion details which they can use to explain to their clients exactly what to expect on the ships.”   Jain however refused to name the ships that have come onboard for this and added that these names will be revealed at the time of launch. Griffon handle sales and marketing activities in India for various international cruise companies including Pullmantur Cruises, Celestyal Cruises and Oceania Cruises.    

Tour operators and travel agents can now create customised tour itineraries for their clients with complete ease with Jumbo Online. This Spanish online company has recently signed on Global Destinations to push its product to the trade here in India. Speaking about this is Pranav Kapadia, Founder & Director, Global Destinations, who says, “Jumbo Online is a global online system and we will be promoting them to the trade here in India. Once registered on this site, agents will get their individual logins and they can start creating itineraries by booking whatever their clients require – hotels, transfers, sightseeing, etc.” Jumbo Online also owns Eden Incoming in Italy. Their core advantage, Kapadia adds, is their good and competitive rates across the board, whether it is hotels, sightseeing or transfers, specially in certain parts of the world like Latin America, Europe, and the US. “Agents can build an entire package on this system and can pay online or offline. Some agents have already registered on the site after knowing about them through our EDMs.”