Category Archives: Agents

With the country reeling under the havoc caused by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, tour operators in Kerala have come to the rescue. Amidst shortage of oxygen, ambulances and other medical supplies, these tour operators in the state are now converting their buses and vans into ambulances fitted with oxygen cylinders, many offering the service free of charge.

Speaking at the International Conference on Agri-Tourism 2021, Aditya Thackeray, Minister for Tourism & Environment, Government of Maharashtra, said, “More than 60% of the country’s population engage in agriculture and it therefore crucial to link agriculture to tourism. Agri-tourism is instrumental for employment generation and economic improvement especially in these pandemic times when people have lost jobs.”

Speaking on the sidelines of the 3-day networking platform Virtual ATB 2021, Petra Stolba, CEO, Austrian National Tourist Office, said, ““Right now tourism faces many questions. Short-term ones, such as what Covid means for the coming summer season as well as long-term about the future of travel and opportunities through digitalisation. With the Austrian Tourism Days right at the restart of tourism in Austria, we are giving the industry valuable assistance and orientation.” The programme will focus on sales, innovation, safe holidays and the future of travel.

Rajiv Mehra, President, Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) has made an appeal to all its members and all the tourism professionals to get themselves, staff and their families to register on for Covid-19 for vaccination. While requesting the members and others, he mentioned that it is very important for all of us in the tourism and hospitality industry to get ourselves and staff vaccinated at the earliest possible and once the vaccinations is done, same should be conveyed to all your counterparts/foreign tour operators to create confidence amongst them that vaccination programme in India is going on in full swing and all our staff and the frontline workers  i.e., airport representatives, drivers, guides, escorts and tourist felicitators, hotel front office, reception and restaurant staff, etc. have been vaccinated.    

A total of 71 deals (comprising M&A, private equity, and venture financing) were announced in the global tourism sector during April, which is a decline of 34.3% over 108 deals announced in March, according to data and analytics company GlobalData. Aurojyoti Bose, its Lead Analyst, says, “Although the rebound in deal activity in March brought in some cheer, it could not be sustained for long with April again reversing the trend.”

Union culture minister Prahlad Singh Patel shared a notification that stated that the Archaeological Survey of India has decided to keep all its monuments closed till May 31, or until further orders, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. On April 15, ASI announced the closure of all the centrally-protected monuments under ASI till May 15.

With the financial security renewal of IATA-accredited agents scheduled for 30 June 2021, the IAAI director board recommends GoLite accreditation to travel agents in India after doing an extensive study on the IATA accreditation services. Since the IFCO TOKIO General insurance company withdrew their insurance guarantees for travel agents, the IAAI director board studied various services – Standard (with and without Easy Pay) Go Lite and Global (multi-country) regarding its application, facilities and benefits. In the absence of an insurance guarantee, agents’ are forced to provide a bank guarantee or Joint Bank guarantee under travel associations, which are more expensive than the existing insurance guarantee system. Through virtual meetings, the IAAI director board has considered the various aspects that constrain agents’ survival. It feels IATA Standard Accreditation is a ‘white elephant’ in the present economic turmoil and frustration due to the pandemic situation for most of travel agencies as they are SMEs. A travel agent has to annually spend around USD 783 for IATA Standard accreditation and using BSP link facilities in addition to the financial guarantee and other expenses. Biji Eapen, President of IAAI, says, “In the present scenario, this expenditure may not be a viable business solution for most of agents in India and foreseeing that the present pandemic situation may continue much longer and delay in the redemption of international flights may take 2 years or more to reach the level of pre pandemic situation, IAAI National committee would like to suggest IATA Accredited Travel agents to convert their accreditations to GoLite accreditation. Even though it curtails credit facilities, it drastically reduces overall costs and empowers IATA Accredited Agencies to survive this unprecedented difficult situation.” Eapen adds, “Since …

TravelBullz is happy to announce the preferred partnership with Vervotech, SaaS Company.  Founded by a team of passionate entrepreneurs in 2018, Vervotech’s vision is to organize all accommodation data with Vervotech Hotel Mapping and Room Mapping using large-scale aggregation, AI-based processing, and ever-evolving ML models. With this preferred partnership, TravelBullz will gain express access to UNICA, a hotel mapping platform with an accuracy of 99.99% and a coverage of 98%. This enables all 150,000 hotels under TravelBullz express access to unified content through UNICA and its seamless integration into existing platforms. With the commencement of this deal, TravelBullz’s clients will reap the following benefits: Real-time content updates along with content insights. Better conversions with de-duplicated inventory. 99.99% mapping accuracy and 98% mapping coverage with reduced processing time. Opinionated Content to deliver a more streamlined user experience. In accordance with TravelBullz’s Dynamic Packaging Module that was launched back in March 2020, integration of UNICA into our existing platform is expected to enhance all travel components with opaque hotel pricing, providing hotel chains greater flexibility for yielding packaged rates. Sanjay Ghare, Co-Founder & CEO at Vervotech said, “This is an extremely crucial time for the global travel industry and we are looking at changes at an astronomical level. It is important that the businesses operating today under such circumstances are not only aware but are also prepared to integrate the latest technologies in the market in order to circumvent the shortcomings. We feel that strategic mutual partnerships are the key to overcoming the challenges that are plaguing the industry today”. According to Nidhi Gupta, Global Head Supplier Partnerships & Activities of TravelBullz, “We are constantly working to revolutionize the way business is transacted in …

In his letter to the PM, JK Mohanty, Chairman, IATO – Eastern Region and Co-Chairman, FICCI – National Tourism Committee, has suggested measures to battle the financial crunch, including extension of moratorium for a year with minimal interest rate, one-time rescheduling of principal and interest dues of borrowers in hospitality in line with revised estimated cash flows of each project, among others.

Prateek Hira has been appointed as the Chairman of FICCI Tourism Committee, Uttar Pradesh State Council. Prateek Hira brings 27 years of experience in the tourism industry and expertise on the subject with many tourism researches to his credit. The committee shall advise the government of Uttar Pradesh primarily on the issues plaguing the tourism industry and will work closely with the government of Uttar Pradesh to revive tourism in a time-bound manner after the present situation of pandemic eases. A detailed white paper will be presented to the government that will enlist the measures required for the earliest revival of tourism. The government of Uttar Pradesh has resolved to create employment opportunities through tourism and make tourism a key driver of growth and FICCI through its Tourism Committee under the chairmanship of Prateek Hira will be a catalyst to make this happen soonest.