Category Archives: Agents

“Tourism is the face of any nation. If the services are badly delivered, it will tarnish a nation’s face before the global population. And India being one destination known for its culture, tradition and hospitality, has its positioning because of the human element that delivers in hospitality. Unfortunately, our governments forgot to take care of the most boasted 55 million tourism industry people in India during last 10 months of suffering,” says a statement released by Tourism Leaders Club, whose President & Founder is Amesh Daftary and General Manager is Prakash Visani. The release says that a “peaceful protest campaign” has been planned by the Indian tourism fraternity on February 5, maintaining all COVID protocols of social distancing, mask and sanitiser. The statement also mentions, “Many are at the edge of breakage. Many are no more in tourism. This was so unjust from the ruling governments to discard such a dedicated selfless community which served the Nation’s progress. When all other sectors revived, Tourism is still not back and the governments didn’t even bother to take an account of job losses or business losses. It’s time for us to show our protest towards the inaction of Governments. Let us unite and show our integrity towards our own livelihood industry. Please join the campaign and make it a grand success.” “As it’s a pan India protest campaign,” the release adds, “our members at different destinations of India are requested to conduct similar cultural processions with their respective regional art forms to support the move. Our slogan will be ‘Tourism Lives Matter – Save Indian Tourism’. Our Demands for survival: GST Holiday for Two years for Tourism Rehabilitate tourism employees who lost …

Mumbai-based Raja Rani Travels facilitated a FAM trip for a large delegation of film producers to Kashmir where more than produced from 22 renowned production houses from Bollywood and film industry explored Kashmir’s natural beauty and also had an engagement with the administrative authority of the region.

Indicating a deep sense of dismay, Deepak Narula, Managing Director, GRN Connect, says, “This sector is one of the last ones to start its revival process and it needed a strong thrust from the government at such a critical time. But it has chosen to ignore us yet again. It seems like they don’t care for the tourism industry anymore. We are sorely disappointed yet again.”  

Expressing his views on Budget exclusively with TravTalk, Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, Jagsons Travels & Co-founder, GPS, says, “It is pointless to follow the Budget. In most instances it does not deliver much for the tourism industry. Somewhere down the line, the implication will be on the end consumer in the form of a cess. Why we are still expecting big things from our Union Budget. The government has clearly said be ‘Atmanirbhar’ and this time it was indeed an Atmanirbhar Budget,”

Pradeep Lulla, Acting President, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) shared his comments on the Budget and says, “This year’s Budget is very disappointing, specially for the tourism sector. We had collectively put across many suggestions to the Ministry of Tourism. Unfortunately, not one suggestion has been looked into or considered. The fiscal deficit which is 9.5 is quite large and some sort of allocation to tourism should have been given.”    

Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) hopes the government will consider its suggestions for good governance and ease of doing business for the travel trade. Sharing her expectations on Budget, Jyoti Mayal, President of TAAI, says, “We believe the Budget 2021 should be focused more on spendings to enable economic growth,  what better area to spend in than tourism to generate more cash flow and earnings to enable enhancement of infrastructure.” She adds, “We have already appealed for have a uniform GST across India whereby input tax credits can be taken for services utilised across the country. The GST for tour operators should be at 1.8% with full setoff, being 18% on an average margin of 10%. Interstate credit of GST are not available to travel agents and tour operators on IGST and the same should be considered at par which shall not only benefit the corporates but the consumers are large. The similar being with airlines on the point of departure.” We are expecting the FM to ensure LTC benefits not utilised this year due to the pandemic should be permitted to be carried forward in the coming 2 years. Further to boost the economy all expenses made for travel, tourism, MiCE, adventure, domestic and religious travel, by the tax payer should be fully exempt from income tax for the next 2 years, states Mayal. The FM should also ensure 10% SIES credit to be adjusted completely under income tax. To ensure growth in tourism and all incomes from foreign exchange earnings should be given a tax holiday for a period of 2 years. TCS too to should be rescinded as it serve no purpose of tax collect and …

In a strategic move, the Karvat Group has taken over the reins of the travel ancillary business, and will hereon steer its business in India with sole proprietorship. Dev Karvat will take on the ownership of the entire group’s operations in India as CEO. He says, “The company’s commitment towards the travel trade is as persistent as ever. We are thankful to the Cover-More Group for enriching our experience with their global expertise. We will be happy to welcome them back to India in the future. We are now focusing on India-centric offerings. I am happy to share the launch of a new venture – Asego.”

Of all the hiring in 2020, metro cities of New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai accounted for nearly half of the job postings on Indeed. Maximum aspirants for these jobs, however, emerged  from Jalandhar, Chandigarh, New Delhi, and Lucknow. This was an interesting departure from the top cities in 2019 where job seekers looked for hospitality and tourism jobs, namely popular tourism hubs before the pandemic set in such as Goa, Panchkula, Chandigarh, Guwahati and Delhi.

Kazin DMC has entered into an exclusive agreement with Almaty Multiprofile Clinical Hospital to bring free medical assistance to its travellers as part of standard inclusion in each package. This first-of-its-kind arrangement by a DMC includes door-to-door ambulance service, doctor on call, first-aid assistance and overnight hospitalisation.

STB India Virtual Tradeshow 2021 ‘Charting Our Pathways to Tourism Recovery’, is set to kick-off for East India today, 21 Jan. This is the last edition of the four sessions for the tradeshow. Join us as 48 Singapore stakeholders comprising airlines, attractions, DMCs and hotels ready ourselves to prepare travel and tourism restart. For updates on Destination Singapore, travel trade can subscribe to STB India’s WhatsApp at https://bit.ly/stbindia