Category Archives: Associations

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) is ready to host its next annual convention in Abu Dhabi this year. With the theme ‘Innovate – Transform – Disrupt: Redefining the offline travel world’, the convention will be held from September 25-27, 2018 at Emirates Palace. Business Sessions have been planned keeping in mind the fast-changing world of travel, with disruption becoming a way of life. Bharat Shah, Managing Committee Member, will be chairing this year’s Convention. About 600 members from across the chapters have registered for this event. There will be a World Travel Agents Associations Alliance (WTAAA) meeting before the three-day convention begins in Abu Dhabi. The speakers at the convention will include two motivational speakers as well as some international speakers.

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) has announced its 65th annual convention in the Kunming city of Yunnan province of China from November 27-29. In association with the Yunnan Provincial Tourism Development Commission (YPTDC), the maiden TAAI Convention in China will take place at InterContinental Kunming. On the occasion, Sunil Kumar, President, TAAI said, “This is an initiative to promote stronger tourism prospects in Yunnan. TAAI has been working towards a stronger connect with China.” The theme of the convention will revolve around strengthening friendship and tourism relationship with China.

The maiden India Tourism Mart (ITM) is being organised from September 16-18, 2018 by the Ministry of Tourism, along with Federation of Associations in Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH) at The Ashok, New Delhi. The mart will be formally inaugurated by Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for Railways, Coal and Corporate Affairs, in the presence of KJ Alphons, Minister of State (I/C), Ministry of Tourism. The mart is being attended by 250 delegates from 60 countries, who also attended the Paryatan Parv at the Rajpath Lawns. The buyers were welcomed at The Ashok by Nakul Anand, Chairman, FAITH, who met with all the presidents of associations under the FAITH umbrella, as well as the exhibitors. ITM will give an opportunity to the buyers to see world-class tourism facilities available in the country such as airports, hotels, tourist destinations, MiCE facilities, potential in the field of adventure tourism and other niche products.

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) is set to organise its annual convention this year in Kunming, Yunnan, China by November end. The association held its convention in Srinagar in March this year. The step comes in the wake of TAAI’s focus to bond with China, whose outbound has been the largest in recent years. Further, India’s outbound to China is also extremely significant and continues to grow. The final dates of the convention will be announced soon. TAAI and Yunnan Provincial Tourism Development Commission (YPTDC) are joining hands to deliver a great partnership that would benefit tourism between the two large and formidable nations of the world. On the invitation of Yunnan, TAAI team visited the beautiful city of Kunming and found it a great venue to organise this Convention, TAAI said.

The winners of the 2018 PATA Grand and Gold Awards were felicitated at PATA Travel Mart 2018 on September 14 at the Mahsuri International Exhibition Centre in Langkawi, Malaysia.  PATA Gold Award 2018 for Women Empowerment Initiative went to Peak DMC, India, for empowering women through inclusive work and PATA Gold Award 2018 for Heritage was bagged by Sahapedia for India Heritage Walk Festival. SOTC Travel won the award for Marketing Media – Travel Advertisement Broadcast Media while Yalla Kerala campaign of Kerala Tourism, bagged the PATA Gold Award for Marketing Media – Travel Advertisement Print Media. Cox & Kings India won the award for Marketing Media – Travel Brochure, an experiantial showcase of Indian journeys. The Ultimate Travelling Camp (TUTC) won the PATA Gold Award for Marketing Media – Travel Video. Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA, said, “I would like to congratulate the 2018 PATA Grand and Gold Award winners as well as all of this year’s participants for their submissions. This year’s winners exemplify the true values of the association in working towards a more responsible travel and tourism industry in the Asia Pacific region.” Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, Director, Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), said, “This year’s PATA Gold Award winners present us with yet another wide array of remarkable accomplishments in different branches of the tourism industry. MGTO is honoured to help facilitate this PATA awards programme in inspiring tourism stakeholders throughout the Asia Pacific region.” This year’s awards attracted 200 entries from 87 organisations and individuals worldwide.

Discussing best practices across the business travel lifecycle, Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Conference 2018 was hosted at Hotel Pullman New Delhi Aerocity on September 14. Gaurav Sundaram, Regional Director, GBTA India said, “Compared to 2017, in 2018, India is together the seventh largest global market with $38 billion. It is the third largest APAC market with 12 per cent YOY. This is the best time for business professionals. However, these are also times of VUCA, that is, volatility, uncertainty, change and ambiguity. There is a huge disruption potential and inertia by travel business.” The event includes a CXO round-table on creating scalable global travel programmes as well as education sessions on the impact of payment solutions on business travel and duty of care within Indian companies. The forum will feature a trade show highlighting the best-class solution providers within the business travel industry. “With India expected to become the sixth largest business market in the world by the end of 2019, GBTA felt it was crucial to host a series of conferences within this region,” said Sundaram. “Each conference will be unique in its offerings of education sessions, speakers and content and will ultimately help educate the market on global best practices.”  

PATA Travel Mart (PTM) 2018, being held at Mahsuri International Exhibition Centre in Langkawi, Malaysia, has opened to more than 1400 delegates. Addressing them, Mario Hardy, Chief Executive Officer, PATA, said, “PATA Travel Mart continues to stand tall in the Asia Pacific as the most value-adding network. The event’s continued success is due to its ability to strike the right balance between quality and quantity when it comes to buyer and seller appointments. So far, PTM has welcomed a total of 389 sellers from 208 organisations and 33 destinations. On the buyer side, we have a total of 252 buyers from 241 organisations and 53 source markets. Overall, there are more than 1400 delegates who have joined us this week.” Speaking at the occasion, YB Tuan Mohamaddin Ketapi, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Malaysia, said, “As the host country of PTM, it is an opportunity for us to promote Malaysia as the ideal leisure and business destination. A key area we are constantly working on is visa facilitation. Improved visa facilities in India and China are making it convenient for more travellers to visit Malaysia. In fact, we are seeing double-digit growth from these two markets due to the positive steps taken to facilitate their travel here, and we hope that this can be expanded to other markets.” PTM 2018 is Asia Pacific’s worldwide travel trade exhibition featuring unparalleled networking and contracting opportunities to help travel trade and tourism organisations access decision makers, meet new clients, expand their network, establish new relationships, and consolidate existing business partnerships.

The Western India Chapter of the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has elected a new team for the term 2018-20. Jitul Mehta is now the Chapter Chairman, while Suprabh Oza has been elected as the Chapter Committee. Besides, Burjis Mehta is now the Secretary and Jay Kantawala has been elected as the Treasurer.

Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Director, Pritam Hotels has been elected as the President of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI) at the 68th Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Mumbai. Prior to being elected as the President, Kohli served as Senior Vice President of the association. Prrem Tiwari, former Vice President will now serve as Sr Vice President along with Sherry Bhatia acting as the Vice President and Pradeep Shetty as the Honorary Secretary. Nirav Gandhi will continue in the office as Jt Honorary Secretary with Dilip Kothari as the Honorary Treasurer and Aspi Nallaseth as Secretary General. “The HRAWI has made tremendous progress, and I would like to congratulate my predecessor Dilip Datwani and his team for doing an outstanding job during his term. From here, it is my intent to complement the efforts made so far by the association and maintain the momentum. I also hope to engage with the government, concerned authorities and other trade bodies as best as possible for the benefit of our fraternity. We will focus on resolving issues that are potential hindrances for the industry’s growth and will align efforts to best address and meet our members’ needs,” says Kohli. A second generation hotelier, Kohli is the owner of Dadar’s famous Pritam restaurant and who set up the iconic Pritam da Dhaba and the four-star Hotel Midtown Pritam in the 80s.

In yet another display of excellence in journalism, Team DDP collected two awards for outstanding reportage presented by the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) at its recently-concluded 34th annual convention held in Visakhapatnam. The team was awarded for Tourism Breaking News as best online media as well as for IATO Manual. TravTalk magazine brought out two special daily issues during the three-day convention, highlighting key issues that the event was focusing on. The team thanks IATO for recognising its efforts and hopes that it continues to break boundaries in covering pertinent issues that plague the travel industry.