Category Archives: Associations

Finnair, the flagship carrier for Finland, has joined the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA). Dr. Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA said, “We are extremely pleased to welcome Finnair to the PATA family as our newest aviation member and the first Nordic airline to join in recent years. The airline is not only a leader in sustainable practices but also in pioneering new technologies such as testing face recognition technology for use by travellers when checking in for flights departing from Helsinki airport.” “Finnair is proud to join PATA, as Finnair’s growth strategy is strongly linked to the Asia & Pacific region. We want to further develop our business and intensify the ties between us and important local tourism authorities, associations and regional/local companies,” states Juha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer and Executive Board Member at Finnair.  

Various national travel trade associations in the country are rushing to conduct workshops on GST for their members and inform them on how the tax structure will impact their business. The Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) has organised a seminar with noted Service Tax expert, Manish Gadia, Partner, GMJ & Co to talk on Service Tax and GST and to reply to member queries. The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has also conducted a speaker session on GST. Following close on its heels will be the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI). Revealing this is Jay Bhatia, National Treasurer and Chairman (Tourism Council), TAAI, who said that the association will be doing a series of workshops on Service Tax and GST along with consultant Manish Gadia across the country.

Realising the potential of the Indian wedding industry, FICCI organised the first-ever Wedding Tourism Summit at The Lalit to give impetus to the booming segment. The gathering was welcomed by Dr Jyostna Suri, Past President, FICCI and Chairperson – FICCI Tourism Committee. Also present at the inauguration were Ajay K Sharma, Deputy Director – Tourism, Govt of Rajasthan, along with Siddharth Chaturvedi, CEO, Eventcrafter and Secretary, EEMA. The Wedding Tourism Summit will conclude on May 26, 2017. The two-day summit gives buyers and suppliers an opportunity to interact and explore potential business opportunities under one roof and also address issues and concerns pertaining to the wedding segment. Suri said, “Weddings not only benefit the hotels where the events take place, but also the destination as well as ancillary services like florists, caterers etc. We need to tap countries like UK where there are many tourists looking for good destinations to get married in and what better place than India, with its historic hotels and other sites. The objective of this platform is to create a bigger awareness of India and the various destinations as a sought-after wedding location.” Suman Billa, Joint Secretary – Tourism, Govt of India delivered the inaugural address where he stated, “If we want to achieve our target of attaining 2 per cent of global international tourist arrivals into India by 2025, we need to address all segments that have the potential to grow, and weddings is definitely one of them. People who come for weddings stay longer and spend more so there is a need for us to come up with a game plan on what we need to do to promote it. We need to look …

Langkawi is the venue for PATA Travel Mart 2018 (PTM 2018) with the signature Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) event being hosted by Tourism Malaysia and Langkawi Development Authority. The announcement was made by the Association’s CEO Dr. Mario Hardy during the PATA Annual Summit in Negombo, Sri Lanka on May 21. Dr. Hardy said, “Tourism Malaysia and Langkawi Development Authority have been a valuable PATA member and partner since 1959 and 2017 respectively and we look forward to the opportunity of showcasing the culture, heritage and beauty of Langkawi. Delegates to PTM 2018 will experience one of Asia’s most remarkable and attractive destinations.” Tourism Malaysia Director General, Datuk Seri Mirza Mohammad Taiyab said, “Malaysia is proud and honoured to be given the opportunity to host another PATA event again, this time in the beautiful island of Langkawi. We are pleased to be co-hosts of PATA Travel Mart 2018 with Langkawi Development Authority and look forward to welcoming all PATA members to Malaysia for a fruitful and memorable meeting and networking session.”

As per the March 2017 UNWTO barometer, India’s rank among International Tourist Arrivals in both 2014 and 2015 has bumped up to 24th compared to the previous rank of 41st and 40th, respectively. This is due to the inclusion of data regarding Non Residential Indian Arrivals allowing the comprehensive evaluation of India’s rank taking into account all factors. As per the UNWTO definition, International Tourist Arrivals (ITAs) comprises of two components namely Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) and Arrivals of Non-Resident Nationals. The UNWTO then ranks countries based upon this measure. Earlier India only compiled data on FTAs but recently has started to collect the data of Non Residential Indian arrivals. The number of ITAs in India during 2014 and 2015 were 13.11 million and 13.28 million, respectively. The number of NRI arrivals during 2014 and 2015 were 5.43 million and 5.26 million, respectively. The addition of this data is what led to the massive leap in India’s ranking. A significant jump has also been noticed in India’s rank in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index [TCCI]. India has closed down 12 places and has shifted from a rank of 52nd in 2015 to 40th in 2017.

The Association of Tourism Trade Organizations India (ATTOI) is organising an International Conference on Tourism Technology (ICTT) at the Le Meridien Kochi from June 8 to 10 with support from Kerala Tourism. ATTOI has been pushing for more travel and hospitality industry stakeholders in India to use technology to support and grow their businesses. Anish Kumar P.K, President, ATTOI, says, “Conventional tour operators, especially in India, may think online customer reviews and ratings or being present on the internet is secondary to their business, but they need to realize the impact that digital platforms are having on the decisions Indians make on holiday travel. If your website does not show up in Google searches, if you are not on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, or responding to customer reviews on TripAdvisor and MyTourReview, you may be losing out on large volumes of business.” ATTOI has created a platform exclusively for costumer reviews for tour operators called MyTourReview. Anish Kumar adds, “The ICTT is a chance for travel businesses to learn from the experiences of people who have benefited tremendously from taking the technology route. Your consumers are not just sitting behind computers, they are making their searches on tablets and smartphones, so you need to make your presence felt on all devices.” He said the future of travel is certainly digital, and ATTOI is maximizing its use of technology, for instance in using live streaming as a promotional campaign tool for the upcoming second edition of ICTT. In December last year, ATTOI, as a curtain raiser to an international conference, organised a live streaming of an underwater engagement to showcase beach resorts as a unique offering of Kerala Tourism. Over …

The 105th session of the UNWTO Executive Council, meeting in Madrid, Spain, on 12 May 2017, recommended Zurab Pololikashvili, Ambassador of Georgia in Spain, as a nominee for the post of Secretary-General for the four-year-period starting January 2018. The candidature of Zurab Pololikashvili was presented by his country, Georgia, in accordance with the UNWTO statutes. The recommendation of the UNWTO Executive Council will be submitted to the upcoming 22nd UNWTO General Assembly for ratification (September 11-16, 2017, Chengdu, China). Pololikashvili is the Permanent Representative of Georgia to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). He also has broad experience of working in both private and public sectors at high-profile positions. He has extensive diplomatic experience, having represented Georgia to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), as well as serving as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Spain. He also held a position of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2006.

PATA India Chapter’s Secretary Jatinder Taneja has been elected to PATA(HQ) Industry Council Member for the term 2017-19 and PATA India Treasurer Vikram Madhok, is heading the council in the capacity of Chairman, Industry Council. A travel enthusiast himself, Taneja is the Managing Director and moving force behind TSI- Luxury Holidays. A Post Graduate, gifted with strong business acumen, he has continued to keep miles ahead of the competition by emphasizing on well planned, focused business strategy and by offering value added services to the customers.

Policy leaders, statisticians, academicians and private sector will convene in Manila, The Philippines, from June 21-24, 2017, to discuss new methodologies to measure the full impacts of tourism. The 6th edition of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) International Conference on Statistics, an official event of the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development 2017, will address the topic of ‘Measuring Sustainable Tourism’. Supported by the United Nations Statistics Division, the UNWTO initiative ‘Towards a Statistical Framework for Measuring Sustainable Tourism’ (MST) underlines the need to measure the full effects of the tourism sector. The UNWTO International Conference to be held in Manila will serve as a platform to discuss the first draft of the MST framework and its future implementation. The Philippines has become a reference in the region with regard to tourism measurement and a role model in the development of effective inter-institutional collaboration to develop tourism statistics. The commitment of the country, shown in the development of the Tourism Satellite Account framework, explains the decision to host the discussion on the MST initiative. A Ministerial Roundtable will inaugurate the Conference in order to align efforts to advocate among governments the relevance of integrated and reliable data to manage and promote a more sustainable tourism sector. Afterwards, a Panel of Statistical Institutes will provide the opportunity to share experiences and practices implemented at global, regional and national level. Other technical sessions will focus on understanding data demands, the link between the economic, the environmental and the social dimensions of sustainable tourism, including job creation, sub-national measurement, Sustainable Development Goals  (SDGs) indicators, and data sources including big data. Besides policy leaders, statistical experts and private sector, representatives from international organizations …

Travel Agents Association of India – Northern Region (TAAI-NR) welcomed Cristina Ionela Tarteata, Deputy Minister, Tourism, Government of Romania and H.E. Radu Octavian Dobre, Charge d’affaires, Romanian Embassy in New Delhi, to present the destination to its members. The minister made a small presentation at the event, and said that they want Indians to consider Romania as a destination of choice for leisure as well as business travels. She also answered questions by the TAAI-NR members and urged them to promote Romania in their itineraries. Before the presentation, TAAI-NR team, presided by Chairman Rajan Sehgal also held its members’ meet and updated members about what the association is doing.