Category Archives: Associations

India Convention Promotion Bureau’s (ICPB’s) ninth Conventions India Conclave from Oct 13-15, 2016. It will be held in Leela Ambience, Gurgaon. Delhi is the partner state for the Convention. Its main aim is to promote Delhi as the Convention Capital of India. Chander Mansharamani, Vice Chairman, ICPB, says, “Our focus will be mainly on B2B. We are getting approximately 50 buyers from outside India and there will be approximately 200 Indian buyers who are the decision makers of  holding various conferences and exhibitions in India.” Mansharamani also informs that ICPB has identified ten states where it is planning to have chapters. The first one would be in Mumbai  with the Maharashtra government. He says, “ICPB likes to take that kind of area where we can go and bid for international conferences.”

The IATA Agents Association of India (IAAI) is all set to hold its convention — ICON 2016 — in November at New Delhi. The decision to hold the convention was unanimously taken at the National Management Committee Meeting of IAAI, which was held at Kochi, Kerala on July 22-23, 2016. This will be for the first time that Convention will be held in Northern India which is seen as the result of excellent growth and popularity of IAAI in the region. H S Chawla (Delhi) will be the Chairman of ICON 2016 Reception Committee. Jagdeep Bhagat (Delhi) is nominated to be the Convention Chairman, while VKT Balan (Tamil Nadu) and  Aveek Ghosh (Uttar Pradesh) have been nominated as Convention Co-Chairman. Vipin Chandra (Kerala),Madhav Reddy (Andhra Pradesh), Manish Synghal (Maharasthra), Tushar Jain, Vikas Arora, Sanjay Kumar Bhardwaj, Harish Verma from IAAI Northern Region will be part of the convention team.

The Ministry of Tourism conducted a joint discussion on July 22 with travel and hospitality associations to seek inputs and suggestions regarding the upcoming Incredible India Tourism Investor’s Summit, to be held at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, from September 21-23, 2016. Representatives of IATO, ADTOI, FAITH, PATA India Chapter, WTTC- India initiative, ITTA, ICPB, EIS, IHHA, and ESOI were present at the occasion. Vinod Zutshi, Secretary, Tourism, Government of India, sought support and suggestions of all the trade bodies for the event. He said, “The Incredible India Tourism Investors Meet is aimed at sensitising everyone. Though we are having a very high and tremendous growth in tourism arrivals, this growth needs a supply chain for better infrastructure. The ministry has decided to create an environment for investment and this is one such event, which will be led by MOT and we have Invest India on board and we have also requested the embassies of various countries. We are going to make it an annual event. We have also decided to make an investment cell which is going to continuously monitor everything about the investments. We seek cooperation of all the hospitality and travel associations and suggestions to get the right investors for the summit, right investment opportunities in the country, and also ways to move forward with the summit.”

India secured three Gold awards in the Marketing Media category of the 2016 PATA Grand and Gold Awards. The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) announced that Kerala Tourism will receive two Gold awards, one for the state’s tourism E-Newsletter and one for Visit Kerala’s Travel Advertisement Broadcast Media while SOTC’s Luxury Travel division Perfect Moments will receive the PATA Gold Award 2016 for the Consumer Travel Brochure. Dr. Mario Hardy, PATA CEO, commented, “This year’s winners exemplify the values of the Association in working towards a more responsible travel and tourism industry in the Asia Pacific region and we look forward to celebrating their accomplishments at the PATA Gold Awards luncheon and presentation at PATA Travel Mart 2016 in Indonesia.” To be held on September 9, 2016, during PATA Travel Mart 2016 in Greater Jakarta, this year’s awards recognise the achievements of 26 separate organisations and individuals.

The National Green Tribunal’s order to deregister diesel vehicles older than 10 years in Delhi and NCR will not have a major impact on tourism, says Krishan Dutt Yadav, President, Indian Tourist Transporters Association (ITTA). “There will be no significant impact on tourism with this ban as most of the taxis that we operate for tourists have a life of maximum nine years and are generally changed after five years. However the actual problem is the sluggish procedure for reissuance of national permits after five years. There is no clarification on the reissuance of these permits which leaves the taxis and heavy duty vehicles dysfunctional,” Dutt says. According to media reports, the NGT order to deregister diesel vehicles older than 10 years in Delhi and NCR could take away 70 per cent of the goods carriage fleet of the capital and nearly 90 per cent of its private chartered buses. Besides, around 11,500 buses would have to be deregistered. That’s 88% of the 13,000 diesel buses registered with the department. Earlier this year, the court had allowed diesel vehicle owners to get an NOC and dispose of their vehicles. However, whether this would still be applicable to the vehicles nearing 10 years or not needs to be clarified, officials said. According to figures with the transport department, there are 2.82 lakh diesel vehicles in Delhi which will be impacted by the NGT order. Of these, 1.61 lakh are private vehicles.

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) will be coming up with an web portal to provide an online selling platform to its members. Marzban Antia, Vice President, TAAI, said, “Small agents cannot afford a website or a travel portal. Hence, we at TAAI are forming a TAAI portal, under the proprietorship of the association, which will bring around 100-1000 agents together. When these many agents will be selling their products on that forum, it will certainly give a jerk to many existing OTAs. It’s in a very initial stage as of now, but once it is out it will empower many small agents.”

UNWTO forecasts international tourist arrivals to increase by 3.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent over 2016, in line with UNWTO’s long-term projection of 3.8 per cent growth a year for the period 2010 to 2020. Asia and the Pacific (+9%) recorded the highest growth in international arrivals across world regions in January-April 2016, according to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer. South-East Asia and Oceania both achieved 10 per cent growth, while arrivals in North-East Asia increased by 8 per cent and in South Asia by 7 per cent. Destinations worldwide received 348 million international tourists (overnight visitors) between January and April 2016, some 18 million more than the same period last year (+5.3%). This follows an increase of 4.6 per cent in 2015, and could make 2016 the seventh consecutive year of above-average growth, with international arrivals increasing by 4 per cent or more every year following the crisis in 2009. “Results show a strong desire to travel and this continues to drive tourism growth. Destinations keep benefitting from solid demand across all world regions despite ongoing challenges, showing that tourism is a dynamic and resilient economic sector,” said UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai. “Yet, despite these good results, the tragic events of recent months remind us that safety and security remain a major challenge for all. We must continue to work closely together to address this global threat and ensure tourism is an integral part of emergency planning and response at global, regional and national level,” added Rifai.

The Travel Agents Association of India has relaxed its rules for Active Category Membership and will be offering active membership to all IATA affiliated agents with or without having completed a year from the company operations. This was decided at the recently held TAAI Managing Committee Meeting, where it was discussed that in order to increase the Active Category Membership of our esteemed Association, prospective members who have got IATA can immediately apply for Active Category Membership With TAAI within one year itself and no need to complete one year from the company operations. According to a statement from TAAI, while applying for new Active Category Membership With TAAI, such members can attach the financial documents which they had submitted to IATA along with the other relevant documents pertaining to new membership.

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) held an interactive meeting with a number of airlines in New Delhi to address the issues of its members. The interactive meeting saw in attendance representatives from all the major airlines including Air India, Lufthansa, Emirates, Etihad, Malaysian Airlines, Thai Airways, Singapore Airlines, Oman Air, Air Cananda, Jet Airways as well as IATA and the GDS’s as well. TAAI, along with its members had put forth the issues like web parity; credit card acceptance, service tax, unethical practices by OTAs etc. and extended a hand to the airlines to come to a solution for these. Marzban Antia, Vice President, TAAI, said, “This being the inaugural meeting of TAAI with the airlines. After this we will have independent meetings with all of them. We at TAAI are being very aggressive and have taken a number of initiatives for our members, and this is another step in the direction of empowering our members.”

India is the fastest-growing business travel market in the world along with Indonesia and will average double-digit growth in business travel spending over the next five years, According to the GBTA BTI™ Outlook – Annual Global Report & Forecast, a new report released today by the GBTA Foundation, sponsored by Visa. However, at $291 billion, China has surpassed the United States as the largest business travel market in the world in 2015.