Category Archives: Associations

Jyoti Mayal, President, TAAI and Member Board – CII National Committee on Tourism and Hospitality, on behalf of the travel trade fraternity, submitted its inputs and recommendations to Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce & Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution at the 3rd edition of DPIIT – ASCON Consultation Forum with Industry Associations’ theme ‘Stimulating Growth for Aatmanirbhar Bharat -Leveraging Opportunities Post Pandemic’. The six key recommendations were collated into a presentation under Investments, Cost of doing business, Ease of doing business, Trade Policy, Technology & R&D & Job creation & Skills. Some of the key recommendations by the committee are: Inclusion of Tourism in Concurrent list. The National Tourism Policy has had multiple deliberations, but a revised policy is still awaited. Waiver of statutory dues and licenses. ECLGS 5.0 for disbursing another 20% on outstanding loans. Govt. to restore SEIS to 7% for travel and 5% for hotels & to restore without legal entity wise capping of 5 crores. Auto-renewal of licenses without any fees for this financial year. Enabling investments in the industry in a time-bound manner through single-window clearances. Promote travel spending LTA Tax Exemption and Allow a 200 per cent weighted exemption. Need of National Tourism Fund to be created. An empowered Taskforce to be created with members from the Industry, Ministry of Commerce, Tourism, Environment, Shipping, Civil Aviation and Culture. To restart scheduled international flights in tandem with tourist visas to stimulate inbound tourism & necessary provision to be made in the new Foreign Trade Policy 2021-26 for custom duty waiver. Opening up tourism by starting e-visa, through Vaccine certificates & promoting India as a Safe Tourist Destination. Campaigns to attract young …

Objecting to gross misstatements and inadequate disclosures contained in the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) issued by Oravel Stays (Oyo), FHRAI has made an official submission to SEBI to suspend its IPO process. Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, FHRAI, says, “The investigation by the Competition Commission of India is a serious one. To our understanding, there has not been a single instance where a company being investigated for anti-competitive practices by the Director General of the CCI has been permitted to initiate an IPO.”

Travel Agents Federation of India – Gujarat Chapter has written to the Ahmedabad Airport Director regarding an announcement made for Ahmedabad runway repair from 3 January 2022 to 31 May 2022 from 9am to 6pm excluding public holidays and Sundays. The latter states, ‘We propose that this repair and maintenance work if possible should be executed in night hours from 10pm to 5am starting from March 2022 with a short completion period. We seek your immediate support to make these changes happen and save the tourism industry from losing its current pace.’  

According to new research from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the recovery of the sector has been hampered by the lack of international coordination, severe travel restrictions and slower vaccination rates in some parts of the world which still hamper many regions of the world. The research reveals that at the current rate of recovery, Travel & Tourism’s contribution to the global economy could see a similar moderate year on year rise of 31.7% in 2022.

A delegation from TAAI was present at the inaugural ceremony of IITM in Bengaluru. Bettaiah Lokesh, Hon. Secretary General, TAAI, said, “TAAI wishes to congratulate the organisers of IITM for extending the invite to TAAI for attending the ceremony. We are delighted to be a part of such an amazing event.” Amish Desai, Chairman, TAAI Karnataka Chapter, added, “We would like to thank the Hon’ble Minister for gracing the occasion with his presence. We are looking forward to early revival of the sector with such positive steps.”

Senior officials from the ATOAI Team met with the Tourism Minister, Shri G. Kishan Reddy on 19th October to discuss the various possibilities of the promotion of adventure tourism in the country. ATOAI requested the Minister to give special focus to the promotion of adventure tourism in overseas and India in all MoT Campaigns. The Minister has assured full cooperation to the association for the same. ATOAI also presented the Indian Adventure Tourism Guidelines booklet to the Minister and requested him to push all the States and the Union Territories to adopt the guidelines officially and follow them in letter and spirit.

Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO, has said that with the reinstating of visas they have requested for reinstating airport passes. “Another issue we have taken up with the Government is the restoration of airport passes because when tourist traffic starts, people will start coming. Hence, our airport passes need to be restored immediately. We are in touch with the Government for the same. Also, they have reduced the number of passes per company, which we will cope with currently, but take it up once business comes back. We are in talks for all these issues and I am hopeful that by November 15, some of these major issues are sorted out,” he shared.

A delegation of TAAI Gujarat Chapter met Naved Desai, Ahmedabad Airport Manager. In the meeting, they suggested to have advance token system of Rapid test for those who wanted to travel to Dubai. They also asked to share airport resurfacing plan to some professional agency to avoid frequent runway closure, which badly affect travel schedule. The TAAI delegation also suggested to form one advisory committee with a representative of travel trade also. Desai gave assurance to action on most of the requests and informed of major expansion of Ahmedabad Airport in phased manner.

Paras Lakhia, Managing Committee Member and Chairman, Airlines Council, TAAI represented the travel trade fraternity in a meeting on Ministry of Civil Aviation’s draft ‘Heli-Tourism Policy’. In the meeting, he said that Heli business may pick up fast if Aerial tours at Tourist destinations could be started on priority so that travellers and visitors may see the entire place in limited time. His suggestions in the meeting included inviting players to foray into the vertical of Heli Tourism & emphasis was given on the need of developing Heli infrastructure at the same pace as developing airports & seaports. He also mentioned that all-important religious and hill station destinations especially where road journey is tedious but are well visited and popular should be facilitated with Heli service from its nearest airport or seaport. This includes destinations & routes, such as Hampi, Coorg, Kevadia, Munnar, Goa, Udaipur to Nathdwara, Delhi to Agra, Bengaluru to Mysore, Srinagar to Gulmarg & many more.

Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO, has shared that e-Tourist visa website has been opened for foreigners, for 30 day validity, which will be counted in the free 5 lakh visa granted by GoI. However, he said that e-visa for UK and Canada has still not been opened, and they still need to apply for paper visa. In addition, the Government should also start scheduled international flights.