Category Archives: Associations

The IATO members today have voted a new team to power for term 2021-23 during the election process conducted physically in New Delhi. Rajiv Mehra, Uday Tours & Travels has been elected as the new President while EM Najeeb, Air Travel Enterprises was voted again as the Senior Vice President of the association. Ravi Gosain, Erco Travels, is the new Vice President. Rajnish Kaistha,  Paradise Holidays India has been elected as the Honorary Secretary while Sunil Mishra, Cosmos Tours & Travels is the new Treasurer. Sanjay Razdan, Razdan Holidays will be the new Joint Secretary of the association. The voting was also conducted for the positions of  Executive Members in both active and allied category. A total of 322 votes were casted out of 352. The new EC Members are: Active: Deepak Bhatnagar, Aamantran Travel Company Manoj K Matta, Oriental Vacations & Journeys Harish Mathur, Concord Travels & Tours Tony Marwah, Indian Travels Promotion Company Vishal Yadav, Incredible Destination Management Service Allied:  P Vijayasarathy, Benchmark Hotels Zia Siddiqui, Alliancec Hotels & Resorts Ashok Dhoot, Harsh Travels The returning officer for the election was Homa Mistry of Trail Blazer Tours India.

The Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG), has suggested to the Pramod Sawant, Chief Minister of the state, to allow chartered flights in the state from ‘safe destinations’ under an ‘air bubble’ agreement to boost tourism. In a memorandum, they have suggested to form travel bubbles with Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, other CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries, the UK, Poland and Finland for commercial flights.

FHRAI has written to Home Minister Amit Shah and Minister of Health & Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan,  and has requested for recognition of hospitality workers in the country as ‘Frontline Corona Warriors’ and be nominated for priority vaccination. In its letter, FHRAI stated that hotels and restaurants across the country provided their support to the Government by offering rooms for housing quarantined passengers, doctors, health workers and the police, among others while restaurants served over 3 lakh meals per day to the needy.

FHRAI has initiated #GoDirect campaign requesting patrons to book their hotel stays #BookDirect or order their food directly from restaurants #OrderDirect. This is in order to eliminate intermediaries and reduce the burden of exorbitant commissions levied by online travel aggregators (OTAs) and food service aggregators (FSAs).

KB Kachru, Vice President, Hotel Association of India, has shared that they have created state chapters so that they can deal both at central level and state level. “We realised that we needed to have a better voice and we needed to be significant enough to make a difference. Keeping that in mind, we felt that we needed to deal both at central level and state level. Hence, we decided that in order to expand, we need to get more quality products, respective to the segment, whether it’s luxury hotels, first-class hotels, mid-market hotels, or good economy hotels, and make them part of us, so that we have right numbers and then work towards getting our due from different states because all of them have different policies. Hence, we established state chapters in different states,” he said.

TAFI’s national elections have been indefinitely postponed as its MP Chapter is yet to conduct its elections. Pradip Lulla, Acting President and VP, TAFI, says, “The MP chapter election has been delayed. It was to be held on Feb 3, however, now the matter is sub judice and the person who was disqualified has gone to court. The court hearing for is on Feb 25 in Indore.”

FHRAI has written to the Finance Minister requesting to enhance the threshold limit for zero GST for hotel room tariffs from the present Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 per room per day. As per the association, the move will boost stays in the lower budget segment, which in turn will encourage more domestic travellers to venture out.

Sharing his goals, if elected as the President of IATO, Lally Mathews, representing Team for Change said IATO should have representation from different regions & states in the decision making the process of the EC. “If elected, the priority would be to amend the constitution for inclusive participation of regional chapters. We need to empower regions and make them part of the decision-making process,” he said.

TAAI has announced that it will conduct its Tourism Conclave this year at the Statue Of Unity in Kevadia, Gujarat from March 9 to March 12, 2021. It is being organised in association with Gujarat Tourism. TAAI will announce more details about the event such as focus, speakers and theme soon. The venue had recently hosted the ADTOI annual convention.

Reiterating that IATO has always been and will always remain a national apex body of the industry, Rajiv Mehra, contesting for the IATO President from the Team Moving Forward in the upcoming IATO Elections on 6th March said that it’s wrong to say that IATO is a Delhi-centric association. “For some years now, we have had chairmen of our chapters across the country who have been very active. Plus, there are Regional Chapter Chairmen in all regions. All are equally involved and doing their job wonderfully. When the notice for elections goes out, every member is entitled equally to volunteer, to participate, to nominate themselves, No one has ever stopped anyone from any part of the country from being part of the election process. So it is very wrong to say IATO is Delhi centric. We very pan India in everything we do,” he said. “Change for the sake of change is very easy and also very dangerous. I and my team are very experienced and committed to serving IATO members. My team has individuals who over the years have made very good relationships and understanding with various Government bodies be it the Ministry of Tourism, Commerce, Finance, Civil Aviation. Besides this, we also enjoy very good relations with bodies like FICCI, CII, PHD etc. We have the full understanding of issues being faced by all of us and we promise to deliver. I am confident of this,” he further said. Sharing more inputs, Mehra said, “We have already shared the highlights of our efforts and achievements by email to the entire active membership. You can gauge our capabilities from the glimpses of our document. Equally, you can assess our …