TAAI proposes ‘India Specialist’ programme to MOT

Sunil Kumar, President of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) has revealed that the association has met and proposed to the Ministry of Tourism in Delhi to create a specialist programme for India for its inbound and domestic tour operator members. He said, “We have suggested to the MOT to create a programme called ‘India Specialist’ for our members like we have done for other countries like Turkey and South Africa. We have spoken to the Tourism Secretary Vinod Zutshi about this. We will send a detailed white paper proposal to the ministry and expect an agreement and confirmation to follow once the government has approved the programme. Since TAAI is the only travel trade association with 20 regional units with over 2300 members, we will be able to train around 2,000 agents and operators at one go. We want to launch this in a few months as government procedures take time. We have to set up the curriculum for this and invite the MoT to extend their blessings to us and certify this programme.” He added that TAAI will launch this in phases.