TAFI Western India launches credit facility scheme with IHCL

The Western India Chapter of the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) became the first association chapter to initiate a joint bank guarantee scheme for its members for hotels. It has started the pilot project with India Hotels Company Limited (IHCL). Abbas Moiz, Chairman, TAFI (Western India), said, “TAFI has signed an agreement for credit facility for small and mid-sized agents on the lines of a joint bank guarantee arrangement. With this, mid-sized agents will be able to get credit from IHCL for their domestic hotels for booking of up to eight rooms. This is a pilot that IHCL is running with the Western Indian Chapter of TAFI. It could be a new stream of income or business for agents. It is like getting recognition directly from the hotel rather than going through a third party aggregators or online portals. You are now getting a chance to create an identity for yourself and building a relationship with them with a very good arrangement and at a very good price.”
Moiz adds that while some of them are already booking the hotel directly, this way offers a bit of leeway and extends a credit facility for at least for a month as long as they don’t cross that slab. “It allows you to pay through a centralised billing and accounting is not an issue here. It has its advantages and that is why we thought of offering this to our members,” he says.