Tag Archives: ‎Vice President

KB Kachru, Vice President, HAI and Chairman Emeritus & Principal Advisor, South Asia Radisson Hotel Group, speaking at a recent interaction chaired by Minister of Tourism and Secretary, Tourism, said, “Given the local pull factor & ability of our domestic market combined with recent government policies, we can showcase our diversity to attract foreign investment.”

Ravi Gosain, Vice President, IATO, said that the tourism ministry should do overseas promotion immediately as we are sitting on an advantage when our neighbours are not doing well. positive publicity about India is the need of the hour.

KB Kachru, Chairman Emeritus & Principal Advisor, South Asia, Radisson Hotel Group (RHG) and Vice President, HAI, spoke at the 2nd International Conference on Hospitality and Tourism – Revival Strategies, and said that the industry needs to appreciate and boost the domestic tourism that has revived the sector after the pandemic. He also spoke about the need to be in touch with the market trends like staycation as it emerged with the onset of work from home.

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) will finally hold its much-delayed national elections on July 24, 2021 via e-voting conducted on the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) platform. The following nine posts are open for election: President, Vice President, National General Secretary, Treasurer and five posts for Managing Committee Members.

A number of FAITH association heads met with the new Cabinet Minister of Tourism, Culture and DoNER, G. Kishan Reddy and welcomed him on his taking over the charge in his office. The delegation comprised of Nakul Anand, Chairman, FAITH; Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO & Hony. Secretary FAITH, Jyoti Mayal,  President, TAAI & Vice Chairman FAITH, P.P. Khanna, President, ADTOI & Board Member FAITH; and Ravi Gosain, Vice President, IATO. Members of the delegation assured full support to the Minister for the revival of tourism and sought similar support from him. The Minister assured all his support to the industry.

Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) has requested Arun Singhal, CEO, Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) to extend the timeline to implement the mentioning of FSSAI License number on bills for FBOs on the backdrop of the pandemic’s impact to Hospitality businesses. The association says that it is in favour of the FSSAI’s latest order, which will help set up a robust customer grievance system in the country. “FHRAI appreciates the FSSAI’s endeavour to set up a robust customer grievance system in the country. This will also improve the overall awareness of FSSAI and its underlying objectives of creating a safe and hygienic ecosystem for FBOs. While this is a great initiative, it has to be taken into account that at present, the tourism and hospitality is the most impacted sector by the COVID19 pandemic. In all probabilities, it will be the last one to recover as well. During such times of deep crisis, the implementation of this order would entail a lot of additional expenses on businesses. Printing new receipts, invoices, bills, cash memos as well as updating software and PMS, among other ancillary activities will only burden the cash-strapped industry even more. Hence, we request the FSSAI to extend the timeline for implementation of the order until such time that some normalcy returns to the sector,” says Mr Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, FHRAI.

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.

Sharing his expectations on the impending Budget, Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, FHRAI, says, “We request Nirmala Sitharaman and Prahlad Singh Patel to bring tourism under the Concurrent List of the Constitution along with granting industry status to the hospitality sector. Lack of adequate support is impeding survival and revival efforts.”

Yossef Fatael, Vice President, UFTAA, has said that they have written to IATA that there is a need to renegotiate BSP agreement and structure. “We think that this is the time to renegotiate the agreement, the relationship, the structure of the BSP, as well as the way the relationship between the principal (airlines) and the agents is being governed. Our demand is to go back and discuss the governance of the programme and to make some urgent changes that will reflect all the weaknesses that we are experiencing during this crisis time,” he said while giving his presentation at UFTAA Mid-year Forum 2020 Part-2.

According to Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, FHRAI, the industry has witnessed a decline in revenues to the extent of 60-70 per cent as compared to the previous year’s figures. He says, “In stocks alone, the industry stocks have taken a beating of over 51 per cent. While retaining jobs of workers seems like a noble thing to do, job losses are inevitable. Almost 50 to 60 per cent of the total jobs are in danger if the sector is not revived.”