Tag Archives: Harmandeep Singh Anand

With the impending peak season, Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, Jagsons Travels, says that to avoid last-minute rush for visas and prevent visa shopping, travel agents must guide their clients on when to apply for visas, depending on the country their wish to travel to. “Every year during peak season there is a lot of traffic for European destinations and Indian travellers tend to decide their holidays very last minute and expect their visas within a short span of time. However, visa as such has never been a problem if one applies in advance. Most of the embassies have increased their time when you can apply for a visa. For instance, you can apply for a Schengen visa as early as six months in advance! We see a lot of rush starting from March onwards. Next month will be super peak which leads to a lot of visa shopping. None of the European destinations had a challenge; they only had a restricted number of visa that would be issued. If you look at Italy, it has made it simpler in terms of repeat visitors to Schengen territory in the last eight years where they have opened up additional appointment slots. So agents must guide their clients in terms of applying for visas,” he shares.

Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, Jagsons Travels, says, “We have invested heavily in the business in order to promote niche products. This way, our partners in tier cities also benefit. We are educating and empowering the travel trade in these cities through our GPS.”  

Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, has revealed that in 2023 GPS will be held in person across 13 cities covering all major Tier-2 & Tier-3 cities. It will be held in Kolkata (19-20 Jan), Bhubaneswar (24-25 Jan), Nagpur (13-14 Feb), Lucknow (20-21 Feb), Chandigarh (28 Feb-1 Mar), Pune (24-25Mar), Ahmedabad, Kochi, Visakhapatnam, Indore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Guwahati. “We expect attendance of over 10000 travel professionals from more than 800 towns and cities of India. In addition, value add Registered Exhibitors will have the opportunity to stay connected year-round with all attended and registered buyers through the GPS-CONNECT Hybrid platform virtually as well,” he said.

Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, Global Panorama Showcase, has announced that they will be doing the next edition of GPS from April 2022 in 16 cities, covering 4 cities in each quarter. “The events will be physical and depending on the participation, it will be for one day in most cities, and in certain cities it will be for two days. The same GPS format will be followed, and the virtual platform is already there so that people can connect. There are almost 2000+ verified attendees, consisting of pan India buyers, who are registered, which is the USP of the GPs platform. The 16 cities will be the four metros–Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru; along with the 8 cities that were already there–Nagpur , Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Kochi, Pune; and we will be adding Jaipur, Indore, Guwahati and Visakhapatnam,” informed Singh. He added, “Pricing will also be according to the category of cities and audience we are targeting. We won’t be targeting 1000 agents per city now. Because of COVID, we will be restricting it to between 100-300 buyers per city. With more people expected in metros, the event would probably be split over two days. GPS would be a targeted event, where we want the decision makers to be present, and not anyone or everyone.”  

Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) has launched a one-year long virtual exhibition, called GPS Connect, for global exhibitors and buyers from across India, which will start in April. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, shares, “It’s a year-long platform, and one can come for one-day or as many days they prefer. This virtual platform can culminate into a hybrid and physical event in future as well, as an when we require. Also, it will not be limited to just Tier-II and III agents, but will have buyers from across India. We have a following of over 50,000 travel professionals and we are expecting at least 8000-10,000 of them to register for the same. The buyers just need to do one-time registration, whereas the exhibitors would be from around the globe. Meetings can happen without any fear of getting COVID, as no one needs to travel.”

Global Panorama Showcase has tied up with Airlines Technology by TWAI, to offer NDC (New Distribution Capability) by IATA to agents in India at an affordable price. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, says, “NDC technology is the new solution and is the new normal, and it will be very useful to more than 4,000 IATA agents.” To this, Trideep Aggarwal, Co-Founder and Director, Airlines Technology by TWAI, adds, “Last couple of years, airlines have been pushing for NDC which allows them to distribute new things which they were not being able to do earlier. At the end of last year, we were in discussion with Varun Bansal, the CEO of Airlines Technology, as we were looking for enhancing our product offerings by having NDC on our platform. At the beginning of this year, we acquired Airlines Technology, and since then we have been merging everything with our platform. We are one of the largest NDC aggregators in the world. As of now, there are about 19 airlines on our platform, and we will have around 23 by the end of this year.”

Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) will be held virtually across the world this year. GPS Virtual will be held at a global stage in July or August, instead of physically going to different Tier II, III cities because of the COVID-19 crisis. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, revealed that the event will be attended by around 10,000 people and that it will be an annual feature apart from the physical event, which will be further fine-tuned. “We have developed the technology to host the virtual event. In fact, we already had the tool in place. There will be around 200 exhibitors, which would come from India and across the world. The prices will be competitive and GPS members would also be benefit,” he shared.

The Global Panorama Showcase will go completely digital in 2020, with the first event of the year starting in Nagpur from January 27-28, 2020. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, said, “We had set a goal for ourselves to go completely green in 2020. This year, we will have only 70 table spaces, with a fixed format wherein the backdrop will be eco-friendly. Instead of using flex, we are giving 15-inch screens to everyone, wherein it will be a 4000 ultra HD TV where exhibitors can showcase anything through their smart tabs, phones, devices or laptop, whether it is wired or non-wired. Even the sticker or paint used in the exhibition area will be eco-friendly, reusable, or recyclable. We will go almost 90 per cent eco-friendly, as we are already paperless. In future, we will have water dispensers put for the exhibitors and provide them with copper bottles to be refilled to avoid any plastic waste. This will be followed in all the cities. Every city will have a maximum of 70 exhibitors in 2020 and we have to go green completely. There will be a total of 8 GPS events and 4 Eco Connect events. Additionally, there will be around 4-6 EDWINs like every year.”

After making its presence felt in the southern market with Hyderabad and western market with Ahmedabad, the bandwagon of Global Panorama Showcase has now moved to North India with the fourth edition of GPS Chandigarh. With a reinvented format, the organisers have concised the plan of the show from three days to two days. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Co-Founder & Managing Director, GPS, said that the same format will be followed in other GPS cities like Kolkata and Kochi, while the format followed in Ahmedabad will continue in Pune, keeping in mind the better understanding of markets in different cities. “With four new EDWIN programs this year, travel agents in Chandigarh have a chance to experience all four different destinations and learn more knowledge about them. Our core motto with EDWIN programs has always been to empower and educate the travel trade so that they can grow their business manifold. GPS will keep working hard to provide best networking opportunities to all the attendees,” Anand said further. Day 1 of the show started with GPS app workshop and announcement of EDWIN for year 2019, in destinations like Tanzania, Zanzibar and Ladakh. EDWIN on Jalesh Cruise is also in line, apart from Europe tour on coach by Red Tours and Europe tour by rail by Amigo Travels, in plans this year. Day 1 comprised product presentations and knowledge sessions by exhibitors throughout the day, followed by the welcome dinner in the evening. Day 2 of the show is totally dedicated to B2B meetings throughout the day, followed by gala dinner. GPS is hosting over 150 buyers from different places around Chandigarh for the show.  

Edwin UK concludes with the B2B networking event which included the northern England suppliers and the Indian Travel Trade from tier II and III cities. The event was successful with over 900 meetings. As they all were the owners/decision makers of the company, it was an eye opener session for the suppliers who met the Indian trade and understood more about the Indian market travel needs and food habits. Throughout the event, all the partners made sure the itinerary was designed as per the needs of the Indian clientele. Commenting on the occasion, Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, Global Panorama Showcase and Edwin, said, “We are happy with the outcome. Our target was met and it was achieved in a very short span of time. It was an elite programme and the partners VisitBritain, Marketing Manchester, Oman Air – Airline Partner and Trawelltag were all in full support of the event. We concluded with over 900 meetings today during B2B session.”