Tag Archives: Harmandeep Singh Anand

The Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) witnessed 650 pre-registrations on its first day in Lucknow. The inaugural lamp was lit in the presence of Sunil Satyawakta, Chairman, TAAI UP Chapter; Vivek Pandey, President, TTAUP; M Shoeb, President, TAFCA; Manish Marwah, Director-Sales, Indigo; SMA Sheeraz, Managing Director, Sheeraz Tours and Yogesh Aggarwal, Manager-Sales, Oman Air. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, said, “The numbers speak for themselves; 650 is a great number to begin with in Lucknow. The industry is accepting what we are offering at GPS. GPS. The exhibition is more of an opportunity for future endeavours.”  

The Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) in Chandigarh recorded around 400 attendees on the first day. Attendees engaged with the exhibitors during B2B sessions on an activity-filled day. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, said, “With our third year of GPS Chandigarh, we are bringing in new products to bring awareness amongst the attendees coming from Karnal, Jalandar, Ludhiana, Solan, Shimla, Jaipur, Ambala, Ferozpur, etc.” Charanjiv Singh Bachhar, Deputy Head of Mission, British Deputy High Commission Chandigarh, who presided over as the chief guest, said, “GPS in Chandigarh caters to the entire northern region like Punjab, Haryana and the hill states. The show also adds to the awareness of people travelling to the UK. We hope to see more such events in Chandigarh and the surrounding areas.”

The Hyderabad edition of Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) will be conducted from June 28-30. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, announced the new dates at the first edition of GPS this year in Nagpur, which is going on till January 17. Hyderabad is the latest city to host GPS this year, taking the total count of the cities to eight. The event is dedicated towards Tier-II, and Tier-III cities in the country to empower agents in these cities.

At the sixth edition of Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) Nagpur two new products will be launched—RainbowCTM and Trip38—informs Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS. A new membership card ‘GPS 10X Membership’ will also be launched at the show. The card will allow its holders to avail discounts on various products and services across India. “This will be a virtual card which would not be required to be carried physically but will be stored on the cardholder’s smart phones. Currently, GPS has a following of over 15,000 travel professionals across India and this would be a good opportunity for hotels, restaurants and FMCG industries to offer discounts to the GPS members. Those enrolling for GPS membership will have a full year access to the GPS App at no additional cost. All new tie-ups, offers and benefits would be available to the registered members. Exhibitors not only in India but overseas will also be able to promote their services and products to the Indian travel trade through the App and through the RainbowCTM platform. Trip38 would be a travel assistant tool for the agent’s client database,” says Anand.

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) has revealed its final nominee list for its upcoming national elections. Running for presidency are three members – Harmandeep Singh Anand, Marzban Antia, present Vice President of TAAI, and current national president Sunil Kumar. Two nominees for the Vice President position are Jay Bhatia who is currently serving as TAAI’s Honorary Treasurer and Tourism Council Chairman and Sanjay Narula. Running for the position of Honorary Secretary General are two members: Lokesh Bettaiah, current Secretary General, and Jyoti Mayal, Member of the Managing Committee. Two members have signed up as nominees for the position of Honorary Treasurer. One of them is Shreeram Patel, current Co-Chairman, Airline Council, TAAI, and Imtiaz Qureshi, who is a MC member. The national elections will be held on November 28, 2017 at The Lalit Mumbai.

Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) is all set to present itself to a new city in its next edition—Hyderabad. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, revealed, “We are taking GPS to a new city in 2018 and we will be having GPS Hyderabad from February 8-11, 2018. The venue still needs to be decided. With this new addition, GPS 2018 will be held in a total of eight cities around India.”

Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) has launched a new vertical, a first of its kind – Educational Destination Workshop-International (EDWIN), in order to offer education and first-hand experience of various destinations across the globe to the travel agents and tour operators from Tier-II and Tier-III cities. The first workshop will take place in Ladakh from October 11-16. The workshops will be exclusively available to the attendees (exhibitors/ buyers) of GPS 2017 at any of the six cities on first-come-first-serve basis, informs Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, Global Panorama Showcase. He says, “These workshops are not familiarisation trips and are intended for educational purposes. The aim is to give first-hand experience of the destination to the tour operators and help them add new destinations to their product portfolio so that they can diversify their offerings for the travellers. There is a highly subsidised registration fee of Rs. 17,000 per person, which includes airfare ex Delhi; accommodation on twin sharing basis; meals; sightseeing and transfers and ground handling.” Singh further adds that the participants will be given an EDWIN Destination Specialist certification upon completion of the workshop. The upcoming destinations under EDWIN include Bali, Zanzibar and Malaysia, and many more are in the pipeline.

With a 150 per cent growth in registrations in comparison to last year, GPS Chandigarh managed to outdo itself in this Tier-II city by some margin. “We received nearly 1000 registrations for GPS Chandigarh this year and with the excellent quality of buyers we have brought in, the number of exhibitors saw a growth of 30 per cent, registering 80 exhibitors over 50 exhibitors in the last edition,” revealed Harmandeep Singh Anand, Founder, Global Panorama Showcase (GPS). The show received over 600 buyers over the two days of the B2B session.  One of the key features of GPS this year was the paperless format, which was introduced last year but perfected this year. The use of technology in conducting a major business show like this was very well received by the trade present in Chandigarh who heralded it as a revolutionary and futuristic concept. The exhibitors were especially happy with the quality buyers that the show provided them from key market areas such as Punjab, J&K, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh etc apart from local buyers from Chandigarh. The next stop for GPS this year is Kolkata which will be held from July 27-29, 2017 and is expected to bring to the fore vast tourism offerings from the eastern wing of the country.

The second leg of this year’s GPS starting July 13 will bring with it another unique programme. Announcing this is Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, says, “We have started working with international tourism boards to do an educational workshop for travel agents starting this September-October. Titled ‘GPS Educational Destination Workshop – International’ (EDWIn), it will involve interested agents signing up to travel to a particular international destination to learn about the country at a highly subsidised participation fee.” GPS has already tied up with Singapore Airlines as its international airline partner as well as Genting HK. It is also in talks with various NTOs including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea, UAE, Egypt, Turkey and Greece. GPS will soon launch a similar programme for domestic destination in partnership with various state boards. Agents are requested to register for the same at GPS will shortlist about 20-25 travel agents from each city that GPS travels to. The selection will be based on their level of participation, the number of meetings they do, their level of networking and the amount of business or leads they generate during GPS shows. Anand explains further, “They also have to attend all presentations and sessions. These agents will be chosen to attend these educational workshops that we will conduct in association with the tourism boards. The visits will include hotel inspections, meeting local DMCs and travel agents from that destination and doing activities that they can include in their itineraries. It will turn out to be very cost-effective for them. This will be open only to tier II and tier III travel agents as they are the ones who don’t get enough exposure to …

Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) was inaugurated on January 20, 2016, at Hotel Centre Point, Nagpur in the presence of Satinder S. Ahuja, Honorary Counsul, Consulate of Georgia, Marzban Antia, Vice President, TAAI, Ankush Nijhawan, MD, Nijhawan Group, and SanJeet, Vice Chairman, PATA India and MD, DDP Group, among other dignitaries. Harmandeep Singh Anand, Co-founder, GPS and MD, Jagsons Travels, informed that 108 exhibitors showcased their various products and offerings for the Tier II and Tier III markets. The event was attended by over 600 buyers. “If we see the multiplier effect, then approximately for 108 exhibitors and 1,000 buyers, 100,000 meetings can be done. This is a huge number. We have witnessed 99 per cent success in terms of exchange of e-cards.” The GPS mobile application launched for the 5th edition has been a huge success, Anand informed adding that the application is undergoing constant upgrade. He informed that to facilitate live feed and news, TravTalk will be integrated in the application. In the upcoming events, video conferencing facilities will also be made available to the attendees. “The buyers and exhibitors can maintain the database and keep in touch even after the show. All data can be found at one marketplace which will bring together the big and small service providers as well as all kinds of travel agents and tour operators in the Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Vidarbha a region” he added. He further informed that five per cent of the profit from GPS this year will be contributed to Dr. Amit Samarth, a doctor by profession but a sports and fitness promoter in India, in order to fund his endeavour to compete in race across America challenge in 2017. …