Tag Archives: imai

The Ministry of Tourism (MOT) held a virtual conference with the tourism and hospitality sector associations of the industry recently, which was led by Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary Tourism, MOT, along with senior officials of the Ministry. The Associations represented through remote conferencing were FAITH, CII, FICCI, PHDCCI and IMAI. The industry put forth a number of ideas and suggestions for tiding over the crisis created by COVID-19 in the sector of tourism and hospitality. The Ministry on its part shared the concerns and assured the associations that the government is very much with them in this grim hour and that they would work towards the suggestions put forth. There would be a lot of thrust on promoting domestic tourism was a common takeaway. MOT is using its social handles to create awareness of the need to stay at home safe in the period of lockdown and prepare to travel once the world opens up. In the meantime, the course modules of the Institutes of Hotel Management are being held online and faculty and students are using technology to remain abreast with their course curriculum.

The Ministry of Railways is considering barring private vendors and agents from booking train tickets for passengers. Railways Minister Piyush Goyal has said that they are no longer needed when tickets can be booked by anyone on a mobile. “I think vendors and private agents are not needed, those who need help in buying tickets can go to “common service centres” which are run by the government,” he said in Lok Sabha, adding that he was considering barring them. Reacting to this, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) in a letter to the minister said that the proposal will affect employment generated by over 3 lakh agents network and also the revenue of IRCTC. “We would like to highlight that there are more than 100 service providers offering these services through 3,00,000 agent networks. The closure of their services will not only impact the investments are done and employment generated by these agents but will also affect the revenue of IRCTC, as there are many people in India who need assistance for booking the tickets,” Subho Ray, President, IAMAI said in the letter. IAMAI urged the minister to postpone the discussion on abolition of the service provider system of IRCTC considering the current situation around coronavirus which requires social distancing.