Tag Archives: Pradip Lulla

TAFI’s national elections have been indefinitely postponed as its MP Chapter is yet to conduct its elections. Pradip Lulla, Acting President and VP, TAFI, says, “The MP chapter election has been delayed. It was to be held on Feb 3, however, now the matter is sub judice and the person who was disqualified has gone to court. The court hearing for is on Feb 25 in Indore.”

TAFI is preparing to hold its elections in January 2021. Pradip Lulla, Acting President & VP, TAFI, says, “We will first hold all our chapter elections followed by our national elections around mid-January. While chapter elections could be held physically, the national committee election could either be virtual or through postal ballot.”

Sharing an update on the association’s elections, Pradip Lulla, Acting President & VP, TAFI, says, “We have just concluded all our Chapter and National AGMs. We are now looking to have our national elections early next year. We are still working on the modalities of it and looking at either doing a postal ballot or conducting it virtually using a software.”

Pradip Lulla, Vice- President, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), has said that they have postponed their elections, which were due this year. “We had an MC meeting recently, where we took a decision on our elections. Because of the pandemic, we have decided to postpone our elections. We will continue having our AGMs though.”

Pradip Lulla, Acting President and VP, TAFI, believes that there are no sops in this year’s Budget to boost the travel industry. “I hope that GST on services provided by travel agents at 18 per cent will be reviewed. Further, corporate tax reduction to 25 percentage is only on turnover of Rs 400 crore which excludes most of us! Also, double taxation on our tour pricing has been having a cascading on our costs making us uncompetitive. I hope that the industry receives some relief from the GST Council in future,” he said.

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has elected their new Managing Committee for 2018-20 term. Praveen Chugh from Business Travels has been chosen as the President unopposed. Pradip Lulla from Cupid Travels & Tours is the new Vice President, Aditi Bhende from Aarohan Tours & Travel is the new National General Secretary, while Jayesh Tharani, Hopco Travels, has been elected as the new treasurer. All the new office bearers and managing committee members have been elected unopposed. The Returning Officer for the election was Ashish Gupta – Founder, Strategy Pluto & Consulting and CEO, FAITH. The Managing Committee members include A Basheer Ahmed, Chennai Metro Travels; Rajat Bagaria, Shrishti Tours & Travels; Urvashi D Mohan, Delfly Travels; Bharat Shah, Sunbeams Travels, Baroda and TeddyM Thomas, Oasis Xpress Travel & Tours. Zakkir Ahmed, Trust Travel & Tours, remain part of the MC as immediate Vice President. The MC further appointed Rajat Bagaria as Joint Secretary and Teddy Thomas as Joint Treasurer. The MC also selected four members representing different regions of the Association— Abbas Moiz, Shoiz International Travel Services, Mumbai; Hitank Shah, Alka Airlink, Ahmedabad; S H Mohideen, Aero Travel Services, Chennai and Vijay Gupta, Golden Phoenix Travels, New Delhi.

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has decided to launch an online B2B marketplace for its members. Sharing more details of this, Pradip Lulla, Vice President, TAFI, says, “We are coming up with an online platform for our members and it is already under construction. The idea is to have a marketplace where you can buy and also sell products. On the back end, we will tie up with suppliers – domestic and international. Initially, we will have more focus on accommodation including hotels and home-stays, and the airline products will follow. It will also have a payment gateway and we are talking to different companies for providing the payment solutions.” Speaking about the criteria for such a partner, Lulla adds that the cost for transactions should be lower and it should also be seamless with multiple options for payment. “The site is ready and we are only integrating the back end right now. It is not live yet. We will be releasing a beta version shortly to test it out and remove any bugs. Getting our members on it will take some time but we should have it active within two months. The members will need a login and password,” Lulla says. The name of the portal has not been finalised yet.

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) is planning to organise a day-long symposium in Mumbai in the third or fourth week of February 2017. The symposium will focus on issues like e-visas for inbound traffic, visa challenges for outbound traffic from India, GST and other topics that the Union Budget will touch upon. Sharing more details, Pradip Lulla, Vice President, TAFI, said, “We will get experts to address our members who will be not from Mumbai but also from Pune and surrounding areas. We will also invite stakeholders like airlines and consulates. Topics are yet to be firmed up.” TAFI had conducted a similar symposium in New Delhi in October 2016 where it had also launched its new logo. “We want to replicate this in other metro cities as well and discuss topics that are relevant for that particular region,” Lulla added.

As part of its makeover plan, the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has announced that it will be organising at least two symposiums next year. Pradip Lulla, Vice President, TAFI, said, “We will have symposiums starting next year over and above our annual convention. One of our main objectives is to get on a digital platform where we can integrate our members. The Managing Committee is working on the details of the digital platform. We have already identified the platform but basic implementation needs to be firmed up. It will be confirmed by early next year. The symposium will discuss on how to improvise our existing Joint Bank Guarantee program. The convention details will be divulged by March 2017.” He added that TAFI is also looking at new ways of educating its members on how to do business better.

In anticipation of IATA’s new standardised reporting procedures worldwide, the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has agreed to participate in its pilot programme that will start from October this year. Four members (one from Delhi and Ahmedabad each and two from Mumbai) have agreed to be a part of it. Commenting on this, Pradip Lulla, Vice President, TAFI, said, “We are doing a pilot run on enhanced reporting for IATA and the participating agents will give their inputs once it is completed. IATA workshops will be held in different regions when they are introducing it in India where agents can come and understand the new reporting procedures.” He said that the new system of reporting will be simplified and more graphic. Everything else will remain the same. “It will help agents to have a better report, that’s all,” he said. This will be followed by workshops by IATA for its entire member base.