Tag Archives: Sampat Damani

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) Western Region Chapter has chosen Sameer Karnani, Director, Arunodaya Travels, and currently serving as the Secretary for the Chapter, as the new Chairman for the Western Region for the new term. Revealing this is Sampat Damani, current Chairman – Western Region, TAAI. “The election for the Western Region was conducted on July 24, 2017. Madhuri Kanga, Treasurer, TAAI – Western Region and myself have stepped down. Sameer Karnani has been elected as the new Chairman and Rajesh Poddar, has taken over as the Secretary. Dharmesh Shah of Dadyson Travels, will be the new Treasurer,” he says. He added that the national elections will be held around the third week of September 2017. He continues to serve as the Chairman of the region until the national elections are held, post which the new team will take over.

TAAI Western Region will sign an MoU with Malaysia Tourism on June 22, 2017 in Mumbai to offer training workshops to its members in the Western Region. The workshop is titled ‘Malaysia – Beyond KL’ and will be offered to frontliners and representatives of tour operators. The association also launched a concise booklet on Malaysia that features 1,001 packages and aims to serve as a ready-reckoner for agents who want to sell the destination. Sampat Damani, Chairman Western Region, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI)adds, “Fourteen states from Malaysia have worked out detailed packages in this booklet along with pricing. Agents just need to look at it.”

Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) hosted a session on Goods and Services Tax (GST) for its members in Mumbai. Service Tax expert CA Manish Gadia from GMJ & Co gave an insight on how GST will come into play. TAAI has initiated GST training sessions in cities such as Kolkata, Ahmedabad and now Mumbai. Revealing more is Jay Bhatia, Hon. Treasurer & Tourism Council Chairman, TAAI. “By June 30, we plan to complete these sessions in all the 20 cities across the country where TAAI is present. Subsequently by July-August we will have detailed session as the government gives more clarity on GST. Currently, we are not happy with the GST rates and we will be making representation through FAITH to the government which is definitely going to be reviewed by the government but as of now the current intention of the government is to implement GST from 1st of July. Once it is implemented we have assurance from the government that they will look into the issues faced by agents and take the right steps,” he said. Sampat Damani, Chairman – Western Region, TAAI, commented, “Although we received notifications from the government but still a lot of things are not clear. With GST being very complex we see tourism and hospitality industry getting a big hit. Like demonetisation we may see day to day changes by the government which will be a chaos for the next 6-8 months. We were supposed to go into a paperless scenario but here with 37 returns to be filed annually we are taking a step backward instead of going forward.”

Sampat Damani, Chairman Western Region, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), has urged members from the Western Region Chapter to come forward and file for nominations for the upcoming elections. He said, “The elections will be in July 2017 but the dates are not yet fixed. We will announce the last date for filing the nominations once we firm up the election dates.” Speaking about his term as the Chairmain for the region, Damani added, “I am grateful to my members of the region for the support they extended to me in my tenure. They are keen on me continuing for another term. But its time I moved out and made space for some young blood from our association. My earnest request to all members is to please come forward for the elections. Being part of the MC entails hard work but gives a lot of satisfaction of doing good work. It’s their chance to give something back to the association and the industry at large.” He also said that when his team took charge in 2015, TAAI Western Region had 375 members. “In this term, we added 22 members but also terminated 35 memberships because of inactivity. We now have interested and committed members. TAAI credentials means agents whom travellers can trust,” Damani added.