Sarabjit Singh, Vice Chairman, FAITH, reveals that tour operators are facing problems everywhere they need to pay higher amount, especially at interstate tolls, which has now been relaxed till Nov 11. “The denominations for 50 and 100 is not available in large numbers as of now. Paying monument fee turned out to be a big problem for tourists. Jaipur has made the entry complimentary for the monuments, and the same should be followed at other places. Either there should be alternate arrangements to deal with this problem, or there should be some relaxation until normalcy returns,” he adds.
Read More »ICPB’s Conventions India Conclave from Oct 13-15
India Convention Promotion Bureau’s (ICPB’s) ninth Conventions India Conclave from Oct 13-15, 2016. It will be held in Leela Ambience, Gurgaon. Delhi is the partner state for the Convention. Its main aim is to promote Delhi as the Convention Capital of India. Chander Mansharamani, Vice Chairman, ICPB, says, “Our focus will be mainly on B2B. We are getting approximately 50 buyers from outside India and there will be approximately 200 Indian buyers who are the decision makers of holding various conferences and exhibitions in India.” Mansharamani also informs that ICPB has identified ten states where it is planning to have chapters. The first one would be in Mumbai with the Maharashtra government. He says, “ICPB likes to take that kind of area where we can go and bid for international conferences.”
Read More »ADTOI launches Chhattisgarh chapter
The Chhattisgarh Chapter of ADTOI was launched on June 5, 2016, at Hyatt Raipur. The event was attended by the entire central leadership of ADTOI and all the Executive Council members of the association. Ritesh Mundhra of Choice Holidays is the Chhattisgarh Chapter Chairman while Jaspreet S. Bhatia, Ice Cubes Holidays is the General Secretary. Chairman and Vice Chairman of Chhattisgarh Tourism Board along with the General Manager were also present during the function. All the newly joined members of the State chapter were duly honoured. A large number of local travel agents were also present during the event. ADTOI members from other cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Jaipur also marked their presence. The members are: Kapil Jain, Kewal Shanti Travels Mahesh Bansal, Star india travels Pankaj Sood, Satguru Holidays Ajeet Dodai, Travel Hawk Sunil Vishwakarma, Indian Holidays Parminder Sahni, Travelwithsmile.com Rohit Dwivedi, Holiday Junction Hardeep Hora, Travel Planners Manoj, Global Travels Ricky Malhotra, Travel Boutique
Read More »Death knell for tourism
Expressing disappointment over the General Budget 2016-17, Sarabjit Singh, Vice Chairman, FAITH, said, “It is disappointing to see that the Union Budget has overlooked the suggestions made by tourism and hospitality sector. The Government has looked at debt and dying sectors and it seems tourism industry will be considered only when the sector is dead. This sector has been dying for the last one year and the Government’s negligence shows that it is not an important sector. The benefits given to the start up companies shows that we, the tour operators/travel agencies may have to wind up their businesses and set up new companies to avail benefits of the start-up sector if we need any kind of government support to grow the revenue from tourism. During the last one year, the industry has met all concerned in the Government policies and most of them have agreed that tourism needs extra flip and support like Export Sector in order to increase revenue in foreign exchange, but seems all efforts gone down the drain. Tourism export is the only segment where all State & Central Taxes are imposed.”
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