Category Archives: Associations

Outbound Tour Operators Association of India, OTOAI, has elected a new team. Riaz Munshi (N. Chirag) has been elected as the President; Himanshu Patil (Kesari Tours), has been elected as the Vice President; Shravan Bhalla (High Flyer) is the new General Secretary; Vineet Gopal (Engee Holidays) has been elected as the Joint Secretary and Siddharth Khanna (Khanna Enterprises) has been elected as the Treasurer. The members of the new committee members are, Mahendra Vakharia, Adl Abdul Karim, Gurdeep Singh Gujral, Ankush Nijhawan, Arshdeep Anand and Monia Kapoor.  

The second edition of PATA Tourism Powerhouse, presented by the Inder Sharma Foundation (ISF), concluded at The Park, New Delhi on December 6, 2019, with the attendance of the stalwarts of tourism industry from India and outside, who shared knowledge and forecast for tourism in India and across the world. The day-long event was inaugurated by Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA; Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary, Tourism, Government of India and Chairman, PATA India Chapter; Jatinder Taneja, Vice- Chairman, PATA India Chapter; John Koldowski, Special Advisor to CEO, PATA  and Professor, School of Tourism, Leshan Normal University, Sichuan Province, China; Priya Paul, Chairperson, Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels; Arjun Sharma, Trustee, ISF and Chairman, Select Group; Neeraj Ghei, Chairman, ISF and SanJeet, Hony. Treasurer, PATA India Chapter.

The second edition of PATA Tourism Powerhouse, presented by Inder Sharma Foundation, will present a huge line-up of speakers. The speakers include, Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary Tourism and Chairman, PATA India Chapter; Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA; John Koldowski, Professor, School of Tourism, Leshan Normal University, Sichuan Province, China; Sarah Mathews- Group Head of Destination Marketing APAC, TripAdvisor; Damian Cook, Founder and CEO of E- tourism Frontiers; Greg Klassen , Principal, Twenty31 Consulting; Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Atil, Founder and CEO, COTRI; Kapil Kaul, CEO & Director of CAPA South Asia; Sam McGoun, CEO, Impact Tourism; and Parishmita Gogoi, Student, Masters in Travel and Tourism Management, Amity University. Jatinder Taneja, Vice- Chairman, PATA India Chapter, revealed, “We have flown in a lot of international speakers who will be talking to us, or educating us about the global trends going on in tourism. Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA international will also be coming. There will be Professor Wolfgang Georg Arit from China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI), who will be speaking about Indo-China tourism and how we can get a lot of tourists from China. We are also going to talk about the perspective of the new generation traveller and what all he/ she are expecting from tourism and how they want to travel. At the same time, we have Sara Mathews from TripAdvisor, who will be speaking on high impact of social media on tourism. Hence, we have got many interesting subjects, and there will be a lot of learning from all these international speakers and we expect that it will go well.”

Jyoti Mayal has been announced as the new TAAI President for the term 2019- 2021. Jay Bhatia, Tulsidas Khimji Holidays has been appointed as Vice President (Unopposed); Bettaiah Lokesh, Triway Travels has been elected as Hon. Secretary General and Shreeram Patel, Unicorn Travels has been elected as the Hon. Treasurer. Jyoti Mayal has been elected as the President of Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) for the term 2019-21. This was announced on November 28, 2019 at Hotel Sahara Star in Mumbai after TAAI’s 68th Annual General Meeting followed by the elections of the Office Bearers and members of the Managing Committee for the term 2019 – 2021. While Jay Bhatia was elected as the Vice President unopposed, Bettaiah Lokesh from Triway Travels is the Honorary Secretary General. Shreeram Patel of Unicorn Travels has been elected for the post of National Treasurer.    Jyoti Mayal, incoming President, TAAI, says, “My most important agenda is that we should have a very strong say with the government and the airlines. That can only happen when we are recognised as an industry. We need a unified procedure set by the government as to how we should operate as an industry. We will be able to achieve this only when we have the government on our side. Taxes are another thing which is very relevant like GST and TCS and we are suffering because of that. We are already in negotiations with the ministries and we are very hopeful that we will achieve our targets. There is also another thing that is very close to my heart and that is empowering women. Women are multi-taskers and we would like more women in the industry to …

The 2nd edition of the PATA India Tourism PowerHouse, presented by the Inder Sharma Foundation will be held on December 6 at The PARK, New Delhi. Participants will get the opportunity to network, learn and interact with knowledge leaders and industry stalwarts and participate in engaging discussions on aviation capacity to India, impact of tourism, digital and destination marketing, The China opportunity and more.

Suman Billa will be joining United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) as Director, Technical Cooperation and Silk Road Development and will be based at the UNWTO headquarters in Spain, Madrid starting December. He had been serving as the Joint Secretary at Ministry of Tourism (MOT) for the last five years. He has also been the Tourism Secretary for Kerala before. A 1996 batch IAS officer from the Kerala cadre, Billa would be assuming charge at UNWTO next week and will be posted there for an initial period of two years. He has joined at D1 Level.

The Travel Agents Association of India has received the nominations for the election of its new Managing Committee (2019-20). Jyoti Mayal from New Airways Travels and Sanjay Narula from Apex Travel and Tours have filed nominations for the position of President. However, Jay Bhatia from Tulsidas Khimji Holidays is unopposed for the position of Vice-President. For the position of Secretary General, valid nominations have been received from P. Sarvanan of Viking Tours & Travels and Bettaiah Lokesh of Triway Travels. For Hon. Secretary General, valid nominations have come from Devaki Thiyagarajan of Avocet Tours & Travels; Imtoaz Qureshi of Viceroy Travels and Shreeram Patel of Unicorn Travels.  

The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) is all set to elect its new Managing Committee (MC) for the term 2019-20 on November 28, 2019 at their 68th Annual General Meeting at Hotel Sahara Star in Mumbai. According to a circular, released by TAAI, the last date for filing nominations is November 14, and the nominations can be withdrawn by November 25, 2019, after which the final nominees will be announced.

Skål International India has opened its 14th Club under the name of Skål International Mysuru in the City of Palaces. Suresh Charles has been appointed as the President, Prashanth B is the Vice President and Sunaina Manerker as Secretary of Skål International Mysuru. Skal International Mysuru has been formed with 22 members, which consists of hoteliers, airlines, travel and tour operators, hotel management institutions and government agencies from Mysuru and surrounding areas of Coorg, Bandipur and Kabini. The Charter Night was hosted by The Grand Mercure Mysuru, where the Charter Document was handed over by Vijay Mohan Raj -Director -Skål International, Sanjay Datta – President Skål Asia and Ranjini Nambiar – President Skål International India. She also delivered the Presidential Chain & the Oath to newly elected Club President Suresh Charles. Sanjay Datta – President Skål Asia, also presented a Skål Asia standee and flag to Skål Mysuru, for display at all their meetings.

Data from the Annual Travel Monitor 2019 Final Edition (ATM) released by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) last month shows that Asia continued to dominate the supply of international visitor arrival numbers (IVAs) into Asia Pacific in 2018, generating close to 63% of the 696.5 million IVAs into the region. In percentage growth terms between 2017 and 2018, Africa outbound into Asia Pacific had the strongest annual increase at over 13% year-on-year, followed by Europe at almost 11% and then Asia at 7.3%. The nondescript ‘Others’ category increased by 7.5% in 2018, year-on-year.