Category Archives: Associations

IATA said India’s decision to re-introduce coronavirus testing for international passengers is “disappointing and a step backwards” as the current situation is different from when the pandemic started around three years ago.

Commenting on the recent paragliding accident in Kullu involving a 30-year tourist from Maharashtra, Ajeet Bajaj, President, Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI), says, “It is a very unfortunate incident and we send our heartfelt condolences to the family. The ATOAI stands for responsible adventure travel and we have issued safety guidelines which have been endorsed by the Ministry of Tourism and we expect all adventure tour operators across India to follow the guidelines in letter and in spirit to mitigate risk in adventure activities. For tourists, our request is to always do their due diligence and opt only for government-approved, licensed adventure operators.”

Jatinder Taneja, Chairman, PATA India Chapter, has said that they will work with MOT to conduct result-oriented roadshows to key source markets. “This is to supplement the efforts of MOT. Apart from that we are in talks with state governments to conduct roadshows to overseas markets in 2023,” he added.

Showing concern about the recent spurt in Covid cases, Ajay Prakash, President, TAFI, said, “To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson ‘The price of good health is eternal vigilance!’ We’ve all gone back to business as usual and assumed that the virus has been conquered but the recent spurt has clearly demonstrated that there is no room for complacence. So, while it might affect tourist numbers in the short term, there is a need to reinstate some health and screening measures, especially for international arrivals.”

Rajnish Kaistha, Hon Secretary, IATO, said, “We have been pushing for more than 8 months now to allow e-tourist visas for many countries which had not been original list. This has caused lots of heartburn among our members and has been loss to all of us as tour operators, hotels and of course revenue loss for the Govt. I am glad that in the last one month the Govt finally started seeing our point of view with e-visa for UK, followed by Malaysia and now much needed Canada. This will help us for 2023 and beyond from these tourism generating countries. We continue to push for remaining countries like South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, etc for e-visas.”

Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister, Uttar Pradesh, has revealed, that usually one crore tourist used to come in a year in Varanasi, but this year, the destination received one crore tourists in one single month during monsoon.”

Parveen Chander Kumar, Executive Vice President – Sales & Marketing, IHCL, has said that the heritage properties in India will continue to grow. “We are seeing a lot of experiential tourism happening. With the MOT also taking this forward, we have endless properties in India that focusing on story telling of the place and some are centuries old.  This is going to continue, and we are making circuits around them as well,” he added.

Prateek Hira, IATO, UP Chapter, has said that people are very excited for the convention. “We have received a record number of registrations yesterday and huge spot registrations are taking place. People are paying much more for registrations and wanting to attend the convention,” he said.

IATO honoured Sunil Gupta, Director, Travel Bureau Agra and Badri Nath Bajaj, Founder, Perfect Travels & Tours, with their Hall of Fame award at its 37th annual convention that kicked off in Lucknow, UP. The awards were given away by Ashwini Kumar Patra, Minister of Tourism, Govt of Odisha and Arvind Singh, Secretary Tourism, Govt of India.

Rakesh Verma, Additional Secretary, Tourism, has said that the tour operators are the most significant members of the value chain. “They interface with the customer & the markets and the role is going to get increased. They are the ones who get impacted by the changes in the industry,” he added.