Category Archives: Associations

The Executive Committee of Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) has decided to waive off the Rs. 5000/- registration fee for new members from North East India till March 31, 2017. Lally Matthews, Honorary Secretary, IATO, said, “IATO is looking at adding more members now. We would like to increase membership from the North East and have thus waived off the registration fee of Rs. 5000/- for interested tour operators from the region.”

Four members of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) Managing Committee met in Mumbai yesterday to review  applications received by the association from its members for the Joint Bank Guarantee (JBG) Scheme. Sunil Kumar, President, TAAI, said, “We have received over 130 applications from members who are keen to join the guarantee.” Among the Office Bearers present were Marzban Antia, TAAI’s Vice President; Lokesh Bettaiah, TAAI’s Secretary General; and Imtiaz Qureshi, TAAI’s MC member who looks after Legal. Bettaiah added, “We are scrutinising each and every application received from 20 regions and chapters across India and the TAAI auditors will come out with a final list by May 20. After that, we will send them to IATA who will conduct their own verifications. We do multi-level checks and follow stringent procedures, which take a lot of time. It’s a huge responsibility on us to pick the right members. We will need to submit these applications to IATA by July 1, 2016. There has been a good response for it this year. TAAI has been successful in managing this scheme earlier as well and lot of members have benefitted from this scheme monetarily as well as for smoother day-to-day business as far as capping issues are concerned. If anyone else is interested to join, they can do so the following year.”

Vikram Madhok, Managing Director, Abercrombie & Kent India, and Honorary Treasurer, PATA India Chapter, has been elected as the next Chairman of the PATA Industry Council, for the term of May 2016-May 2017. The PATA India Chapter, established in 1974, has grown to include 236 members and is one of the most dynamic Chapters in the Asia Pacific region today. With major support from the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India which is the main and largest PATA India member organization, the Chapter includes State Tourism Boards, Carriers, Hotels, Travel Agents, Tour Operators, Service Providers and other travel-related companies.

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has been busy with its ongoing chapter elections and will soon be conducting its national team election along with its Annual General Meeting (AGM) by June end. Revealing this information is Pradip Lulla, National General Secretary, TAFI, who said, “A lot of our chapters like Tamil Nadu have completed their elections. We will now be sending out notification for our AGM to all our members that will be combined with our national committee elections around June end. We are still deciding on the city and venue. By July, we will be able to finally roll out our Joint Bank Guarantee Scheme.” TAFI had earlier deferred the joint bank guarantee scheme last June citing unsuitable legal terms for its members.

VinooUbhayakar, past president of Travel Agents Association of India (1975-1978) and the first Asian and Indian to be elected as the president of Universal Federation of Travel Agent’s Association (UFTAA) (1982-1984), passed away yesterday. He was 90.Ubhayakarbegan his travel industry career in 1949 with Asiatic Travel Service where he went on to become the Managing Director in 1953. He joined Trade Wings as Executive Director and in 1965 was appointed the Managing Director a position he continues to hold today. He was elected to the board of Universal Federation of Travel Agents Association for four years then as Vice President for two years and then President for two years of this World Body. During his tenure,Ubhayakarorganised the Silver Jubilee Function in Mumbai and introduced the Agastya Awards too.

A total of 11 nominations have been filed for active Executive Committee (EC) Members of Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO). Also, for the allied EC members, a total of five nominations have been filed. There is also an incomplete nomination. While the IATO elections are scheduled for April 23, 2016, the last date for withdrawal for anybody filing multiple nominations is March 22, 2016 by 3 pm. In case the multiple nominations are not withdrawn before that, the nominations stand invalid.

Two nominations have been filed for the post of Sr. Vice President  of Indian Association of Tour Operators, while three nominations have been received for the post of Vice President. Two nominations each have been filed for both Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer’s positions and a total of four nominations have been filed for the position of Honorary Joint Secretary. IATO elections are scheduled for April 23, 2016. Some candidates have filed nominations for multiple positions and will have to retain only one position for which they want to contest. Hence they need to withdraw their names by 3 pm, March 22, 2016.

The nominees for the post of IATO President are: E.M. Najeeb, Maharaj I.S. Wahi, Pronab Sarkar, Sarab Jit Singh, and Vijay Thakur. The nominations were opened on March 17, 2016 by Akshay Kumar, Returning Officer, IATO Elections 2016 in front of the Executive Committee. The last date for withdrawal for nominations is March 22, 2016 and the elections are scheduled to be held on April 23, 2016.

PATA India Chapter, in collaboration with Ministry of Tourism, will be conducting a India Tourism B2B Meet to West Coast America from May 24 to June 1, 2016. Runeep Sangha, Executive Director, PATA India Chapter, informs, “Our proposal for this initiative has been approved by Ministry of Tourism. The focus of this event is to promote inbound tourism from important source markets for India. Meetings are proposed to be held with travel agents & tours operators in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver & Seattle. All these markets have a variety of travellers representing both, high end as well as mid market. Their interest in India as a preferred destination is well established over many years and is focused on our history, culture, wellness, beach tourism amongst others.” Roadshows will commence with a introductions and a 20 minute Incredible India presentation, followed by a two hour B2B session between Indian sellers and local tour operators & travel agents in each market. Tentative Programme Detailed itinerary is as follows: 1. May 24 -San Francisco 2. May 25 – Los Angeles (Orange County) 3. May 26 – Los Angeles (Beverly Hills) 4. May 31 – Vancouver 5. June 1 – Seattle Participation Fees For PATA Members participation fee is as follows: 1st Delegate: Rs. 57,500.00 + 14.5% Government Service Tax 2nd Delegate: Rs. 45,000.00 + 14.5% Government Service Tax For non PATA Members, the registration fee is as follows: Delegate fee: Rs. 67,500.00 + 14.5% Government Service Tax Air India will be support PATA India with preferred air fares for delegates participating in these roadshows. 100% of the basic fare will be waived on each ticket as per the applicable booking class for …

After signing an MoU with Rwanda recently to promote bilateral tourism from and into India, the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) might also be looking at it as the venue for its upcoming annual convention that will be held in August or September of this year. As part of the protocol, it is in talks with a couple of destinations for this and one of them is Rwanda, hints Zakkir Ahmed, President of TAFI. “We will be able to announce the destination only by March end or early April. Our MoU with Rwanda includes not just outbound but inbound as well. It is not very well-known to tourists in India. So we will help them do some promotions through our members and familiarization tours. If possible, we will also do our convention there,” he says.