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Travel Association’s initiatives to boost tourism

— FILE PHOTO

INDIA ATTRACTION: Foreign tourists shopping at Kochi in Kerala.

MUMBAI: the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), in a move to enhance the experience of tourists visiting India as also to streamline its operations, is undertaking initiatives several of which are already under way.

Speaking to The Hindu, C. V. Prasad, President, TAAI, and recently elected global Chairman, United Federation of Travel Agents’ Associations (UFTAA), the universal body of travel associations, said, “a number of initiatives are under development globally and interestingly, most of them would be pilot tested in India.”

The TAAI website will host a ‘A Hotel Booking Engine’, which is now being developed. It will be tested with a few select agents initially and will subsequently be opened to the entire UFTAA membership. To be launched in January, it will provide agents an option of over three lakh hotels and commission ranging from 8 to 10 per cent. Also to be launched in 2008 are a UFTAA Travel Agency Card for members and an online global mart.

The team is also designing special training programmes to be launched in the first quarter of 2008. The modular vocational courses on a par with the current travel scenario will have a focus on soft skills and marketing. UFTAA is also planning an open university, likely to be headquartered in Brussels, “to have an international flavour. Also the European Union offers subsidies for institutes for manpower development and training which are unavailable elsewhere.”

TAAI is to decide whether to set up its own institute or offer courses through other universities in India. “We will take an in-principle decision by February 2008. Raising funds is not such an issue but the more difficult task is finding teachers.”

The international core programme, to be incorporated in India too, would include three modules: Global culture and history, regional culture and history and case study modules. “Courses here cover tourism management but they are highly India centric. So the tourist guide knows about India but nothing about global culture and the tourists’ requirements.”

For the domestic travel agents, the issue of double taxation on air ticketing is a vexing issue. TAAI has made representations over the last two years to the Government as the service tax of 12.36 per cent on the air fare and the agent’s commission is an instance of double taxation.

Speaking on India’s tourism industry, Mr. Prasad said inbound tourism was growing at about 15-16 per cent but with a number of 4.2-4.3 million, the base was very small. “The desirability of destination India is in part due to the ‘Incredible India’ campaign but largely because of the curiosity factor since everyone has heard of India’s economic success. The real problem is the lack of a proper ‘Tourism Product.’ Tourism is not all about heritage, monuments and culture but the overall ‘Experience’ factor in which we are found wanting because of poor infrastructure, under-capacity and poor quality of products,” Mr. Prasad said.

The domestic tourism industry has been estimated at around 400 million, but Mr. Prasad feels this is an overestimation. “Sixty per cent would be VFR (visiting family and relatives) and the number of pilgrims is also very significant. While domestic air travel is growing at a healthy 40 per cent over the last three years, domestic tourism is growing at only 12-14 per cent,” he added.

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