Soon after taking over as the president of the association, I have formed 13 committees that will work independently for the benefits of our members. These committees have been assigned the agendas and required authorities to work in their respective areas, says PP Khanna, President ADTOI.
Q. To start with, kindly throw some light on your short and long term plans for the association/members?
A. We have a host of short and long term plans for the betterment of the apex body of domestic tour operators of India and its members. In an attempt to leverage the potential of domestic tourism we are in process to identify new areas and destinations across all the states and Union Territories. New destinations on the list of tour operators will offer more options; that will attract a large number of travellers and create an excitement among them.
Apart from this we have a State Specialist Programme for our members in development pipeline. So we are interacting with the state tourism bodies to get it done as soon as possible. Also, being aware with the power of technology we are concentrating on making our association a techno-friendly. We are creating a dynamic and interactive website for our members.
Q. What was the first thing implemented in your new term?
A. Soon after taking over as the president of ADTOI, I have formed 13 committees that will work independently for the benefit of our members as well as for the association. These committees have been assigned the agendas and required authorities to work in their respective areas.
Q. Despite being the apex body for Domestic Tour Operators of India the majority membership of ADTOI revolves around Delhi & NCR (including metro and tier II cities); what are your plans to raise the membership from remote areas of the country?
A. ADTOI is the apex body of domestic tour operators which has a wide presence across the country. At this point of time we have a strong presence across the metro cities in terms of membership, and we are keen to strengthen our presence in tier two and three cities as well. Apart from opening of our chapter in Chhattisgarh, we have identified several remote areas to add more chapters in our association; Jharkhand could be the first. We are concentrating on some areas in Northeast as well. And I am happy to share with you that we will launch our 7th Chaptre at Rajasthan very soon.
Q. What are the major challenges in front of domestic tour operators at the moment; what action are you taking to deal with it?
A. Challenges are endless and of course these are part of the life. However, the biggest challenge our members are facing at the moment is unethical practices adopted by OTAs (Online Travel Agents) which is killing the small and medium size tour operators. Taking a step forward in this regard, ADTOI has formed a committee on Ethical Tourism Policy and making all our efforts to cope up with this challenge.
Q. Why India is not getting its deserving share in Domestic Segment?
A. As it is concerned to the growth of domestic tourism; it has recorded a 13% growth as per the latest data; however that is not enough as the domestic segment has huge potential of growth. In association with Ministry of Tourism and State Tourism Boards we are working on certain areas to expedite the growth of this segment. I am sure it will be visible in near future. Well due to the political and economic instability at the world across the Inbound tourism is going through a tough time.
Q. What were the most important points in your agenda that might have attracted a huge support from the industry? And who gets the credit for this historical win?
A. Definitely it was a Dream Team effort at large. We had included one woman in our panel to work on Women Empowerment, which has proven as one of the most important points in our agenda. Our initial initiatives after coming in power includes the formation of a Committee on Women Empowerment which will work towards organising special training programmes for our members.
Q. What message would you like to convey to the members who have shown their faith in your leadership?
A. Our members have a lot of expectations from the newly elected team as last term was under turmoil for almost 10 months due to some legal issues. We are trying our best to promote our members and look forward for their survival by revamping our website which shall be connected with the Ministry of Tourism and State Tourism Boards. This connection will provide leads to our members, and help them in generating more business. We shall organise State Specialist Programmes for our members to promote the States and can get business.
