TravTalk India Online Magazine
ADTOI has formed a taskforce by its members and for its members in order to provide timely assistance through verified information about medical facilities on a pan-India basis. Besides this, the Association has launched a Facebook page for female members and is organising vaccination camps while reimbursing members for shots.
Nisha Verma
The Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India has formed a taskforce of members to offer timely medical assistance across the Association’s membership in this hour of need, informs PP Khanna, President, ADTOI. “One of our members, Rajiv Arora, has been given the charge and responsibility for the taskforce, and he, along with some other volunteers, will be collecting and verifying the authenticity of information which will then be circulated to all members on a pan-India basis. Many of them faced problems in getting hospital beds, medicines and oxygen. The idea behind the taskforce is to provide them the right information,” he said.
In another initiative, ADTOI has launched a Facebook page to empower women in the tourism industry on a pan India basis and bring them forward. “Women just need a platform, a little bit of hand holding and someone who believes in them. The aim of this page is to provide a social media platform for all the lady entrepreneurs at ADTOI who, through this platform, will be promoting tourism as well as our CSR activities and initiatives. Hence, the basic idea is to form a women empowerment cluster and more women to join hands in ADTOI as woman entrepreneurs and empower others,” he informed.
The Association will also organise vaccination camps for its members. Khanna said that since many of their members could not get vaccinated owing to a shortage of vaccines, ADTOI has tied up with hospitals to organise vaccination camps for its members on a pan-India basis. “This will be provided to members at a special rate. To alleviate the financial burden on members, we have decided to give a subsidy to all primary members by reimbursing 50 per cent of what they spend on getting vaccinated, whether it’s the first shot or second shot or both, to the maximum limit of `600 for each shot within a period. This would be subject to conditions of the states. As more of our members get vaccinated, post-COVID they will be able to serve the tourists in the right perspective,” he claimed.
With the second wave of the pandemic in India having been devastating, people are staying home and not venturing out for travel. In this scenario, domestic tourism, which was booming a few months back, has also come to a standstill and recovery needs to be worked out. Khanna says that while not much can be done in terms of inbound and outbound owing to restrictions, domestic tours can be opened. “Our members are asking us to talk to the states, hence, we have decided that once the cases will go down in some states, we can talk and request them to open for tourism. Already, there are many states where even the centre has ordered against taking RT-PCR test and a negative report is not mandatory. On the other hand, tourists are scared about travelling to those states where the cases are very high. Hence, we are encouraging our members to send tourists to states which have a lower number of COVID cases. In this context, we have even written letters to a few states asking them when they are opening borders since the cases have come down. They can inform us regarding the same and we can start making the packages for our tourists,” he informed.
In fact, Khanna pointed out that customers, too, are looking for offbeat and uncrowded places, which are going to be popular post-COVID. “People will be looking for safe, clean and beautiful places,” said Khanna.
