More benefits on website

Mahendra Vakharia, President, OTOAI, shares that the association will soon launch its revamped website, as he also talks about OTOAI’s activities in the last one year and the vision for 2020.

Manas Dwivedi

The Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) organised its seventh Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Delhi, where the Executive Committee discussed the Association’s activities in the last one year and a roadmap for the next. To begin with, Mahendra Vakharia informed that OTOAI is soon going to launch its revamped website, which will prove handy and useful to members in terms of new features and added benefits. Sharing more details, he said, “The new website will give members an opportunity to interact with each other. A key feature would be the ability for members to post a deal for the B2B network that all existing members will be able to view.”

Vakharia informed that the Association organised a number of activities across India in the last one year, which included workshops and training programmes, and it also tied up with NTOs and DMCs.

“Our focus and aim have been to continue with this approach and organise such activities on a regular basis to educate and empower our members in different cities of India. The frequency of such activities has been increasing and that is encouraging to see. We recently signed an MoU with Korea Tourism Organization, wherein they have exclusively agreed to conduct workshops with OTOAI members in various Indian cities. We have already concluded workshops in Ahmedabad, Pune, Chennai, Lucknow and Nagpur, and have another planned in Chandigarh,” he added.

Going forward, OTOAI has some exciting activities lined up. World Tourism Alliance has invited the Association to be part of Xianghu Dialogue 2019, organised in collaboration with UNWTO, World Bank, European Tourism Commission (ETC), World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Global Tourism Economy Forum, and PATA. ITB has also tied up with OTOAI as their exclusive partner for ITB India, and has agreed to host 30 OTOAI members.