TravTalk India Online Magazine
The ETOAI (Education Tour Operators Association of India) makes a sincere appeal to all the tourism boards, airlines, and tourism service providers to associate with them to take advantage of the potential this very unique and untapped segment provides with very high volumes of business.
Hazel Jain
The ETOAI (Education Tour Operators Association of India), established in 2015, is one of the lesser-known associationsin the travel trade. But its president, Prashant V. Andhalkar, is determined to change that. The association has recently conducted webinars with Esselworld, Kokan Paryatan, Dekho Apna Desh series by IndiaTourism, as well as Maharshtra Dekho web series.
It has also recently signed an MoU with Korea Tourism Organization to promote educational tourism for students with the added facilities such as students group visa under single application, visits to the local universities, and industry visits, along with a familiarisation trips for its members. Andhalkar says, “We appeal to all the tourism boards, airlines, tourism service providers and GSAs to associate with us for a very unique segment that can give them very high volumes of business. We are the only association in India that has its members who are educational travel agents and tour operators who organise tours for educational institutions only. Activities are related to the educational curriculum and tourism. Our members conduct activities such as educational field trips, factory visits, hikes, international tours, etc.”
He says his association has more than 200 members handling more than 7,000 educational institutions and catering to more than 20,00,000 students across India, mainly Maharashtra. “Our Delhi, Chandigarh and Bengaluru chapters will be active in about two months. Our members are well scrutinised as per association policy with proper documentation s viz. Aadhar card, PAN card, bank accounts, etc. and updated from time to time,” Andhalkar explains.
ETOAI is a registered body and as per the norms of the association. It conducts monthly committee meetings, AGM and regularly organisesawareness programmes and webinars for members. But things have been pretty challenging since March 2020. “Few of our members’ funds have been blocked with hotels and airlines that were paid as advance up to around second week of March 2020. Many hotels and resorts have not still refunded the amount. Some have given credit note up to a short period which will be impossible to use considering the current situation,” Andhalkar explains.
These members are facing customer queries regarding their refund but many hotels and airlines are not bothered to reply even with a credit note, Andhalkar says.“Many schools and colleges have given a deadline to ETOAI members to refund their money otherwise they may go to consumer court. As if the above was not enough, we have our pending dues, taxes, GST, housing loans, etc to face as well,” he adds. Meanwhile, the association has taken up several steps during pandemic to safeguard interest of its members. It has provided COVID-19 interest-free loans of Rs. 30,000 for four members who suffered with the infection. It has also conducted several online webinars within GSA members of ETOAI for product knowledge, destination awareness, and grievances of service providers. Webinars were also done with the MoT, Maharashtra Tourism, and other associations.
Andhalkar adds, “We conducted a learning session with IndiaTourism for our members where they learned about the process of being registered under the MoT. Many of us now come under the ‘Experienced Tour Operator’ category and almost 70% of members are in the process to get registered with the MoT. The remaining will be registered under the ‘Green Shoots’ category.”
