Catching the industry’s pulse

With a view to know what stakeholdes in the tourism business are feeling right now, what is impacting their business, and overall outlook of the industry, PATA India has launched the first ever PATA India Tourism Impact Contest. Three winners of the contest will be given cash prizes up to `25,000.

TT Bureau

PATA India has launched the first ever PATA India Tourism Impact Contest, which aims to bring into focus what industry stakeholders feel, impacts their business growth, development and outlook. To enter the contest, participants have to prioritise issues impacting their business and share one new and innovative BIG Difference IDEA. Three winners will get cash prizes up to `25,000. The contest closes on 15 August 2022.

Win big with PATA

Sharing details about the contest, Runeep Sangha, Executive Director, PATA India Chapter, said, “The thought came from the fact that we have a variety of stakeholders at PATA, including tour operator, travel agents, hotels, aviation companies, media and educational institutes. We felt that there was an opportunity for all of them to participate in the growth and development of tourism to India and share their views and thoughts on what was impacting their business. COVID has had its toll, but other than COVID there has been impact on everybody’s business owing to various reasons. Hence, we have put together 10 areas of concerns, issues or challenges, and we asked the entire industry to participate by prioritising which of these factors impacts them the most. This should help us get a focus on the key issues that the industry is facing, which we could eventually share with the Ministry of Tourism.” He claimed that the MOT will recognise the issues that the trade feels are paramount for their growth and support them. “Post prioritisation of these issues, we have also invited our stakeholders from the industry, irrespective of whether they are PATA members or not, to share with us an idea that they may have, which would make a big difference to the growth and development of tourism. We have set up a jury for the BIG Difference IDEA, which will go through the ideas that are submitted,” he elaborated. “We believe that this should kindle some interest among the travel professionals in India and bring some new innovative thoughts about how we can help tourism grow,” he added.

Webinars galore

PATA India is conducting a range of webinars for the travel trade. “Webinars have become one way of communication and operation for most associations and participants of the trade. PATA has identified three categories of webinars. Firstly, we have the Update and Outlook Meeting, which helps to share with us what has been going on in the industry and what is foreseen for the industry going forward. This year we have held three such webinars. One was with the MOT, which was addressed by Arvind Singh, Secretary, Tourism. This was followed by an analysis on visitor arrivals in India and in the region, conducted by Liz Ortiguera, CEO, PATA and PATA consultant Professor John Koldowski. More recently on the 14 July, we conducted a webinar, Update and Outlook Meeting with IRCTC to share information on the development and future of their luxury trains – Deccan Odyssey and Maharaja Express, as well as their deluxe tour programme of the Buddhist tourist train.”

The second type of webinar, explained Sangha, is “Incredible India, Believe It or Not. We did one in May, where speakers covered topics like walking tours and Himalayan trekking trails. We will soon have another in August, which will cover heritage hotels. We are also looking at covering Ayurveda and wellness in that webinar.”

He added, “The third series of webinars we commenced is called Jewels of India. Our approach is to get state government tourism bodies to tell our membership and the travel professionals about what has happened over the last two years; what is new, and how they have secured the well-being of foreign tourists when they visit India, among the many other developments that have taken place. The first such webinar was done with Kerala tourism, which met with a significant response. The next one coming was with Maharashtra tourism and then we would go forward with various other state bodies.