TravTalk India Online Magazine
Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) Uttar Pradesh Chapter organised its hybrid meeting on July 9 in Varanasi at Hotel Clarks under the chairmanship ofPrateek Hira, Chairman UP Chapter and Vikram Singh, Co-Chair of the chapter.
This meeting was supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and was attended by about 50 members including IATO’s Regional Chairman of North India, Sunil Gupta who spoke about all the efforts that IATO has made in the past few months to ease the pain of the industry. Anil Oraw, Regional Director – North, Ministry of Tourism also joined the meeting and assured the members of the Ministry’s support for the early revival of tourism in India.
The agenda of the meeting was to discuss the road map of tourism in Uttar Pradesh and Prof. Pravin Rana of Banaras Hindu University delivered a talk on the topic ‘Reinvent to Rebound’. A powerpoint presentation by Prof. Rana set the tone of discussions and deliberations that followed.
Sharing his thoughts, Hira commented, “It is very important that as tour operators, we reinvent ourselves and look at other revenue heads than just the traditional ones, in order to rebound much earlier, when things start falling in place”.
“I personally believe that operators in Varanasi need to think beyond just the ghats and similarly operators of Agra need to think beyond Taj Mahal. IATO as an apex body of tour operators has not only been doing its best to help its membership keep afloat in these most difficult times but is also educating its members so as to aid a faster rebound of the tourism Industry,” Hira further added.
Co-Chair of IATO UP Chapter, Singh said, “We need to come out of our comfort zones and explore new areas and that is the reason that operators are touring nearby towns to expand the potential of Varanasi”.
IATO as a part of its outreach is conducting meetings all over India in its different chapters. The idea is to handhold all its members in these most difficult times and work towards an early revival of the battered tourism industry.
