TravTalk India Online Magazine
Observing rising cases of online frauds among the trade, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) plans to organise a knowledge session on cybercrime and cyber laws for its members so that they can be forewarned and take necessary precautions to prevent such incidents, especially when multiple staff members are making bookings.
Hazel Jain
As if there were not enough troubles for the travel industry, there is another threat raising its head – cybercrime. Malicious entities combine phishing techniques and malware to attack hotels and travel agencies, impersonate airlines in a credible manner and defraud the agents. Sometimes, they obtain their access credentials to leading travel booking platforms, impersonate them and defraud travellers who have made a reservation.
To make their members aware about this so that they can take necessary precautions, the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) is planning to conduct a session on this. Ajay Prakash, National President, TAFI, says, “Lax cyber security practices can cost you dearly. We use myriad devices to make bookings for our clients and often these devices are used by multiple people. Vigilance, therefore, is paramount. Some of our members have suffered serious financial losses after their accounts were hacked and tickets issued in the middle of the night. Changing passwords and initiating two factor authentication is the least that we can do to secure ourselves against unauthorised access. TAFI is planning to update and educate our members on this critical aspect soon.”
Jay Kantawala, Chairman, Western Region, TAFI, adds, “We had done an exercise on this about two years ago when we had invited a cybercrime lawyer to speak to our members and present to them how they can protect themselves against frauds. Recently, one of our members highlighted that he faced some issues regarding the same – although it was a small amount. And he approached the department, which has shown interest to do something with the association to spread awareness about this issue.”
TAFI will approach the concerned authority to fix a time for a presentation for its members and enlighten them on cyber laws.
“Information that comes from the credible authorities will be more authentic and useful and add a lot of value to us,” Kantawala adds.
New members join in
TAFI has also managed to add 183 new members over the last two years to its existing
1,400-odd members distributed across 12 chapters. The new members are in chapters other than Mumbai and Delhi, indicating that the trade finds value in TAFI is an organisation.
