Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) hosted an ‘Extraordinary General Meeting’ on December 20, 2021 for postponement of elections of the Association for Executive Committee for one year keeping in view the Rules and Regulations of OTOAI and Societies Act. The meet was highlighted by the presence of the association members and well-known travel trade media people.
All the working committee members, Himanshu Patil, Vice President; Shravan Bhalla, General Secretary; Vineet Gopal, Joint Secretary and Sidharth Khanna, Treasurer moderated the meet by wishing them a healthy and prosperous new year wishes.
Riaz Munshi, President, OTOAI, addressed the gathering and said, “The decision was taken due to the Covid 19 Pandemic situation which has lasted for the last 18 months; the term of the present Executive Committee needs an extension to complete the objects for which they were elected. The decision was sanctioned by all the members present over there without any obligation due to the present unavoidable circumstances.”
“Our focus as an organisation has always been the Outbound sector and as the tourism industry is the most affected industry from the past several months or a year and it has been very much neglected by the government as no as such actions have been taken for it, we are in talks with the Ministry of Tourism, Govt of India to bring up the licensing system especially for travel companies which can become the keychain where they will ask us to get the revenue and by this travel, operators can do the business in some professional level,” said Munshi.
Speaking on the same lines, OTOAI’s Vice President, Himanshu Patil said, “For the past several months, we all have been working from home or probably not working at all due to that pandemic situation. Now definitely looking for greater and brighter 2022! We all were gearing up for this year-end season and again omicron came into our lives and everything again went back to that thing. But yes I think Omicron should be the last wave and the virus will end up and the whole world will start traveling again.”
“This will not only lead us to get noticed in the eye of the government but also lead to the smooth running of the travel business for which OTOAI is working,” he added.
Shravan Bhalla, General Secretary; enumerated the Turkey convention matter by saying, “The association was organising a Convention in Turkey in March 2020 for its members, which got postponed due to the Covid 19 Pandemic. The Present EC is still in talks with the Tourism Board of Turkey to hold the Convention in the year 2022. The date has not been decided, the tourism board of Turkey wishes to deal with the present EC to propose the convention for the sake of continuity.”
OTOAI’s President added his words by saying, “The convention will most probably be held in March 2022 in Turkey only if things go well. And if that didn’t have to be happening then things are seriously not going well in the Industry.”
