GCC set to entice Indians @ATM
Major tourism hotspots in the GCC are experiencing a surge in Indian visitors as the region prepares to showcase its offering to leisure and business travellers at this year’s Arabian Travel Market, at Dubai World Trade Centre, April 24-27.
QHow do you see the relationship between airlines and agents develop in India?
The airline-agent relationship is fundamentally a commercial relationship. Given the bullish outlook for growth in passenger travel in India, coupled with the innovations that the travel industry is seeing in the distribution space, we are sure that the airlines and the travel agents will be able to strengthen their existing strong relationship further.
QLately, there have been a lot of developments from the airlines side that is having an adverse effect on the travel agents. Is IATA taking any steps to protect its members?
IATA is not involved in the setting of commissions airlines pay to travel agents. This is a commercial decision by individual airlines.
QCould you elaborate on what IATA is doing for IATA agents in India?
In 2018, we will be rolling out the New Generation Industry Settlement Systems (NewGen ISS) program to India. With NewGen ISS, the agency community will have more options to choose the model of accreditation that fits their business profile, risk management and payment methods to the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP). This will provide more options for agents from the current one-size-fits-all model.
Moreover, to strengthen our relationship with the agency community, we have recently appointed Rodney D’Cruz as Assistant Director – Passenger and Cargo Services, this April. He will be based in Mumbai. Many would know him from his time with the IATA India team before he took on a position in IATA’s regional office in Singapore. He will continue to increase our engagement with the agency community.
India will be under the spotlight at this year’s Arabian Travel Market, with a dedicated session on the ATM Global Stage, entitled: ‘Capitalising on Experiential Travel: China & India Mega Source Markets’. Filippo Sona, Director, Head of Hotels MENA region, Colliers International, will discuss how countries in the Middle East can increase promotional activities to attract more visitors from two of the future biggest inbound source markets: China and India. Simon Press, Senior Exhibition Director, ATM, said, “The number of visitors to the GCC from India has been strong for a number of years due to the excellent political, trade and business links the region enjoys with its neighbour.
“UNWTO (United Nations World Travel Organisation) data shows that 62 million Indians have passports, yet many do not travel. However, the demographic patterns we see currently – an increasing younger population and a growing middle class – provide strong indications that the country is about to see a steep rise in the number of nationals travelling abroad, as well as the number of foreign visitors it welcomes.” India has been named the largest growing outbound tourism market in percentage terms, with the UNWTO predicting 50 million Indians will travel overseas annually by 2020.