The elections for the 11th executive council of Association o f Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI) were held on August 10, 2016 at Hotel Metropolitan & Spa in New Delhi. PP Khanna was announced the president for the term 2016-2018. The other new members are Rajat Sawhney, Rave Tours & Travels as vice president and Chetan Gupta, R G Destinations as honorary general secretary. Except for the treasurer, Kamal Gandhi, Transglobal Tours & Travels and joint secretary, Debashis Dey, ASRA Tours & Travels, all major positions are held by his team. The newly elected executive committee members are Anil Rajput, Ankit Miglani, Arvind Khanna, Ashish Sehgal, Jatinder Bhatia, Manoj Varshney and Reena Chopra.
Speaking to Express TravelWorld, Khanna shared the team’s plans to make ADTOI a more tech-savvy and larger organisation. He informed, “We would create a digital dynamic website which is user friendly, business oriented and contains information on the specialisation of a member’s product. Newsletters will be sent out to the members updating them about the new circuits and creative ideas on how to promote them. We also plan to create a research and development cell to keep a close tab on the new destinations, creative ideas and untapped locations. There would be more emphasis on the ethical tourism practices as we move forward with our plans.”
Commenting on tie-ups with tourism boards, Khanna stated, “We plan to associate with the Delhi Tourism Board and educate our members on the MDA scheme by the government. We hope to closely work with state tourism boards and create special programmes for our members. This would not only lead to awareness among the members, but also better infrastructure facilities in the states.”
Khanna also indicated that concentration will be to build member relations and adhere to their problems through regular meetings. He said, “We would like to create special training programmes for aspiring women entrepreneurs who wish to gain knowledge of the industry. Apart from these, we look forward to work with other associations to present a united view of tourism issues in front of the government.”
ADTOI is currently present in six states and looks forward to add more chapters in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chennai, Karnataka and the North East region. However, it will only be finalised once the team discusses the future prospects.
