ETW Staff – Mumbai
Skal International Club of Mumbai 144 held its 60th Annual General Meeting at The Westend Hotel on October 17, 2016. Carl Vaz, the outgoing president for Skal Club of Bombay and current second vice president, Skal International India, said, “It has been a memorable journey since taking over in 2012. We have managed to bring back Skal Bombay from the brink of closure where it languished at just around 30 odd members to over 150 as on date. Skal Bombay now boasts of a wide representation of senior travel professionals comprising travel agents and tour operators, hospitality, airlines and tourism boards. My goal of turning around Skal Club of Bombay has been achieved.”
Vaz further added, “I am confident that the new managing committee led by president SK Partha Chatterjee will take the club onto the next phase of consolidated growth matched with an equal focus on developing member experience and enhancing business opportunities.”
The new incoming board has Chatterjee, a veteran hotelier taking over as the president for the term 2016 – 2018. Others include Burjis Mehta, vice president; Kuldeep Bhartee, vice president; Sunil Acharya, secretary; Vaibhav Kedia, treasurer; Rosita Haribal, member – memberships; Jyot Jhaveri, member – memberships; Arvind Tandon, member – PR; Ajay Chhabria, member – PR; Sujata Mariwala, member – sponsorships; Vinayakk Laud, member – sponsorships; Kunal Sampat, member – events; Suresh Gulrajani, member – events and Sonalee Vaz, member – FVF.
“Events, networking across fraternal clubs and chambers of commerce, trade with each other and introductions to government bodies for improving tourism in the country will be the focus for the coming year,” stated Chatterjee.
Skal Bombay has 154 members representing hotels, travel agents, airlines, railways, cruise liners, airports, car rentals, restaurants, golf courses, conference organisers, casinos etc. Skal has approximately 17,000 tourism professionals in 450 clubs spread throughout 85 countries.