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Travel agents organise Dharna against zero commission

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TAAI floats Tourism Council to help members diversify their product offerings

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Tamil Nadu launches hop-on-hop-off coaches for tourists

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Travel associations met Singapore Tourism Board to discuss commission issue

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ASSOCIATIONS

Travel agents organise Dharna against zero commission
 
On January 30, TAAI, TAFI, IAAI, IATO, ADTOI and ETAA organised nationwide Dharna (peaceful demonstration) to create awareness among common people against the zero commission, which has been implemented by 12 foreign airlines in India at present. The travel associations jointly organised the programmes in the major cities of the country at the same time (1.30 pm) to create a nationwide impact. In all the cities the agents gathered in large numbers, which ended with marches and handing over the memoranda to Singapore Airlines in their local offices, by demanding five per cent commission. The associations will announce the next course of action very soon.
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TAAI floats Tourism Council to help members diversify their product offerings
 
The Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) in order to spur its members sell tourism products floated Tourism Council recently. The new body is expected to help TAAI members across India to cross sell or offer a variety of tourism products along with traditional ticketing and raise awareness among members on the importance of tourism as one of the largest generators of revenue as well as product knowledge opportunities. Tourism Council will bring together TAAI members across metros, smaller cities and towns and various tourism stakeholders like NTOs, STBs, airlines and hoteliers on a common platform to co-operate and identify areas of opportunities for common growth. The move is expected to help over 2,300 TAAI members who are primarily into ticketing diversify their product offerings and sell tourism products also. Tourism Council will bring its members face to face with national and international tourism boards, hotels, cruise liners, etc. on a common platform to co-operate and identify areas of opportunities for mutual growth.
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Travel associations met Singapore Tourism Board to discuss commission issue
The travel agent fraternity met the officials of Singapore Tourism board to discuss the importance of the commission issue. Randall Tan, regional director, South Asia, Middle East and Africa of the Singapore board met the members of TAAI, TAFI, IATO, IAAI, ADTOI and ETAA at Mumbai. All travel agents from across India have stopped selling tickets for Singapore Airlines and Silk Air due to commission issues. The discussion revolved around the travel agents demanding the national tourist board to look into the matter and follow discussions with their national carrier to start giving commissions. If the results were not met in due time the travel agents will look into alternate options of banning Singapore as a travel destination in India.
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NTOs

MGTO to launch promotional programmes to celebrate 10^th anniversary of Macau SAR

Macau received a record-breaking number of over 30 million visitors in 2008. At the annual press conference of MGTO, which was held recently in Macau, João Manuel Costa Antunes, director, MGTO informed that it will soon launch a series of promotional activities focussing on World Heritage, to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the establishment of the Macau SAR. Talking about tourist arrivals from international market Antunes informed that the market share of international travellers had hit 10 per cent. The top ten visitor generating markets for 2008 are mainly from Asia, where India’s position was 7^th with 83,870 arrivals from the country registering an increase of 84.44 per cent compared to 2007.
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STATES
 

Tamil Nadu launches hop-on-hop-off coaches for tourists

After Orissa, Tamil Nadu has become the second state to introduce hop-on-hop-off service for tourists. Under the hop-on-hop-off scheme tourists can board any of the four coaches on the 70 km route from Chennai to Mamallapuram. All the four coaches are air-conditioned and tourists can travel by any coach throughout the day. The route covers 13 tourist spots between Chennai and Mamallapuram. Each coach has 18 seats and one ticket is valid for all the four coaches. Tourists can get down from one coach at any of the tourist spots and catch another one. Trial run of the coaches was conducted on January 27, 2009 and it will start plying within a month or two.
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Over 5.7 lakh tourists visited Kashmir during 2008

According to statistics provided by the department of tourism, government of Jammu and Kashmir, a total number of 572,629 tourists including 21,588 foreigners visited the Kashmir valley during 2008. Although, the department was expecting more numbers, the land agitation that led to disturbed conditions in the state for three months proved to be a stumbling block. Besides, about 500,000 pilgrims visited the Holy Amarnathji Cave in 2008. In addition, more than 72,000 tourists visited Ladakh and 6,551,000 pilgrims visited Vaishnodevi Shrine during 2008.
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DELHI 

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MUMBAI 

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MIDDLE EAST 

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