During both the meetings held in Varanasi & Agra, the schemes of the government were discussed, and the members were informed that how each of them can take advantage of the schemes after registering with the state government
Uttar Pradesh Chapter of IATO conducted two chapter meetings in Varanasi and Agra on July 21 and 26 respectively. Both the meetings were attended by about 40 members of IATO at each location. The discussions were held on the issues and problems faced by the IATO members in the state of UP.
Both the meetings were conducted and chaired by Prateek Hira, the Chapter Chair of UP. The Guest of Honour in Varanasi meeting was Rajendra Rawat, Deputy Director – UP Tourism and similarly in the Agra Meeting, the Guest of Honour was Deepti Vatsa, Regional Tourist Officer along with Harish Kumar of Ministry of Tourism, GoI.
Regional Chapter Chair, Sunil C. Gupta presided over the Agra meeting along with Hira.
Gupta enumerated the achievements of IATO and invited all members to register for the upcoming IATO Convention in Bhopal taking place from August 30 to September 2 to take advantage of the knowledge sessions and familiarization tours planned thereafter.
Hira on the other hand spoke about the schemes of the governments and informed the members how each of them can take advantage of the schemes after registering with the state government. He also heard all the problems being faced by the members and assured the members that each will be taken up by IATO and addressed.
Many attendees were new members who have recently joined IATO from UP. In the last financial year, the state added 35 new members to the membership list of IATO.
In the Varanasi meeting, Prof Jyoti Rana and Prof Pravin Rana of Banaras Hindu University spoke to the members regarding bridging the gap between the academia and the industry.
Hira said, “IATO’s strength is its members and IATO is the only travel trade body that influences the policy change and reaches the optimum benefits to its members”
Gupta exhorted the members to convince the local travel trade to join IATO as it is a national apex body of tour operators and looks into the interest of the travel trade, also the travel trade gets an opportunity to network, learn and take their businesses to the next level.
Both the chairmen, Gupta and Hira met each member individually to interact with all the attending members and the special invitees with taking stock of issues and problems plaguing the industry.
