Mr. Rajiv Mehra, President, Indian Association of Tour Operators has made an appeal to all its members and all the tourism professionals to get themselves, staff and their families to register on for Covid-19 for vaccination.
While requesting the members and others, he mentioned that it is very important for all of us in the tourism and hospitality industry to get ourselves and staff vaccinated at the earliest possible and once the vaccinations is done, same should be conveyed to all your counterparts/foreign tour operators to create confidence amongst them that vaccination programme in India is going on in full swing and all our staff and the frontline workers i.e., airport representatives, drivers, guides, escorts and tourist felicitators, hotel front office, reception and restaurant staff etc. have been vaccinated.
Mr. Mehra also mentioned that this should be conveyed to the foreign tour operators that as soon as e-Tourist Visa and international flight operation is resumed, we are ready to welcome foreign tourists. Besides creating confidence amongst the foreign tour operators, it will also encourage them to resume business to India.
Mr. Mehra encouraging the members added that we know presently there is shortage of vaccines but one has to try daily on the e website every day to book slot for vaccination as presently slots are being made available only one day prior to the vaccination date. However, different states have different policies, but we should not give up and try to get our vaccinations scheduled.
Mr. Mehra also expressed his happiness that as per the news, the Covid-19 vaccine production of the country will be accelerated in the next coming months as both Pune’s Serum Institute of India and Hyderabad’s Bharat Biotech are ramping up their monthly production capacity. Besides Sputnik V is also going to be available soon. All this will accelerate vaccination programme in the coming months.
