The state has proven vital to the association, contributing 35 new members in the last financial year alone.
Both meetings were led by Prateek Hira, Chapter Chair, Uttar Pradesh. The Varanasi meeting welcomed Rajendra Rawat, Deputy Director of UP Tourism, as the Guest of Honour. In Agra, the Guest of Honour was Deepti Vatsa, Regional Tourist Officer, accompanied by Harish Kumar from the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India.
Sunil C. Gupta, Regional Chapter Chair, co-presided over the Agra meeting with Prateek Hira. The Varanasi meeting was solely chaired by Prateek Hira. The discussions focused on the challenges faced by members in Uttar Pradesh and saw immediate responses and solutions from government officials and IATO leaders.
Sunil C. Gupta highlighted the achievements of IATO and encouraged members to register for the upcoming IATO Convention in Bhopal, emphasizing the benefits of the knowledge sessions and familiarization tours planned for the event.
Prateek Hira on another 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.
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 and IATO UP Chapter felicitated the two professors along with the Guest of Honour for the day in Varanasi, Rajendra Rawat and Vikas Singh of Hotel City Inn which sponsored this chapter meeting in Varanasi.
In the Agra meeting, a felicitation plaque was presented each to Sunil C. Gupta, Deepti Vatsa, Harish Kumar, Rajiv Saxena and the Management of Royale Sarovar Portico Hotel that had sponsored the Agra meeting of IATO Chapter.
Prateek Hira, Chapter Chairman of IATO 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 embers”
Sunil C. Gupta exhorted the members to convince the local travel trade to join IATO as IATO is a national apex body of tour operators and looks into the interest of the travel trade, plus the travel trade too gets an opportunity to network, learn and take their businesses to the next level.
Both the chairmen, Sunil C. Gupta and Prateek Hira met each member individually at the networking tea that followed this meeting and interacted with all the attending members and the special invitees individually, taking stock of issues and problems plaguing the industry and also urged them to attend this year’s IATO Convention in Bhopal from 30th of August to 2nd of September.
Follow BOTT on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & Instagram
Subscribe BOTT Channels on WhatsApp & Telegram to receive real time updates
