In a recent talk hosted by FAITH, which saw participation of over 100 pax, virtually, including representatives and board members of its 10 member associations, Pradeep Singh Karola talked about the new ways and methods in which aviation will move forward in India. He summarized the future aviation trends under 4 points, namely,
- Going forward, the new normal will be the new way of travel and will have to be adhered by all.
- Business travel will reduce as people will opt to connect virtually. However, the money and resources saved on business travel will be channelized towards ‘leisure’ and ‘pleasure’ travel.
- Time will have an increased value and moving forward, people will prefer to travel by air rather than other longer means of travel. Thus if a trip would normally cost them 3 days of commuting time, they would reduce it to a day and utilise the remaining two days for tourism.
- Lastly, people have not ventured out much in last 10 months. This pent up demand to travel will push people to go out and explore once things go back to normal. Thus, I feel the Summer of next year will offer a great opportunity to tourism and aviation industry to make up for the lost time.
In an interactive chat, the heads and reps of various travel trade associations put forth their suggestions to up aviation and tourism numbers in the country. Mr. Nakul Anand, Chairman, FAITH, lauding the efforts of the ministry reinforced that tourism and hospitality contributes 10% to the GDP of the country and thus must be given its share of due importance.
While TAAI and TAFI talked about safeguarding the interests’ of the travel agents should an airline company go down, the Civil Aviation Secretary was also urged to open commercial international flights from India. IATO stressed upon the need for reciprocal traffic in terms of a date / time frame being announced for opening up of inbound tourism, atleast for short haul flights from India. ADTOI President rightly pointed out that a very low percentage of tourist traffic travels by air and there is a fear in the minds of the people regarding social distancing in air travel, which needs to be addressed. ICPB Vice Chairman suggested that a direct flight to Khajuraho, especially given the fact that the city has a new Convention venue, will play a pivotal role in establishing the destination as a popular MICE hub in India.
Pradeep Singh Karola gave a patient hearing to all the suggestions and assured them of an action plan on the same. Meanwhile, the Tourism Secretary highlighted the importance of promoting “our own airlines, as other countries do” since this will not just help promote tourism but also give impetus to the aviation sector in the country. “In the coming months, some heliports, small airports, water drones and more sea planes would come into action, which I am sure will boost the tourism sector. The hotel industry, aviation industry and the sea plane industry should infact sit together to work out a plan to find new tourist pleasure points. We must certainly take cue from the Maldives – if they can do it, why can’t we,” he concluded.
Mr. Goyal, summarising the talking points, promised to present an official paper with the requests and suggestions of the tourism industry for humble consideration by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
