‘Convention’al Times Ahead

Capital View

Rabindra Seth

While the India Convention Promotion Bureau (ICPB) and the Indian Association for Tour Operators (IATO) have chosen August, for Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) the preferred month is September and for the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) it is October

We are nearing the season for annual conventions of trade associations. While the India Convention Promotion Bureau (ICPB) and the Indian Association for Tour Operators (IATO) have chosen August, for Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) the preferred month is September and for the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) it is October. Interestingly, while the venue for ICPB is the capital Delhi, the other three are headed south, one of them across India’s shores to Sri Lanka. IATO favours Cochin (now known as Kochi). FHRAI’s destination is Chennai and for TAAI it is Colombo.

‘Conventions India - the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Events Conclave’ a the ICPB meet it titled will be held on August 10 and 11. “Apart from seeking information and sharing experiences” says executive director, R M Puri, the conclave will seek to ‘Strengthen the brand positioning of Incredible India as a Mice destination’.

IATO’s Kochi dates are August 26 - 28. A commitment for the venue was given by association president, Subhash Goyal during Kerala Travel Mart (KTM) in the port city last year but the theme is yet to be announced. It is certain, however, that diminishing airline commissions, room shortages and rising tariffs will dominate the discussions.

It will be much the same story when TAAI assembles in the Island Republic’s capital for its four-day annual event. September 24-27, under the umbrella of The Indian Travel Congress, attracting as it does participation from virtually every segment of the tourism industry. Announcing the dates at a news conference in Delhi the association president, Balbir Mayal said TAAI had accepted Sri Lanka’s invitation to express solidarity with the islanders who had suffered so much from tsunami.

He said the impact of lower commissions will of course be one of the main subjects on the agenda but there will also be equal importance given to preparing travel agents to develop both alternative and incremental businesses in view of the new challenging emerging thanks to the technological advances and growth in e-business. Like IATO, he said, TAAI is also concerned about the growing gap between demand and supply in accommodation and what he called the tendency on the part of hoteliers to raise tariffs.

Hopefully, the accommodation shortages and the controversial high tariffs will occupy centre stage at the FHRAI convention in Chennai, October 15-17. Surprisingly, the dates have not been announced through a press release but in the federation’s very useful bi-monthly magazine’s May-June issue. This convention has a special significance for FHRAI for it marks the golden jubilee of its existence. President of FHRAI, M P Purushothaman in a message says the golden jubilee convention will be organised ‘with all grandeur’ to commemorate the event. The Union Finance Minister and the state chief minister, he said, are being invited and added that the Malaysian minister for tourism, vice-president of Mauritius and the president of the International Hotel Association (IHA) have already shown their willingness to attend.

Since the three main trade bodies, FHRAI, TAAI and IATO, have yet to draw up the agenda for their annual gatherings they might as well include a subject that is not just crucial as the main draw card for tourism - domestic or international - but also raises the question whether we care to preserve our rich cultural and architectural heritage.

In a series of investigative stories on the health of our heritage on its front pages ‘The Indian Express’ has revealed the eye-opening and shocking neglect of and vandalism at our ancient temples and other monuments. Following up the campaign, Express editor Shekhar Gupta, in his weekly column (June 18) bluntly asks readers, ‘And if you are still not shaken by the disaster that is looming, please look for the signs the next time you happen to visit a heritage site yourself’. ‘Or’, he says, ‘come with me to the Meenakshi Sundareswarar temple at Madurai, which is now competing for the status of the seventh wonder of the world’. He adds, ‘The walk in through any of the spectacular entrances and chances are you would wonder if you have come into one of the finest temples built in the history of mankind, or a make shift bazar.

Right along the temple alleys leading to the 12 gopurams you have shops selling everything from the usual curios and souvenirs to buckets, brooms, bags, spices, soaps and oils, shaving brushes, Made in China flashlights, underwear and banyans, almost anything you might need in the course of a day. What you wonder is this supermarket doing in the bowels of a temple that now claims, quite deservedly, to compete with the Taj Mahal and others for the title of the seventh wonder?

Gupta points out similar wantonness in many other temples and monuments saying ‘all round you find wonderful old houses defiled, or being broken down to be replaced by new constructions. You can only imagine what the whole place would look like if somebody undertook one year’s restoration and clean up and it won’t even cost many tens of crores’.

Gupta’s column is aptly titled ‘Incredible India’s junk yards’. It might be a good idea to mail copies of the column to industry leaders and tourism functionaries.

(The author is a freelance columnist and can be contacted at rabseth@yahoo.com)