Theme:  Incredible India-Sustaining the Boom

President:  Subhash Goyal, Stic Travel Pvt. Ltd.

Convention Chairman:  Vijay Thakur, India Vision Tours and Travels

Co-Chairman: Ravi S. Kalra, Travel Inn (I) Pvt. Ltd., Soman S. Pathy, Gujarat Tourism

Chief Guest:  Mulayam Singh Yadav, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.

A brief detail:

• Mulayam Singh Yadav, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh inaugurated the Convention
• Hall of Fame award: L.P. Gupta, Chairman, Clarks Group of Hotels.

Business Sessions:

• Success Stories- Indian Ocean Rim Countries.
• Role of Civil Aviation in sustaining the boom.
• Incredible India
• Marketing Strategies.
• Look North- Showcasing the Northern States.
• To deliberate on ‘Incredible India-Sustaining the Boom’ IATO chose the ‘City of the Taj’ for the 20^th convention, wherein it was recommended that Agra be declared a heritage city and the Taj Mahal be kept open for tourists on moonlit nights.
• There was fervent appeal for road tax to be abolished and approach road to the Taj be cleared of all bottlenecks.
• It also pleaded accord the status of infrastructure sector to the tourism industry and extend the same benefits as were being given to the IT sector.
• It also impressed upon strengthening the tourism infrastructure with more international airports, at least one in each state capital for better connectivity, greater air capacity and more hotels rooms.
• IATO reiterated other suggestions which included abolition of service tax for all segments of the tourism industry, rationalizing taxes, drastic reduction in sales tax on aviation turbine fuel, abolishing luxury tax where not feasible.
• It also asked for implementation of Visa-on Arrival for at least 20 source market countries modernizing of airports and enhancing connectivity of tourist.