The Traveller Trails Organised Webinars discussing Strategies to Rebuilding The Tourism Industry In Collaboration with ATPHP.
The speakers present in the webinar were mostly academicians, stakeholders from the tourism industry, from the government sector and members of Tourism and Hospitality Fraternity.
The outbreak of COVID-19 presents the tourism sector with major and evolving challenges. The need of the hour is to stay positive and remember that every dark cloud has a silver lining. The tourism industry will undoubtedly bounce back post COVID-19.
The goal of this webinar was to brainstorm to assess the impact, gather learning and revive the tourism industry at the earliest.
This webinar played an important role in assembling the thoughts, expertise, vision and opinion of various academicians, bureaucrats and other stakeholders of the tourism Industry. This was particularly poignant during this time of self-isolation as a result of COVID-19.
The speakers spoke at length about alternate ways of tourism as opposed to mass tourism, rural tourism, employment generation, role of government in supporting the tourism sector, hospitality industry, local tourism, how the tourism sector will develop post COVID- 19, so on and so forth.
COVID presents to us a lot of challenges & threats but it opens up a wide area of possibilities & opportunities also. There is a long path to be covered and we will have to rebuild a lot of things and look into them with a fresh perspective. We will have to undertake several confidence building measures, renovation or revival of available tourism products, designing of new products, enhancement of knowledge & skill of available workforce engaged in tourist delivery chain and tourism product innovations.
Health facilities would play an important role in influencing tourism at a particular destination.
Post COVID, as an immediate measure we would also need to look into setting up some kind of mechanism on how will the Sanitization of Tourism facilities be carried out and how to monitor all of it for transport, accommodation, sightseeing places, roadside facilities etc be carried out. We will have to educate & train the staff who engage with tourists on a daily basis providing various services.
There are several factors which help a tourist in deciding on which destination he would like to visit. Availability of health facilities and SOP’s followed by service providers may now start playing a crucial role in this decision. Hence we as a state would have to be proactive in our approach in this regard.
Post COVID destinations which provide exclusivity, remoteness, nature and a personalized experience would gain popularity.
Post COVID constant engagement of Government & Tourism Professional is required and to merge our synergies for a better future.
Rural tourism and community tourism may be the way forward. Government should put more impetus to community based tourism. This will benefit the host community and also this will open up avenues for income and employment in the host nations.
With these successful sessions, we are encouraged to organise more such sessions in future and we shall use The Traveller Trails as a knowledge sharing platform.
Moderators: Prashant Gautam, Panjab University, Chandigarh and Dr. Amit Gangotia, Central University
The list of speakers:
- Prof.P. Bansal, Vice Chancellor, Himachal Pradesh Technical University
- Vineet Mahendru, Chief Operating Officer, Leisure, Travel Corporation of India (SITA, Distant Frontier and TCI)
- Ravi Ranjan Chaudhary, Yes Bank, Executive Vice President , Strategic Alliance and Corporate Cross Sell
- Vishal Yadav, Director Incredible Destination Management Services Pvt Ltd , Board Member of SITE India & Convenor of the IATO Outbound Sub Committee
- Arrvind Attri , Regional Head – South Asia at Miki
- Prof. Deepak Raj Gupta, University of Jammu
- Prof. Sonia Khan, Himachal Pradesh University
- Mr. Sameer Mahajan, Chief Executive Officer at Exotic Escapes India
- Mr. Jitender Sharma – Director, Consortium Resort & Inns Pvt. Ltd. & Sariska Safari Lodges Pvt. Ltd.
- Mr. Ritesh Sood, Managing Director, Himalayan Saga
- Mr. Ankit Sood, Ecotourism & Heritage Management Expert
- Dr. Nitin Vyas, Himachal Pradesh University
- Ms. Deepika Nagpal, General Manager Robinville Intech Pvt. Ltd.
Vote of Thanks
On behalf of The Traveller Trails, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to you for presenting yourself in the recently organised webinar.
We were enriched by your knowledge sharing and for expressing your views on one of the pressing requirements under the present scenario, “Rebuilding The Tourism Industry”.
Special Thanks to Anil Atri, Founder, The Traveller Trails and the team