‘Stakeholders need to support each other for tourism sector to bounce back’: ITDC webinar

The Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) hosted a webinar on “Preparedness of Hospitality, Travel & Tourism industry during COVID-19” recently, attended by senior officials representing various segments of the hospitality and travel industry. 

Agreeing that domestic tourism is likely to be the first sector to be revived, almost all the panellists were of the view that the industry can bounce back to health if all the stakeholders come together to support each other.

To promote India as a destination among the foreigners, it is important to properly communicate and convince the world and prospective travellers that they are safe while travelling to the country, they remarked.

G Kamala Vardhana Rao, Chairman & MD, ITDC said, “The confidence quotient has to come back to the traveller to bring back the same. ITDC has already completed a holistic training programme on sanitisation and hygiene in all its units for the concerned employees and has developed a SOP to be followed to handle the present situation.”

“To restart its business ITDC has not only provided rigorous training interventions on health and safety protocols to its employees but has also signed an MOU with AIIMS to form an advisory body to monitor the situation of COVID-19 and take necessary steps as and when needed,” he added.

The webinar was also attended by Meenakshi Sharma, DG, Ministry Of Tourism; Suman Billa, Director, Technical Cooperation & Silk Road UNWTO; Pronab Sarkar, President, IATO; Subash Goyal, Honorary Secretary, FAITH; PP Khanna, President, ADTOI, and Amaresh Tiwari, Vice Chairman, ICPB.