TBM Staff - Mumbai The national board of ETAA (Enterprising Travel Agent’s Association) has signed a LOI with IATA to promote the TIDS (Travel Industry Designer Service) Seller Identification Program to its 800 plus members on a pan India basis.
According to the association it is a significant achievement in the travel & tourism Industry. A letter of recommendation from ETAA can be used in place of a letter from “Airlines, GDS or other major industry suppliers”.
The program allows for the bookings of travel sellers and intermediaries to be recognized by industry suppliers from airlines, hotel & resort chains, cruise lines, car rental companies, theme parks, and rail companies.
As the digital transformation of the industry ramps up, industry-wide standard identification of sales intermediaries has become critical. To facilitate this, IATA TIDS is now FREE of charge. As part of this digital transformation, IATA has launched a new self-managed information platform to allow members to easily maintain their agency profile and details online.
In this direction, ETAA had organised a webinar with Luc Debono, Senior Manager, Product Development, Identity Services, IATA, to assist members with the procedure for TIDS Onboarding.
The webinar received a good response & members have started applying for TIDS with Letter of Recommendation from ETAA.
Commenting on this, Harsha Krishnan, Head, Identity Services, IATA, said, ““The IATA TIDS program provides standard identification for non-accredited agents and sales intermediaries. Our partnership with ETAA, a leading travel agency association in India, to promote the IATA TIDS program aligns with our digital identification strategy. Having made the TIDS service available at no cost to travel sellers, this initiative demonstrates IATA’s ongoing support of Travel Agents in India and around the world. ’’
Carl Dantas, Chairman, Emeritus, said, “It is a good move by IATA to include ETAA members in this program to enable them be part of the selling process by Digital Identification. I urge all ETAA members to avail of this facility which will enable them to be Identified through the TIDS certification program.”
