TAFI turns 40 as India’s travel-agent business enters another transformation

The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) is using its 40th-anniversary milestone to look at a travel-agent industry undergoing fundamental change.

The organisation’s current agenda includes advocacy, business development, technology adoption and preparing the next generation of travel professionals. The backdrop is an outbound market increasingly shaped by personalised experiences, new source markets and changing traveller behaviour. This is part of the wider shift in India’s outbound market.

Why it matters: India’s travel-agent community is no longer competing only with OTAs. It is competing with AI, direct supplier distribution and increasingly sophisticated airline and hotel loyalty ecosystems. The industry is already seeing AI reshape travel-agent distribution and AI travel planners.

The winning agency model is therefore likely to be specialist, advisory and experience-led, rather than simply transactional.

#Tags: #TravelAgents #TravelTrade #IndianTravelIndustry #TravelTechnology #AIinTravel #OutboundTravel