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Spotlight
India as a travel education hub
Subhash Motwani
Subhash Motwani |
Among the many aspects of niche tourism in India, an interesting
angle is undoubtedly the emergence of tourism education, which may sound surprising
to many. Indian teachers are known to be among the best and although one might
have heard instances of students joining universities in places like Pune and
Belgaum, one of the growing markets for study is the field of airlines, travel,
tourism and freight forwarding or air cargo industries.
IHCTM (Institute of Hotel, Cargo & Tourism Management),
also known as RBCS or Radio Bhuvan, has been receiving students from overseas
every year for its international travel, cargo and airline courses. IHCTM not
only offers up to nine IATA qualifications, like the 210 IATA authorised training
centres, but also offers courses in e-ticketing and fares from Virgin Atlantic,
UK, CRS training from Viasinc, US and International Tourism as well as F&B
Service certification from City & Guilds, UK.
Search no further
 Having
trained over 2,00,000 students in over five decades, IHCTM today offers up to
19 international qualifications under one roof which are globally recognised.
The Incredible India campaign and the emergence of India as a BPO hub in Asia
has also created awareness of India as a destination and students pursuing careers
in the airline, tourism or freight forwarding industries which is growing globally,
do research on the internet on courses and qualifications available. Search
engines like Google display IHCTM amongst the top three sites as search result
for 'IATA courses'. Additionally, the IATA website has IHCTM listed under its
authorised training centre list. When one compares the cost of doing an IATA/UFTAA
Foundation Course in London and a similar course in India, there is a phenomenal
difference in pricing as well as the cost of living. The one in London would
cost in the range of 2,000 sterling pounds while the one in India would cost
almost a third of that.
Dreams fulfilled
 Although
initially IHCTM would receive non-resident Indians as students especially from
Gulf countries such as UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the trend
has changed over the years. The first non-Indian overseas student who came exclusively
for the IATA/UFTAA courses was Clarissa, an American citizen who flew down from
Greece about four to five years ago. Not only did she pursue the IATA/UFTAA
standard and advanced courses but also a crash course in conversational French
and after spending four months in Mumbai at IHCTM, she headed to UK where she
got a job with Thomson Tours.
Then there was this 24-year old student called Umit Cakir
from Bursa, Turkey who wanted to work with an airline, that too at the JFK airport,
New York. His inspiration - the Tom Hanks movie Terminal. After spending six
months at IHCTM and attending the IATA/UFTAA and IATA/FIATA programmes he headed
back to Turkey and is now working as a customer service agent with Alliance
Air in New York.
Similarly, students trickle down from Tanzania, Turkey and
even Scotland. Recently Lenka, a Czech Republic citizen working in Scotland,
contacted IHCTM and enrolled for the best of five package comprising Virgin
Atlantic Level 1 and Level 2 programmes, CRS from Viasinc as well as the IATA/UFTAA
Management programme. Lenka now wants to start her own company and send tourists
to India.
Having the unique distinction of offering all four levels
of the IATA/UFTAA programme, including the management and senior management
courses as well as the IATA/FIATA Dangerous Goods programmes, IHCTM has been
getting a lot of non-resident Indians through word of mouth as well as the internet.
The writer is director and chief faculty of IATA programmes
at IHCTM. Besides having 19 years teaching experience is a destination expert
for Central Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, he heads a tour
company called Compact Travels. He can be contacted at subhashmotwani@rbcsgroup.com
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