The Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh (Atab) has put forward a series of proposals aimed at combating corruption in the travel sector and ensuring the effective implementation of policies, guidelines, and laws to prevent money laundering within the industry.
At media briefing titled “Travel Agency Business and Current Scenario” on Saturday at a hotel in the capital Atab President Abdus Salam Aref highlighted key concerns and urged the the government to take the necessary measures.
It proposed formulation of appropriate policies for conduct of Online Travel Agency (OTA) business, providing policies/instructions for group ticketing by stopping air ticket hoarding and syndicates, mandatory mentioning of agency name, contact phone number, ticket price on the ticket, blocking foreign websites/APIs so that they cannot run business illegally from Bangladesh and urgently stop money laundering.
Besides, passengers of tickets sold from third countries (other than the country of departure and destination ie. India, Dubai, Singapore) need to be on-boarded at the Bangladesh airport that may prevent ticket sales and money laundering from third countries, it sad.
They proposed quick action to stop giving incentives against collecting hundreds of crores of advance money in the name of selling air tickets.
In order to prevent possible anarchy and loss of public interest in this regard and to prevent discrimination in trade, travel agencies cannot display, advertise, sell and market tickets at a price lower than the price of airlines, it said.
Atab recommended action to stop unregistered fake agencies illegally conducting business, selling air tickets and travel related services.
It suggested monitoring so that online travel agencies (OTAs) do not issue login IDs to any unlicensed travel agent, tour operator or organization for doing business.
Among others, Atab Secretary General Afsia Jannat Saleh, Vice President Mustafizur Rahman Hero, Joint Secretary General Atiqur Rahman, Deputy Secretary General Toaha Chowdhury, Finance Secretary Md. Safiq Uliah Nantu, were also present.
