Society of Travel Agents (SOTA) held its first monthly meeting in New Delhi & announced office bearers of various chapters. At the meeting inaugurated by Retired Justice, J D Kapoor, Mahendra Sharma was appointed as Regional Director, Madhya Pradesh Chapter; Y Guglani (Managing Director, Joy Travels) as Regional Director, New Delhi Chapter; Arun Chowdhury, Regional Director-Rajasthan Chapter and R K Jain (MD, HITC Travels) as Secretary, New Delhi Chapter. Action plan for the year was announced by Sunil Kohli, General Secretary (Director Niros Travels) at the meeting. J N Behl, President (Managing Director, Indraprastha Travels) and Jogi S Chawla (MD, Elfin Travels), Treasurer participated in the meeting also with other Association members.

SOTA was formed recently on account of disputes among agents and agents and airlines.

The action plan chalked out by SOTA for the year is:
To resolve disputes between IATA/Non-IATA/airlines/any service provider through mediation

To promote outbound tourism with the help of National Tourism Organisations

To help NTOs/ state tourism departments to arrange their road shows/cultural activities in different cities through SOTA�s Regional Directors

To prepare charter of demands for airlines and the same will be forwarded to BAR, Chairman shortly

To help all 27 state tourism departments for promoting their tourism by way of road shows/ cultural activities etc.

To set up a travel club for which the Association has applied for two acres in Delhi

To launch a SOTA Travel Awards. The Association is in negotiations with business channels for the same

To open 15 chapters in India

SOTA will apply for exclusive VISA facilitation similar to VFS with few embassies and charge nominal amount from members for services

To provide scholarship to outstanding students and source sponsorship for the same