Trevor Rajaratnam elected to Board of United Federation of Travel Agents Association

The Extraordinary General Assembly and the Annual General Assembly of the United Federation of Travel Agents Association (UFTAA) was held recently in Istanbul, Turkey. Trevor Rajaratnam, President of the Travel Agents Association of Sri Lanka (TAASL) and Executive Director, Travel 7 Ltd. was elected as a Board Member of UFTAA. This is only the second time a Sri Lankan has been elected to the Board of UFTAA. 

In the 1960s, at the dawn of mass tourism, a few tourism professionals with great foresight saw the need of a global umbrella organisation of Travel Agents Associations hence the Universal Organization of Travel Agents Associations (UOTAA) was formed on 22 November 1966 in Rome, which was later renamed as United Federation of Travel Agents Association, with Giuliano Magnoni of Italy being the first elected President.

As a globally recognised body UFTAA is the longest established negotiating partner with the leading travel and tourism organisation in the world. Of special importance is the close co-operation with IATA, representing the interest of individual travel agents and as a partner in the IATA-UFTAA Training Program.

UFTAA actively has been and still is a spokes-person for the agent’s interest. It offers to its membership the valuable opportunity to be involved with UFTAA’s networking global platform in order to support good health of the travel and tourism industry.The Travel Agents Association of Sri Lanka (TAASL) the National Travel Agents body in the Country, founded on 22 October 1974, is affiliated to the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and represents the interest of 154 outbound travel agents.

TAASL also has representation on the governing board of the Sri Lanka Tourist Development Authority and Sri Lanka Institute of Tourist Hotel Management (SLITHM).