Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) recently launched 'EDWIN by GPS' i.e. Educational Destination Workshop – International, for travel agents participating in the upcoming five-city roadshow in Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Kochi and Pune. Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, GPS, described EDWIN as a platform for travel agents, especially from Tier-II and Tier-III cities through which they can get the first hand experience of international destinations which will educate and facilitate them in guiding their clients efficiently about a destination. EDWIN will be an educational trip for travel agents. They will travel to international destinations, inspect them and experience them personally. This will help them in reciprocating the same experience to their clients. It is a pure B2B platform to educate the travel agents across Tier-II and Tier-III cities. We are launching EDWIN by GPS at this year’s GPS Ahmedabad edition.

EDWIN by GPS is planned to be an annual affair and we expect this to be a game-changer in the Indian travel trade industry, especially in Tier-II and Tier-III cities,” explained Anand. From across 10,000 travel agents that are expected to participate across the five city, 20 to 25 travel agents will be selected from each city based on their B2B meetings at the trade show. Few destinations that have been shortlisted for EDWIN are Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, UAE, Egypt and Thailand.

Anand expressed that there are times when a destination tourism board is unable to reach out the Tier-II and Tier-III travel trade markets and therefore the travel agents across these cities are not much familiar about their products and services. “Through EDWIN we aim at reducing this disconnect between the destinations and travel agents. We also have plans to launch educational destination workshops at the domestic level,” Anand added.