The Ministry of Tourism in its ongoing efforts to strengthen the Hospitality and Tourism Industry especially in the times of the COVID pandemic, has signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with online travel aggregrators (OTA) MakeMyTrip and Ibibo Group on Wednesday (18 August), an official release said.

The ministry has already signed MoUs with other OTA platforms including Easy my Trip, Clear trip and Yatra.com.

According to the ministry, the primary objective of the MoU is to provide an extensive visibility to accommodation units, which have self-certified themselves on SAATHI (System for Assessment, Awareness & Training for the Hospitality Industry) on the OTA platform.

"The MoU also outlines both parties to encourage Units to register on NIDHI and thereby on SAATHI and encourage local tourism Industry with appropriate safeguards for curbing spread of COVID-19," the ministry said in the release.

The idea, as per the Tourism Ministry, is also to gather more information on accommodation units in order to gain actionable insights and designing evidence based and targeted policy measures and to promote safe, honourable and sustainable tourism.

The event was organized under the arrangement between Ministry of Tourism and Quality Council of India (QCI) for implementing measures for strengthening the Indian Hospitality & Tourism Industry.

"The Ministry of Tourism and MakeMyTrip (India) Private Limited & Ibibo Group Private Limited will endeavour to take necessary steps to encourage and promote strategic and technical co-operation in the Indian hospitality and tourism sector for overall benefit in the identified areas through the MoU," the release said.

The ministry expects that more OTAs will come forward in future for signing such MOUs in order to strengthen the Hospitality and Tourism Industry of India.