Travel Agency and Tour Operation III: Travel Documentation: the Travel Information Manual, Passports and Visas, Health Certificates, Currency, Insurance and Cards, Customs; Citizenship, the Passports Act, FEMA, the Foreigners and Immigration Laws, RBI Guidelines and Criminal Law; Baggage, Lost Baggage, Dangerous Goods, Cargo Rates and Valuation Charges; Airport Automation; and Tour Brochures

The Travel Information Manual (TIM), published by IATA and kept current through its database version, TIMATIC, gives for every country the entry requirements that airlines and agents must check before a passenger travels: passport validity rules, visa requirements by nationality and purpose, transit rules, health and vaccination requirements, customs allowances, currency import and export rules, and airport taxes. Airlines are responsible for carrying only properly documented passengers and can be fined and made to return passengers who are refused entry, which is why check-in staff consult it. A passport is the travel document issued by a government to its citizen, certifying identity and nationality and requesting other states to allow the bearer to pass. A visa is an endorsement or electronic authorisation by the country to be visited, permitting the holder to seek entry for a stated purpose and period; it does not guarantee admission, which the immigration officer at the port decides.

The information a passport or visa form requires is predictable: full name exactly as in other identity documents, date and place of birth, nationality, parents' or spouse's names, address and contact details, occupation, identity proof numbers, previous passports and travel history, and for a visa the purpose, dates, address in the country, sponsor or host, and financial means, with photographs and, increasingly, biometrics. Many countries require the passport to be valid for six months beyond the intended stay and to have blank pages. India issues regular visas (tourist, business, employment, student, medical, conference, journalist, transit and others) through its missions abroad, and since November 2014 an electronic visa, introduced as a tourist visa on arrival with electronic travel authorisation, renamed the e-Tourist Visa in 2015 and extended in 2017 to e-Business and e-Medical categories and later to others such as e-Conference and e-Medical Attendant. An e-Visa is applied for and granted online and is used to enter through designated airports and seaports.

Citizenship in India is governed by the Citizenship Act 1955, which provides for citizenship by birth, descent, registration and naturalisation; India does not allow dual citizenship, but persons of Indian origin who are citizens of other countries may register as Overseas Citizens of India (OCI), a lifelong status with a multiple-entry visa, into which the former PIO card was merged in 2015. The Passports Act 1967 governs the issue, refusal, impounding and revocation of passports and makes it an offence to travel without one or to give false information to obtain one. The Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999 (FEMA), in force from 1 June 2000, replaced the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1973; it treats contraventions as civil matters, with penalties, rather than criminal offences, and it allows current-account transactions such as travel subject to reasonable restrictions. Under the Reserve Bank's Liberalised Remittance Scheme a resident individual may remit up to USD 250,000 in a financial year (the limit since 2015) for permitted purposes including travel; foreign exchange is bought from authorised dealers; on arrival, foreign currency notes above USD 5,000, or foreign exchange above USD 10,000 in all, must be declared on a Currency Declaration Form; and residents may carry Indian currency out of and back into India only up to a small limit, ₹25,000 under the regulations of 2015.

The "Foreigners Registration Act" in the syllabus refers to the law requiring foreigners to register with the authorities. For decades the entry, stay and exit of foreigners were governed by four Acts: the Passport (Entry into India) Act 1920, the Registration of Foreigners Act 1939, the Foreigners Act 1946 and the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 2000. Under the registration rules, a foreigner on a long-term visa of more than 180 days had to register with the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) within 14 days of arrival, now largely online through the e-FRRO service, and hotels had to report foreign guests. Parliament has since enacted the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, which consolidates these laws and repeals all four; it provides for passports and visas for entry, registration, the reporting of foreigners by hotels, educational institutions and hospitals, and the obligations of carriers. It takes effect from the date the Central Government notifies, and the detailed requirements are in the rules and orders made under it, which should be checked for current procedure.

"Criminal Law" and the "Registration of cases" in the syllabus concern tourists as victims of crime and the procedure they follow. From 1 July 2024 the Indian Penal Code 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 and the Indian Evidence Act 1872 were replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. Information about a cognizable offence is now recorded as a first information report under section 173 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, which allows it to be given at any police station irrespective of where the offence took place (a "zero FIR") and electronically. A tourist whose passport is stolen reports the loss to the police, obtains a copy of the report, and applies to his embassy or, for an Indian, the passport office for a replacement; a foreign national also needs an exit permission from the immigration authorities before leaving on a new passport. Many states have tourist police units at major destinations to help visitors.

Every ticket carries a free baggage allowance (the syllabus's "free access baggage"), the checked baggage carried without extra charge, plus a cabin allowance. It is set under one of two systems. Under the weight concept the allowance is a total weight, commonly 20 to 30 kg in economy and more in higher classes; under the piece concept, used especially on journeys to and from the Americas, it is a number of pieces, typically two pieces of up to 23 kg each in economy, with limits on each piece's dimensions. Baggage beyond the allowance is excess baggage, charged per kilogram under the weight concept and per extra piece under the piece concept, and paid for through an EMD. Worked example: with a 30 kg allowance, a passenger who checks 38 kg has 8 kg of excess, which at ₹500 a kilogram costs ₹4,000.

When checked baggage is lost, delayed or damaged, the passenger files a Property Irregularity Report (PIR) at the airport before leaving. Under the Montreal Convention 1999 the airline is liable for checked baggage up to a limit per passenger expressed in special drawing rights (1,000 SDR in the original text, revised upwards since), unless a higher value was declared and paid for; complaints of damage must be made within 7 days of receipt and of delay within 21 days, and baggage not delivered within 21 days is treated as lost. Dangerous goods are articles that can endanger the aircraft or people, classified under the UN system into nine classes: explosives; gases; flammable liquids; flammable solids; oxidising substances and organic peroxides; toxic and infectious substances; radioactive material; corrosives; and miscellaneous dangerous goods, which include lithium batteries. They are carried as cargo only under IATA's Dangerous Goods Regulations (based on ICAO's Technical Instructions), and passengers may carry only limited items, spare lithium batteries and power banks in the cabin and not in checked bags.

Worked example of chargeable weight: a carton measuring 100 × 60 × 50 cm weighs 40 kg. Its volumetric weight is 100 × 60 × 50 ÷ 6,000 = 300,000 ÷ 6,000 = 50 kg, which exceeds the actual weight, so the carton is charged as 50 kg. Light, bulky goods pay for the space they take; dense goods pay for their weight.

Airport procedures have been automated at almost every step. Passengers check in online or at self-service kiosks and drop their bags at automated counters; boarding passes are on phones; airlines transmit Advance Passenger Information to immigration authorities before arrival; many airports use e-gates for immigration; and India's DigiYatra, launched at Delhi, Bengaluru and Varanasi airports in December 2022, lets domestic passengers pass entry, security and boarding gates by facial recognition. The sequence for an international departure remains check-in and bag drop, emigration, security screening and boarding; for arrival, immigration, baggage reclaim and customs through the green or red channel. Baggage is tracked by barcoded and increasingly radio-frequency tags, which has reduced mishandling.

A tour brochure is the operator's shop window and, in law, part of the contract. Its elements are an attractive cover and brand; an introduction to the operator; destination descriptions with photographs and maps; day-by-day itineraries; inclusions and exclusions; accommodation details; a price grid by date, room type and group size, with supplements; booking conditions (deposit, payment, cancellation charges, insurance, the operator's liability); documentation and health advice; and a booking form and contact details. It matters because the intangible product must be made visible and credible before purchase, because it positions the brand, and because anything it promises must be delivered: misdescription is a ground for complaint under consumer law. Most brochures are now digital, but the elements are the same.