Special fares to get India going
Exciting rail promotions are on for this year, but being a late-booking market, India is still not reacting to these offers.
If only India was an early booking market, passengers could save as much as 75 per cent by booking 90 days prior to their travel dates on the Rail passes,” informs Kunal Kothari, Executive Director, Rail Europe India.
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every year, Rail Europe India has announced its year-round promotions for 2013 with offers for every segment of traveller – family, senior citizens, youth, businessmen, etc. Last year, with the promotions on, the company recorded a growth of 35 per cent in the first quarter.
“However, this year, the market looks too slow. The bookings may increase after the announcement of Union Budget 2013-14.
When asked about the top-performing markets in terms of sales figures in India, Western India tops the list, followed by North and Southern India for Rail Europe India. On the other hand, Switzerland is still the number one selling destination for the company from India followed by France, UK, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany and East Europe. The company has recently added NTV Italo (a private operator of high-speed rail network in Italy) in the Indian product-lines and will soon add it on its online distribution channel. “Since the product is still offline, we make 70-80 bookings per day for NTV Italo. By March 2013, we will successfully integrate their system with our distribution channel and expect to increase the sales by 200 bookings a day. With the similar price point and better services, NTV Italo is competing with the local operator Trenitalia.”
Moving further, the company is also introducing web fares for German Rail and Trenitalia before sum The company recorded sales of 16.35 million Euros from India in 2011, 19.63 million Euros (from January – November 2012) in 2012 and is expecting to perform and witness sales of 22 million Euros in 2013. India contributes close to 10 per cent of the total global sales for Rail Europe. To reach the target, it is going to enter Tier-II cities like Pune, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore and others to educate travel professionals.