TCI to open 6 new overseas rep offices
The idea is to push market specific products at the most competitive price and win business from new target markets round-the-year. The focus should not be solely on American and European markets.
It’s the sole USA and the Europe-centric focus that has put most Indian inbound operators in a stagnancy in growth, says Surinder S Sodhi, Senior Vice President & Head Inbound, Thomas Cook India. “The present slowdown has occurred due to our over dependence on the European and the USA market. We had not done enough to tap more source markets beyond the European region and the USA.”
“Intra-regional tourism can take us to heights and our focus should include Greece, Italy and Turkey and many other potential markets. There is urgent need to pay adequate attention to growing neighbouring markets such as the Far East and the Middle East. The advantages of growing these markets is that time taken to travel is less. Moreover, air fare and other incidental expenses are comparatively lesser,” he added.
Here, Singh promptly adds that TCI, for past 8-10 months, had been targetting new markets. “It’s right time for us to get there, especially when there has been a change in the travel preferences of the travellers in the conventional market. Earlier, travellers will make plans almost a year in advance, however, this time has now been reduced to six months. Further, now, advance booking for travel can get as prompt as three months in advance. Whereas, if we have the right product at the correct price, we can pick business from our new target markets roundthe-year.”
In fact, Thomas Cook India is looking at further enhancing its overseas net- work and has set an ambitious target of opening six new overseas representative offices in India. “We have an extensive presence in India and overseas, which we are further going to expand in 2013. We have our head offices in Gurgaon, while other offices in India are spread across Agra, Bengaluru, Chennai, Cochin, Goa, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Mumbai, Trivandrum, Udaipur and Varanasi. Our overseas offices are located in New York, London, Frankfurt, Madrid, Barcelona, Tokyo and Kathmandu. In addition to the above said offices, we have opened TCI Representative Offices in Moscow, China, Korea, Portugal and Australia.”
“Going forward, we are looking at opening six new overseas representative offices in Dubai, Mexico, Brazil, France, Canada and Netherlands,” he added.
There is an urgent need to pay adequate attention to growing neighbouring markets such as the Far East and the Middle East