Taj Tours ups India budget

UK-based tour operator, Taj Tours, has increased its budget allocation by 300 per cent after seeing phenomenal growth and potential in the India market.

In the business since 1983, London-based Taj Tours is now headed by the secondgeneration businessman, Niteen Mehta, CEO of Taj Tours. He espies huge growth in the India market and this is evident in the increase in budget that Mehta is looking at for its India operations.

“Our major budgets have now been allocated to India and we are looking at increasing it 300 per cent! This will be on a B2B basis. We are investing a lot of our resources into India now and we can already see the returns,” Mehta said.

To capture the multiplying market, Taj Tours is appointing PSAs in all its key markets. It recently appointed Gogo Travels in Mumbai – its first since the Mumbai office opened in 1999.

“We hadn’t found anyone to represent us here until now. Gogo Travels came highly rec- ommended for their infrastructure and their service. We are open to more PSAs in Mumbai provided we find the right partner. We want the local agents to earn which is why we don’t take any booking directly,” Mehta adds.

It also recently appointed three PSAs in South India including Chennai and Pondicherry. “We are open to expansion in metros and even tier II and III cities. But we want to wait to partner with the right agents who will open up the market for us. New Delhi was one of our newest markets as well; we had no representation there since the last four years until now because we were very particular about whom we tie up with,” Mehta explains. Taj Tours also launched a brochure recently that has 30 new destinations.

Speaking about the markets that are showing a lot of potential, Mehta underlines East and South India as the ones that stand out. Mehta says, “We have hit the metro city of Kolkata but we haven’t really explored the region. For instance, Orissa is a huge market. We just appointed a PSA there and it is performing really well. Another example is Pondicherry.”

Our major budgets have now been allocated to India and we are looking at increasing it 300 per cent! This will be on a B2B basis.