Category Archives: Agents

Thomas Cook (India) has strengthened its presence in Mumbai with the opening of a new franchise ‘Gold Circle Partner’ outlet at Opera House. This brings Thomas Cook India’s total number of outlets to 21 consumer access centres with nine owned branches, 12 Gold Circle Partner (franchise) outlets in Mumbai, 38 consumer access centres with 15 owned branches and 23 Gold Circle Partner (franchise) outlets in Maharashtra. Thomas Cook India’s internal data has highlighted that Mumbai continues to feature as a top and growing source market for its holiday business. Hence, in an initiative to harness this opportunity, the company identified Opera House, Mumbai as a high potential location to set up its new Gold Circle Partner franchise outlets. The Thomas Cook Gold Circle Partner programme is an exclusive franchise partner initiative that increases the brand’s presence reach across the country, giving consumers access to the company’s products and services in metros/mini-metros and emerging Tier-II and III markets. A Gold Circle Partner is equipped with sales and marketing support. Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head – Leisure Travel & MiCE, Thomas Cook (India) said, “Mumbai has been identified as a prime growth driver and continues to deliver strong growth of 30% YoY for our leisure travel business. Thomas Cook’s data has highlighted South Mumbai as a high potential source market for its holiday business.”

With an array of cruising choices on offer for the discerning travellers, the Globus family of brands is celebrating its 90 years of operation in the travel business. In 2018, the company plans to showcase its nine-decade journey through a revamped corporate website and is also offering a discount of five per cent on all Globus Europe vacations. Varesh Chopra, Regional Director – South Asia and Middle East, says, “Our journey began 90 years ago on March 28, 1928 & now, nine decades later we are still paddling, steering and cruising travelers across the world through the wonders of six continents. We want to thank all our agent partners for being such a strong support for us through this journey. Without them, we would not have been able to achieve this huge success. We want everyone to be able to celebrate this landmark anniversary with us and hopefully toast with us to another 90 years. On this occasion, we are offering five per cent off on all our Globus Europe vacations.”

Travel Tours, the flagship leisure travel brand of FCM Travel Solutions, has inaugurated their second retail and first franchise store at Salt Lake City, Kolkata. The store was inaugurated by Shravan Gupta, Executive Director – Leisure Businesses, FCM Travel Solutions and Sitaram Sharma, President, Bharat Chamber of Commerce & The Consular General of Belarus. With the launch of this store, FCM Travel Solutions now has 28 operational Travel Tours stores across India. The new Travel Tours store in Kolkata aims at redefining travel experience from the region by focusing on both tailor-made vacations and group holidays catering to different kinds of travellers in the city. Spread over 1200 sq. ft., the outlet at Salt Lake City will cater to needs of up-market urban consumers – families, business travellers, honeymoon couples and groups of travellers. The new retail outlet will offer a range of products and services – domestic and international flights, customised and group holidays, hotels, car transfers, visa, cruise vacations, honeymoon packages, adventure holidays and more. Commenting on the launch, Gupta said, “Our second store in Kolkata is a reiteration of our strategic intent at Travel Tours, FCM to expand our footprint across key markets in East India. Through this launch, we aim to provide unbeatable travel experiences to our patrons in an untapped market.”    

Tamarind Global has announced the launch of a wedding division at its Delhi office. After the exponential growth of its weddings and events division of Tamarind Global in Mumbai, the company now looks forward to tapping the flourishing wedding business in Delhi-NCR. Tamarind Global’s Delhi office already offers event management and MiCE services. The division will be led by Karan Malhotra, Head – Events and Weddings, Tamarind Global. Kunal Rai, VP, Events and Weddings, Tamarind Global, said, “This strategic expansion has always been on the cards for us. We are excited it is finally coming to fruition and we can have a dedicated presence catering to our already growing client base in Delhi. Delhi-NCR is prominent for the size and scale of its thriving wedding and events business, making the move of securing a strong presence in the region an inevitable progression. A team of 10 people has already successfully executed one wedding. This fully fledged team is geared to provide hospitality and logistics services as well as client servicing support for turnkey wedding and event solutions for Delhi and other North markets. The aim is to increase the team size to handle multiple weddings, and pitch for new weddings in the region.”  

In an effort to expand its reach further in the market, Kolkata-based ‘A Travel Duet’ has moved its head office to Mumbai. Pritish Shah, Founder, A Travel Duet, who has also moved to Mumbai, says, “We had a branch office in Mumbai while being headquartered in Kolkata. But we soon realised that if we want to expand, Mumbai is the place to be, specially with the kind of products we offer. Mumbai is also a trendsetter in many ways. We also have a huge emphasis on having Preferred Partners such as Relaix & Chateau, Four Seasons, and Luxury Lodges of New Zealand and we are keen to expand that portfolio from about 10 brands right now to 100 this year. That is also one of the reasons why we wanted to move to Mumbai.” The Mumbai office will have a staff strength of about 15-20 people and will be located in Khar West. The company offers high-end, exclusive leisure holidays to couples. Speaking more about expansion plans for this year, Shah adds, “We want to make the company the best luxury travel brand for couples in India. At a later stage, we will also open an office in Delhi which will purely have a sales and operations team.”    

Pricol Travel Limited, a part of Pricol Group of Companies, announced its alliance with the Advantage Travel Partnership UK offering empowerment programs for holiday and leisure travel agencies in India through the Advantage Asia Travel Partnership. Advantage Asia will be the country’s first leisure travel consortium providing the necessary edge to holiday travel agencies, enabling them to offer the best blend of travel products and services to their customers which will run under a licensee arrangement. The partnership program is suitable for small to medium sized travel agencies, who aspire to grow their business in the outbound leisure segment. It will work closely with their member partners, sharing collective knowledge to deliver exceptional travel services. “Advantage Travel Partnership UK has empowered thousands of small and medium travel agents in Europe, enabling and providing them with the necessary updated product knowledge and current technology for them to be relevant at all times.” Vikram Mohan, Chairman – Pricol Travel Limited. “The program provides different services that support various aspects of an agency run business. At the advantage travel partnership, we work closely with our member partners to provide them with tools to offer their customers the most inspirational, yet affordable range of travel products said Mr. A Dharmaraj, COO, Advantage Asia Travel Partnership.

Cox & Kings Global Services (CKGS) and The Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco hosted a joint event in Delhi. The occasion was graced by His Excellency Mohamed Maliki, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco, along with the senior management of Cox & Kings Ltd. The event showcased Moroccan culture and various tourist attraction in Morocco from the imperial cities to stunning beaches. “I’m honoured to co-host the travel agents event together with CKGS, which gives us opportunity to promote the Kingdom of Morocco as an Authentic and Exotic destination and showcases the numerous Tourism potential it has. Foreseeing growth and significance of the Indian tourism market to Morocco, we are also planning to open of a full-fledged Moroccan National Tourism Office in Delhi very soon.” said His Excellency, Mohamed Maliki. CKGS has recently opened Morroco Visa application centres in different cities of India including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Goa and Indore. Centres in more cities will be opened shortly. “We provide visa application services to Indians travelling to Morocco through our various offices in India. we have taken one more step further to promote Indian outbound travel to Morocco by partnering with The Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco for this event.” said Venku Murthi, Chief Operating Officer, CKGS.

Globus has launched its ‘Escapes’ vacations, a compilation of specially curated vacations offering departures from November 2018 to March 2019 to Europe and other exotic locations. These vacations give an opportunity to experience the world’s most popular destinations for less while providing a better travel experience with fewer travellers and less crowding of the most visited tourist attractions. “After extensive research, we have realised that the trend has changed from travel only during the peak summer months to travelling anytime throughout the year.” says Varesh Chopra, Regional Director – South Asia and Middle East, Globus family of brands. “No longer are travellers looking at a restricted travel period, they pick and choose the destination as per what is attractive and offers value. Our instincts proved right and we got an overwhelming response for ‘Escapes’. We were able to achieve three times the numbers we set out to achieve.” For 2018-19, Globus family of brands has unveiled its collection of 16 new tours of Escapes. When travellers choose ‘Escapes’, they get all the benefits of escorted travel of Globus including a greater choice of activities, behind-the-scenes experience, superior centrally located hotels and plenty of free time to explore the destination the way they want with vacations starting from as low as $100 per day.

Blue Square Consultants has been appointed as the sales and marketing representative for ‘Australia & Beyond Holidays’ in India. Formed by Simon Bernardi, Australia’s inbound travel management operator provides global solutions to Indian travel agents, from both DMC products and FIT. Through its online Agora booking system, the company offers thousands of land products and hotels worldwide, many with allocations. Simon Bernardi, Director, Australia & Beyond Holidays, said “India continues to be an important tourism market for Australia, with growth of over 15 per cent in arrivals over last year and a 30 per cent increase in travel spend. The Indian market spends on average 13 nights in Australia allowing us to develop itineraries to inspire our customers from India. Blue Square Consultants is the apt partner to have in India because of their highly professional team and undisputed knowledge of the travel trade in India.” Lubaina Sheerazi, COO, Blue Square Consultants, added, “Our emphasis has always been to associate with reputed clients and we have achieved this once again with our recent alliance with Australia & Beyond Holidays. We are confident that our association will not only be beneficial for the client but also for Australia as a destination.”  

BigBreaks has announced the launch of ‘Self Drive Holidays’, a unique product in association with Myles, India’s leading car rental company. At the initial stage, the holiday packages have been designed for Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai, which would soon extend to other major cities too. At an all inclusive price, travellers can book a complete holiday, that includes self drive car rental and hotel accommodation on pre-planned routes. “Designed for young travellers, these self drive holidays have seen an excellent response”, said Kapil Goswamy, Founder & Managing Director, BigBreaks. Another recent launch by BigBreaks was Pilgrimage Holidays. Given the size of the pilgrimage market, both among resident Indians and non-resident Indians, Goswamy is extremely bullish on this segment. “From Kedarnath and Badrinath in the north, Rameshwar in the south, to Jagannath Puri in the east and Dwarka in the west, we’ve launched Pilgrimage Holiday options to over 20 of the important pilgrimage spots in India, and more are being added everyday. The most popular so far have been Chardham Yatra’s , where for those short on time, we’ve even begun offering Do Dham Darshan in just one day ex Delhi, Goswamy shared.