Tag Archives: Thomas Cook India

Thomas Cook India has identified Odisha as a significant growth market for its foreign exchange business. To leverage this opportunity, the company has opened two forex counters at Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar, Thomas Cook India said in a BSE filing. Mahesh Iyer, CEO, Thomas Cook (India), says, “Bhubaneswar has been identified as a prime growth driver for Thomas Cook India and continues to deliver strong growth of 32 per cent YoY for our foreign exchange business.” The two new airport counters takes the company’s foreign exchange distribution in Odisha to a total of three outlets and further augments its network in east India to a total of 23 consumer access centres. Source: PTI

Thomas Cook (India) has obtained Board approval to divest a 5.42 per cent stake in its subsidiary Quess Corp, to bring its shareholding to 51.56 per cent, thereby proposing to raise funds of over Rs 600 cr. through an Offer for Sale (OFS) process as prescribed by SEBI. This is in keeping with SEBI regulations that require promoters to bring down their stake to 75 per cent and post dilution, the promoter shareholding in Quess Corp (that of Thomas Cook India and Ajit Isaac, CMD & CEO, Quess Corp.) would be 75.38 per cent. Fairfax Financial Holdings, through the Thomas Cook India Group, is committed to maintaining a controlling stake in Quess Corp. Madhavan Menon, Chairman & Managing Director, Thomas Cook India Group, said, “At the Thomas Cook India Group we are committed to holding a controlling stake in our subsidiary Quess Corp. Our proposed dilution of a portion of our stake in Quess Corp is hence intended to comply with SEBI regulations. Our aim is to retire our long term debt and improve profitability; simultaneously increase our cash reserves, enabling us to effectively leverage opportune investments as and when they arise.” The initiative is also aimed at retiring Thomas Cook India’s long term debt, thus bringing down the company’s financial costs and improving profitability and liquidity at both a standalone and group level.  

Thomas Cook India has announced that its Board has approved the signing of a definitive agreement with Tata Capital Limited to acquire its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Tata Capital Forex Limited (foreign exchange) and TC Travel and Services Limited (travel services). The network of the two acquired entities includes 24 locations pan India. The transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals. Madhavan Menon, Chairman & Managing Director, Thomas Cook India, said, “Our acquisition of Tata Capital’s Forex and travel companies serves to further strengthen the Thomas Cook India Group’s leadership position in the Travel & Foreign Exchange sector in the country. This also gives us the opportunity to continue to serve the strong corporate portfolio of both Tata Capital Forex Limited and TC Travel Services Limited- large corporate houses including flagship Tata Group companies; as also a set of new retail customers.” He added, “The acquisition creates clear opportunities, including a significant increase in scale and network reach, volume/ buying advantages as well as technology gains, all resulting in stronger customer service and stakeholder value.” Praveen Kadle, Managing Director and CEO, Tata Capital said, “Travel and Forex services are perfectly poised for rapid and high growth. We are confident that Thomas Cook would take this business forward and help it reach its potential.”

Thomas Cook (India) has strengthened its presence with the opening of four new outlets in Delhi’s Rajouri Garden, Pitampura, Lajpat Nagar localities and Jodhpur in Rajasthan. This expansion augments Thomas Cook India’s distribution and reach in North India to 42 consumer access centres: 13 owned branches and 29 Gold Circle Partner (franchise) outlets. Thomas Cook India’s data has revealed high demand from India’s north markets, with strong growth of 25 per cent for January- August 2017 against the same period of the previous year. The year has seen significant uptake for favorites like USA & Canada, UK, France, Switzerland and Asia’s Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia; equally for Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Emerging strongly are destinations like Hungary, Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, Japan and Bali, as also exotic locales like Georgia and Azerbaijan. Rajeev Kale, ‎President & Country Head Leisure Travel & MICE, Thomas Cook (India), said “North India is a powerful source market for us at Thomas Cook India and we are witnessing strong growth of over 25% y-o-y across our leisure travel businesses lines. Our strategic intent is to maximise on this market potential via organic expansion and we’ve carefully selected high footfall centres for our new outlets in prime catchment locations within the larger NCR metro market; also Jodhpur in Rajasthan. Our new outlets give our customers in North India (across families, business travellers, millennials, senior citizens, students and NRIs) access to Thomas Cook’s experts right at their doorstep!”

Thomas Cook (India) through its wholly-owned subsidiaries Thomas Cook India Group announced its acquisition of Kuoni’s global network of Destination Management Specialists, covering 17 countries across the geographies of the Americas, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Australia. The transaction will be completed post customary closing conditions. The multinational acquisition creates a strong global network that will transform the Thomas Cook India Group into a globally integrated travel services provider with the ability to leverage inherent synergies across its global travel portfolio. The agreement includes premium brands with expert knowledge of their respective regions, including, ‘Asian Trails’, ‘Desert Adventures Tourism’, ‘Gulf Dunes’, ‘Private Safaris (East & South)’, ‘Allied TPro’ as well as ‘Australian Tours Management’ and extends across 17 countries – USA, Canada, South Africa, Kenya, Namibia, The United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Oman, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia and Australia. Madhavan Menon, Chairman & Managing Director, Thomas Cook India Group said, “In keeping with the Fairfax strategic intent of fair and friendly acquisitions, our agreement to acquire Kuoni’s global network of Destination Management Specialists in 17 countries, provides us a significant expanded global footprint with enhanced presence in The Americas, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia- all favoured destinations for tourists and business travellers worldwide.” He added, “This acquisition is a strong reiteration that the Thomas Cook India Group continues to invest and grow its travel businesses globally with a view to creating strong value for its customers.”

Thomas Cook (India), in a focused initiative to capture smaller, yet high potential local leisure markets, has conceptualised a unique customer outreach – going local- right to its customer’s doorstep. Given the demand for its ‘Grand Indian Holiday Sale’ Thomas Cook India has announced an extension, with a special Weekend Mega Holiday Sale, an on-ground activation across five key catchment localities in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai (Ghatkopar, Kandivali, Juhu, Fort and Vashi), carefully selected basis high potential demand. The venues are well located and popular with local consumers, offering optimal space for both the high traffic and interactions anticipated. This is targeted towards its high potential Maharashtrian and Gujarati customers. The weekend sale bonanza offers customers a range of attractive deals and the advantage of spot discounts up to Rs. 40,000 per person on Thomas Cook India’s holiday packages, with an added incentive of a ‘Child Travels Free’ or its Holiday pe Holiday Free’ offer on select international tours. For customers who pay the entire amount upfront, Thomas Cook India offers a further discount of up to nine per cent on select international departures. Rajeev Kale, Thomas Cook India’s President & Country Head – Leisure Travel, MICE said, “Our customers are increasingly emerging from small local pockets within larger cities, and our intent was to reach out to our customers by going local- right to their very doorstep! The Grand Indian Holiday Sale extension over the weekend will be available at 5 highly popular venues across key catchment localities across Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. Mumbai currently contributes more than 15 per cent to our holiday business and given the high growth potential, we intend to leverage this market to the …

Thomas Cook India’s arm Quess Corp has acquired 64 per cent stake in Singapore-based technology service provider Comtel Solutions Pte Ltd for an undisclosed sum. “Quess Corp Ltd, a subsidiary of Thomas Cook (India) Ltd, has completed acquisition of 64 per cent equity in Comtel Solutions Pte. Ltd., Singapore on February 14, 2017,” the company said in a filing to BSE. Thomas Cook India, however, did not provide any financial details on the stake acquisition. Quess Corp is a business services provider operating in four broad segments: Global Technology Solutions, People and Services, Integrated Facilities Management and Industrial Asset Management. Comtel Solutions Pte Ltd has been in business for over a decade and has expanded across Asia Pacific and several industry verticals. Its divisions work across various sectors and the solutions developed by it cover areas such as banking, high-tech manufacturing, telecommunication, logistics and healthcare industries. (Source: The Economic Times)

Thomas Cook (India) Ltd. in a strategic initiative to expand India’s travel market, has conceptualised an annual property, “The Grand Indian Holiday Sale”, carefully timed to coincide with the peak booking window for summer vacations- India’s largest holiday season. The focused intent to catalyse holiday demand is delivered via a range of specially curated offers and discounts targeting India’s quintessential ‘value seeker’. This intense 10 day sale offers India’s travellers a range of attractive deals and discounts on both domestic and international bookings, covering flights, hotels and holiday packages. To capture its diversity of customers, digitally native and retail, and ensure convenience and easy access, “The Grand Indian Holiday Sale”, is available across Thomas Cook India’s omnichannel network – its online platforms (mobile & website), call centers & extensive offline outlets. Thomas Cook India’s ‘The Great Indian Holiday Sale’ extends across the company’s portfolio of India and International destinations and will be promoted via an intense marketing blitz across outdoor, print and digital over a two week period, across key metros of Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad. Abraham Alapatt, President & Group Head – Marketing, Service Quality, Financial Services & Innovation, Thomas Cook India said, “The Grand Indian Holiday Sale’’ has been conceptualized as a powerful annual property making holidays affordable for every Indian. The initiative is designed to leverage the critical booking period for India’s peak vacation season with exciting deals, thus driving demand and conversions. As a pioneer in the industry, our grand sale in the travel and holiday category intends to build a strong annual property that Indian travellers look forward to every year.” He added, “In addition to the range of attractive …

Thomas Cook India has opened a new Gold Circle Partner outlet in Bikaner. The Thomas Cook Gold Circle Partner programme is an exclusive partner programme for tour operators and travel agents in India that helps in increasing the brand’s presence and reach across the country. With this programme, the Gold Circle Partner reaps benefits of a brand association with Thomas Cook, along with knowledge sharing, training and expertise to manage a travel business. In addition, a Gold Circle Partner is empowered to provide customers with a wide range of travel and financial products & services, including sales & marketing support for customer retention and further new business development, thereby enabling them to reach out to a larger customer base. Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head Leisure Travel & MICE at Thomas Cook India Limited said, “We have observed that India’s Tier II and III markets exhibit immense potential for growth and we want to be a catalyst in this key opportunity. Bikaner is a ]new market for our travel and travel related businesses and we believe that the city offers tremendous potential to cater to a diversity of retail consumers such as business families, government employees, and business and leisure travelers. Our newly opened outlet in Bikaner is located in a well-known commercial hub- right in the heart of the market.” With this new Bikaner outlet, Thomas Cook India’s network in Rajasthan extends to 10 locations across the state, offering its customers easy access via 2 owned branches in Jaipur and Udaipur and 8 Gold Circle Partner outlets (3 in Jaipur, and one each a Kota, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Alwar and now in Bikaner).

Thomas Cook (India) has chosen Rudrapur for the launch of its ‘Thomas Cook Mini’ in Uttarakhand-a strategic deployment of small technology assisted outlets to aggressively harness the growth potential emerging from India’s Tier III markets like Rudrapur. The Thomas Cook Mini outlet at Rudrapur was inaugurated Tilak Raj Behad, Chairman of Uttarakhand State Seed and Organic Production Certification Agency and former Cabinet Health Minister, Govt. of Uttarakhand, in the presence of Ambreesh Rastogi and Ankul Kumar, Associate Vice Presidents, Foreign Exchange, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd. Thomas Cook India’s internal research having highlighted the powerful growth potential of Rudrapur (a significant source market for Foreign Exchange segments of Overseas Study/Students, Outward Remittances and Prepaid Cards), the Company conceptualised a strategy of small technology assisted outlets to rapidly penetrate this underserved market, and hence the launch of its innovative Thomas Cook Mini. The Thomas Cook Mini outlet at Rudrapur has been designed optimising space and will be manned by a 2 member team, equipped with technology via mobile devices/tablets for seamless online connectivity to central systems, thus facilitating quick customer transactions.