Tag Archives: Rakshit Desai

Travel Tours, the flagship leisure travel brand of FCM Travel Solutions – Indian subsidiary of Flight Centre Travel Group Australia, recently inaugurated its fifth store in Bengaluru. The store was inaugurated by Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, India at Flight Centre Travel Group. With the launch of this store, FCM Travel Solutions now has 30 operational Travel Tours stores across India. The new store in Bengaluru aims to fulfill the diverse needs of travellers in the city by offering both personalised vacations and group tours. The store will cater to the needs of high-end urban consumers such as families, business travellers, honeymoon couples and large groups of travellers. Expressing his thoughts on the launch, Desai said, “The launch is a further development of our expansion and strategic intent at Travel Tours across the Southern India. Bengaluru contributes to 22 per cent of leisure travel at Travel Tours overall and 35 per cent in South India. This year has been exciting for us and as we expand rapidly into the year, we plan to open 50+ stores by 2020.” Travel Tours current footprint extends to a total of 30 stores across Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, Anand and Nagpur via a combination of owned branches and newly opened franchise outlets.

FCM Travel Solutions and KPMG released a whitepaper titled ‘The Digi-Smart Indian Business Traveller’ with a focus on how technology is rapidly revolutionising travel by maximising efficiencies, improving experience and increasing options for the average traveller worldwide and increasingly in the Indian market. Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, FCM Travel Solutions, said, “Digital technology today is rapidly growing. Self-booking tools, travel analytics, Artificial Intelligence and sharing economy services are not only here to stay but hold myriad and exciting possibilities for the future. The report aims to assist organisations that wish to serve today’s digi-smart travellers, understand their needs and make strategic decisions, based on these insights.” Jaideep Ghosh, Partner and Head, Transport, Leisure and Sports, KPMG in India commented, “Globally, technology has penetrated deep into business travel practices — it finds a host of applications in travel, including online booking tools, sharing economy services, travel analytics, virtual assistance, payments and compliance. With this whitepaper, we have set out to explore the concept of smart travellers, technology trends in business travel, their enabling ecosystem, as well as some potentially disrupting developments that could transform business travel landscape.”

‘Bleisure’ – the blend of business and leisure travel – is rising in popularity, with growing uptake among urban Indians, says FCM Travel Solutions’ latest findings of their global survey on Bleisure Travel. The report titled ‘Bleisure Report, India’ reveals that an increasing number of professionals in India are now extending their business trips for leisure, increasingly blurring the lines between business and leisure travel. Bleisure travel has recently become an unconventional employee perk in India with 65.5 per cent of respondents saying their employer allowed them to add leisure travel onto business trips. While Bleisure becomes a mainstream trend in the rest of the world, 27.6 per cent of Indian respondents say that their companies do not permit them to combine personal travel with their business trips, which is the highest among all countries. Speaking on the findings, Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, FCM Travel Solutions, Indian subsidiary of FCTG, Australia said, “Business travel has always been restricted and policy driven. While leisure travel, particularly outbound, has been niche with very low penetration. However, the survey has unlocked a remarkable trend called Bleisure. It is interesting to note that the lines between corporate and leisure travel are increasingly blurring. It would have looked very different, had we looked at this picture three or five years ago. There has been a significant change in the behaviour of corporate travel, since then.” Surveyed millennials (25-34 years old) had the highest appreciation for bleisure travel. They were also the most likely group to extend a business trip with colleagues (25 per cent), while 50 per cent of the respondents in age group of 50, would use the opportunity to travel with a family …

India ranks among the top 10 business travel markets with a spend of $ 29.6 billion in 2015. This was revealed in a white paper titled ‘Business Travel in India’ Emerging Trends & Opportunities’ released by FCM Travel Solutions along with KPMG. The report also details business travel spending in top 15 countries across multiple sectors over a period of five years. India is all poised to lead this growth and accordingly by 2030 business travel spending in India will have trebled from the present levels. The paper gives a comprehensive glimpse in to where and how business travellers in India are spending. Asia has become the world’s largest business-travel market, and trends suggest India’s significance within APAC will only grow with time. Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, Flight Centre Travel Group – India said, “In order to understand how emerging trends will impact business travel programs in the near future, it is first important to understand the perspective of business travellers today. Consequently for corporates, managing business travel is becoming increasingly complex, with changing traveller preferences, integration with mobile technology, and strategies adopted by travel suppliers. This white paper helps analyze the disruptive changes happening today and forecasts how they will impact managed travel processes, the Indian business traveller experience and their expectations in the near future. It also examines the impact of technology on the way business travellers would purchase products and services, thereby predicting leading trends until 2030. The report identifies six key business travel trends and reveals new travel behaviours of the future – Increasing number of business travellers relying on user generated content and mobile devices. With an increase in online and mobile booking tools and …

Flight Shop, the flagship retail leisure business of Australia-headquartered Flight Centre Travel Group, opened its first retail store in Hyderabad. This is the first franchise outlet in India and was inaugurated by Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, FCM Travel Solutions and Shravan Gupta, Managing Director, Travel Tours Group. With the launch of this store, FCM now has a total of 17 operational Flight Shop stores across India. Spread over 1500 sq. ft., the Flight Shop outlet in Hyderabad is based at a prime location at Nagarjuna Circle catering to the needs of up market urban consumers – families, business travellers, honeymoon couples and groups of travellers. The new retail outlet will offer travellers Flight Shop’s range of products and services viz., Leisure Travel (Domestic and International Flights, Holidays – Group and Customised, Hotels, Car Transfers, Visa, Cruise holidays, honeymoon holidays, adventure holidays and more) and Foreign Exchange (under the Travel Money brand). Flight Shop’s footprint now extends to a total of 17 stores across Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Kochi and Vadodara, via a combination of owned branches and the newly opened franchise outlet.