TravTalk India Online Magazine
Trafalgar’s in-house survey has revealed that India delivers a repeat booking rate of 58.3 per cent and these guests are choosing to travel further to more exotic destinations such as South America.
Hazel Jain
As part of its annual ritual, Trafalgar recently launched its new 2019 brochure in India that includes some new itineraries, including a new continent – Africa. To introduce this to its agent partners, Gavin Tollman, CEO, Trafalgar & Costsaver, flew down to Mumbai from Geneva to meet the travel agent partners, exchange ideas and get feedback from them on the India market.
The India team later visited Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai to launch the 2019 brochures, which has a new destination – Africa. The six itineraries include Maasai Mara, the Serengeti and the Kalahari Desert, among other destinations.
Our Indian business has a small base but over the last four years, it has shown the fastest percentage growth
Speaking about how this could take off in India, Tollman referred to Trafalgar’s in-house survey which revealed that not only does India deliver a repeat booking rate of 58.3 per cent, but guests are also now choosing to travel further to more exotic destinations such as South America, citing experiential travel as the biggest trend.
Elaborating on this, he says, “Five years ago, the trend was to take multi-destination trips. Today, Indian travellers want to travel to Scandinavia and South America. Our Norwegian tours are off the charts and I believe we are just scratching the surface. While India is still the smallest of our Asian markets, the potential here is enormous. Our Indian business has a small base but over the last four years it has shown the fastest percentage growth from any of our offices in the world. So it has got my attention.”
With an agent network of 12 across India, Trafalgar continues to lay emphasis on its Agent First policy. To this, Tollman says, “We are 100 per cent loyal to our agent partners. Globally, over 92 per cent of our sales come from our agent partners. Our focus has been exclusively on how we can work with them to drive business. It is not just one market – it is globally. I believe in the current environment, it is even more important that we focus on our partners. One key statistic that stood out in our survey was that 89 per cent of consumers find the volume of information available to them overwhelming.”
‘Agent First’
- Trafalgar is 100 per cent loyal to its agent partners. Globally, over 92 per cent of the company’s sales come from its agent partners
