TravTalk India Online Magazine
Necessity is the mother of all inventions and it was this necessity that prompted many an outbound travel agent to branch out into domestic holidays. Fortunately, it was largely a smooth transition for many, with some help from Indiatourism, which is actively reaching out to this segment to promote India.
Hazel Jain
It helps not to keep all the eggs in one basket, as many outbound travel agents and tour operators realised over the last one year. While some found it challenging to branch out to domestic holidays, others were more fortunate because they were already doing some India-centric business, albeit in small proportions. Manish Kriplani, Chairman, OTOAI (Southern Region) and MD of Baywatch Travels,has shown his entrepreneurial skills. He says, “We have been doing extensive outbound all these years but during the lockdown we were determined to offer similar products to our clients right here in India since they couldn’t travel abroad. So we started aggregating super luxury villas in scenic spots and combine them with experiences like yacht and caravan tours. With our immense outbound experience, it was very easy for us to move to this model and offer curated domestic holidays. It was also encouraging to get calls only for domestic holidays, so we got busy and have actually connected with more clients and our database has tripled since COVID.”
Similarly, Burjis Mehta, CEO, Skyworld Tours n Travels,had already been selling a lot of domestic holidays.“But we had diversified into short-stay holidaysfive years ago with a chain of exclusive villas and apartments across key domestic and international tourist destinations. Hence, we were already sellingpackages in the ratio 50:50 for domestic and international holidays even before the pandemic. Post pandemic, it has only been domestic holidays and our past experience has helped us. I seriously think that India has huge potential for tourism and domestic holidays will be the trend for a long time,” he adds.
Another feather in cap
An ever optimistic operator, Pradeep Saboo, Partner at Guideline Travels, says that India’s domestic circuit is a huge landscape and to master it one needs to have the right focus and time on hand. “Since we had the time now to explore this segment, we have now successfully been able to stir good response from our existing clientele. It was a smooth and hassle-free transition and it was a very natural move having spent almost two and half decades in the industry. The biggest advantage of this move has been the addition of one more skill set to our existing repertoire as we have traditionally been known for our international tours,” Saboo says.
Despite being an outbound agent, Dharmesh Advani, National General Secretary of ETAA and Director, Bombay Travels, has now started selling domestic holidays. Explaining this move, he says, “It is the current demand and domestic holidays and weekend getaways are what keeps us alive, not only in the form of business but also keeping us engaged with work. New verticals like villa stays with private pool are in great demand. The transition did not seem as challenging as it would have in previous times because this is all we had to sell and hence we had to know everything about it. These holidays are also more client friendly and based on customisation so the search from the beginning was keeping in mind the clients requirements.”
Smooth operator
Even Hemendra Singh Jadon, Chapter Chairman (MP & CG Chapter), TAAI and Director, Overseas Travels, used to sell a lot of international holidays in the past – almost 80 per cent was international business. “But as borders for many countries are closed, we have tried to concentrate more on domestic offerings and India. We were doing domestic previously also so we didn’t face any challenge as such. However, we are learning more and more about destinations in India and are enjoying selling our country to fellow Indians,” he explains.
IndiaTourism taps outbound
Sharing an interesting development from the Ministry of Tourism, Venkatesan Dhattareyan, Regional Director, India tourism Mumbai – Incredible India, Ministry of Tourism, says that he and his team have been busy reaching out to outbound agents now to promote India. He reveals, “Indiatourism has also conducted a session with the Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) which Dhattareyan says is quite historic. “They traditionally promote destinations outside of India. But they have now come forward to learn about India. They will need product-specific destination information from experts – so that they can also understand the potential of Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand. It gives even the outbound tour operators a chance to learn something new. This is another avenue that we are trying to explore – outbound operators.”
Confirming this is Riaz Munshi, President, OTOAI and MD, N. Chirag Travels, who says, “For most of us, domestic travel has always been a part of our portfolio. We had been selling domestic flights, hotels and packages in India even before, so this isn’t something we added due to the pandemic. But yes, with the changing nature of demand since last year, most of us started focusing more on domestic travel and have further expanded our domestic travel portfolio. Our members have taken this time to build relationships across the country to further add-on to their offerings. It wasn’t a pandemic-based transition for most of us. It just allowed us to discover a lot more that India has to offer and we now work with more hotels and experience providers that we didn’t work with previously.”
