TravTalk India Online Magazine
From promoting multi-day tours to integrating digitalisation at the front-end of the business, and focusing on their own products, TUI has many plans and strategies for India, which is a crucial market for them. Jordi Cerdó, Chief Strategy Officer, TUI Musement, says that operating four charters weekly in Goa is a beginning, and they have more to come.
Nisha Verma
Jordi Cerdó, Chief Strategy Officer, TUI Musement, who was recently on a visit to India, shared that the country is perfect for what they want to do in TUI. Elaborating further, he said, “Earlier, we thought about India, Goa was the first thought, but now we want to go beyond the sun and the beach. TUI is going through a process of transformation. However, the heart of that transformation should be our own products, differentiated products. India is the perfect destination to develop these products ourselves, as we have been doing for many years.”
India business
Sharing how India has grown in terms of business for them, he revealed, “If we look at in terms of the volumes that we currently have, this year we have a massive growth versus last year. We are about 80 per cent of 2019, which is similar to what the travel industry in India has had. We need to keep in mind that in 2019 we had to stop some businesses. Hence, the comparison is not direct. While the growth in India has been slower after the pandemic, but it is picking up very fast.”
Current focus
TUI took over Le Passage To India (LPTI) a few years back. Sharing what they are aiming for in the country currently, Cerdó said, “Back in 2019, we were a DMC that was doing a lot of other things, but as a part of TUI and LPTI, our focus is on multi-day tours, which we think is the best way to visit or explore a country like India. We are working on own products, products that we can design ourselves with our partners and that we can specifically adapt to our clients. We are looking through a process of digitalisation to be more efficient, which summarises what we do here in India.”
Integrating technology
Explaining how they are putting digitalisation in practice, he shared, “Until now digitalisation was used more from the back-office point of view. We always had a very robust system, but it was used by our colleagues to prepare itineraries and customized travel. Now digitalisation goes a step further and it also will be for the front-end. This means now we will be able to distribute through the system. That is the big change. However, we need to be patient because while digitalisation is very fast in terms of airlines, hotels and experiences and one day tours, when it comes to multi-day tours, it’s different. This is because the others are components and selecting that online is straightforward. One can load it and distribute it. For multi- day tours one needs to load multiple components and then create a tour, and that production process is not so straightforward. The good news is that we are in discussions with our clients and are all developing things together. This is the best way to do things when something is new. We want to do it in a way that our clients see the value behind it and we as an organisation continue to focus on our strengths, which is knowledge about the destination and the experience behind a service that we provide to our clients.”
TUI Musement
Cerdó also summarised TUI Musement as a product and how it’s important for India. “TUI Musement sells three products—excursions, which is one-day tours, transfers, which is going from point A to point B, and multi-day tours. We sell them to three customer groups—TUI customers, B2B customers and in certain markets, we sell them to final customer. In the middle we have a digital platform. Thus, the way we interact with our B2B clients and TUI customers is slowly in a digital way,” he elucidated. Throwing light on the value proposition that they are drawing, he said, “Our differentiation needs to come to our own products and that is the most important thing. We do not want to be just pure intermediation. We want to create, produce, design, serve and operate our tours and our services. That is the essence of the TUI Musement strategy. Hence, when you travel to India there is a lot to offer when it comes to one day tours and in terms of mobility. There is a lot to offer in terms of multi-day tours as well.”
Goa charters
TUI recently operated charters in Goa. Commenting on the same, Cerdó said, “Operating charters to Goa keeps our presence in India. It’s a big thing to bring four charters weekly and have the TUI flights landing in Goa. We plan to grow that to six or even more. We want to turn Goa into a 12-month destination.”
