TravTalk India Online Magazine
Passionate about Finland as a destination, Lumi Safaris is a B2B DMC looking at the offline model as it goes a long way in making the travel agent feel more comfortable while doing business.
TT Bureau
Mumbai-based Lumi Safaris is purely a B2B Destination Management Company catering to travel agents and tour operators selling Finland and other Baltic countries. Speaking about the company’s ideology, Nitesh Sampat, Director, Lumi Safaris, says, “Our company’s name is Finnish and so are we. ‘Lumi’ means ‘snow’ in Finnish and we are passionate about Finland as a destination. That’s why we say ‘Ainoa DMC suomen markkinoille intiassa’ which means ‘the only DMC for Finland in India’.”
At present, while dealing with travel agents, it is looking at the offline model as Sampat believes that having a face to the product makes a lot of difference and the agent feels more comfortable. He says, “Agents are assured that if they need anything even in the middle of the night, they can just call and speak to us. This is not something that we started overnight. The current market trend is much above a regular Europe tour and this is due to a lot of social media promotions being done by various destinations. Consumers have now started developing their own product and going to travel agents.”
We work hand-in-hand with VisitFinland India and the Helsinki office, and that is how we keep upgrading our products
Lumi Safaris offers various products such as backpacking trips, MiCE, leisure, luxury, group series departures and much more. “You name it and we have it! We also work hand-in-hand with VisitFinland India and the Helsinki office, and that is how we get a chance to keep upgrading our products on regular basis. The market for special interest travellers is growing rapidly and that is what keeps us on our toes as travel agents come up every other day with a request we haven’t ever heard of! Many of them want to have a candle-light dinner with Santa Claus or sign up for a certification course in skiing in Yllas. I won’t be surprised if soon people might come up with an idea of getting married inside the Ice Hotel or even at the Ice Breaker Cruise!” he quips.
According to Sampat, the product has been around for a long time but not many agents in India have been selling it aggressively. Hence, he feels that even the basic three-city product (Helsinki, Rovaniemi, Saariselka) is, in itself, a new offering for this market. He shares, “Perhaps, we come up with an out-of-the-box idea to ensure we have something absolutely new on the plate during winter 2019. We are currently developing ready-to-sell weekly packages for the Indian travel agents. We are coming up with this idea of ready packages because this helps the agents to sell the product faster rather than waiting for a revert on the quotation.”
