TravTalk India Online Magazine
Miki Travel, a UK-based DMC, has ventured into India and is set to offer technology that would fasten the booking process, while ensuring that clients get the best hotels from its existing hotel allocations.
Nisha Verma
erceiving India as a potential market, Miki Travel has now entered India with its first office in New Delhi. Olivier Moeschler, CEO—Asia Division, Miki Travel, said that the DMC has been in business for over 50 years. “Miki Travel is a large company, but most of our business in Asia is from Japan. Since I have an experience in the Indian market, I wanted to open an office here. With an established Indian market, we needed to have a strong team here. I was also very lucky to have Arvind Attri as the Head of India and Middle East, Asia Division. With him on board, we are well prepared to enter the Indian market with our support and expertise here.”
The strategy for Miki in India is to possess expertise in all segments. However, its key segment as they say, is technology. “We cover everything and can compete with everyone in every segment. But the key part is technology. Speed is very important because most of the group business from India to Europe is offline. When we look at the growth from India, it’s not only at the hands of a few big ones but also many small and medium companies. To reach out to such companies, we need technology. The biggest differentiator for us is the speed, which we can get through technology. Miki will be much faster to respond to market trends and customer requirements,” said Moeschler.
We have the technology to provide online group bookings along with giving a hotel online for our customers
Another advantage, according to him, is, “Miki is the only company which has an online group booking engine. Miki Travel has the technology to provide online group bookings for our customers. In addition, we can give a hotel allocation online. If we don’t have allocation, we have a booking engine where we can go directly to suppliers all over India.”
Since India is a relationship driven market, Moeschler believes that while promoting the brand is important across India, it’s the quality of service that makes them stand apart from others. “Arvind is heading the operations in India and we have many expert managers as well. They share a good relationship with the travel trade. We only work in the B2B market and right now we want to just introduce the brand and promote it. However, while awareness about the brand is important, it is equally necessary to perform. We have a know-how of the market to be able to not repeat the mistakes that others have made,” he claimed.
