Tour Club To Promote India In East Africa

Charmaine Fernz - Mumbai

Randhir Narayan

There has been a positive trend both in the outbound as well as inbound season where India is concerned. Taking that into consideration, the industry too is optimistic. In that regard, Randhir Narayan, general manager - sales and marketing, Tour Club part of the Kuoni Travel (I) was certainly optimistic saying, "Our primary markets are the Middle East and Africa (East), Kenya, Tanzania Uganda, Zambia and also South Africa. Our next step is to promote India extensively in the East Africa market. This would be done via email, flyers and adhoc responses. However, at present our main focus is to consolidate our position in the market. There has been growth, which is undoubtedly all over the industry even in our business, we have witnessed a 30 per cent growth and are definitely looking at more market share."

Having spoken about performances, how does Narayan plan to tap this potential market? Adding he says, "With the growth, one factor that would arise is automation, which in turn will churn out more responses. Of the destinations we are looking at in the coming months are Jammu & Kashmir, Srilanka and Nepal as well as Maldives. And, since we promote India outbound, one aspect that is quite prevalent is the fact customised travel accounts for at least 90 per cent of the business, while very few opt for set itineraries. This also shows more exploration and a mature outlook from the customers' point of view."

Elaborating further Narayan, added, "We are looking at cuisine based tours but on a small scale. The other tours would be adventure tours around the Golden Triangle, the speciality of these tours in Jaipur are the elephant safari's."