Friends Globe Diversifies Into Leisure

Corporate Travel Major Eyes Outbound Charter Pie

Bhisham Mansukhani - Mumbai

Corporate travel major, Friend Globe Travel Ltd (FGTL) is looking to branch out into leisure, MICE and consolidation segment. Plans for the same are expected to materialise by the end of the year with the appointment of subagents, countrywide. Established in 1987 with a current turnover of Rs 400 crore, founded and fronted by Rahul Nath, managing director, FGTL is considering a foray into both the inbound and outbound sector. This would help them leverage numbers in order to tap the recently available outbound charter facility.

Says Nath,”This diversification in travel business is a careful decision made purely in wake of the monumental growth that the outbound segment has been witnessing since the start of the 21st century. The inbound market in the recent times has also picked up. Our company is by far the biggest corporate travel company in the country and is therefore well positioned to tap into this boom. However, given the conspicuous difference between leisure and corporate travel, both the divisions will, for all practical purposes, be separate companies. For instance, our corporate division does not have any sub-agents and never will. The company is in fact on a major expansion drive with Nasik, Pune and Nagpur offices opening soon. The timing of the expansion into the leisure division is ideal since the outbound charter market has just opened up. The MICE and mass market can be serviced and augmented considerably using charters that thrive on economies of scale as the critical mass.”

FGTL operates in six locations throughout the country and is now looking at spreading into non metros as well. It currently has offices in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Gurgaon. “We have plans for 18 locations that include Cochin, Trivandrum, Nagpur, Calcutta, Bhubaneshwar, Nasik, Baroda and Ahmedabad and Coimbatore and Chandigarh,” Nath revealed.

“The corporate travel market in India”, according to Nath, “is worth Rs 7,500 crore of which six per cent is ours. There are over 5,000 IATA approved travel agents. Many trans-nationals are running their own travel agencies but this integrations is perhaps not sustainable. For instance, Tata is planning to integrate its travel business worth 350 crore into its existing travel agency, Stallion Travels, but it can not handle it and therefore Tata put out a bid for travel vendors in the open market.” Nath further adds that, “We go in as travel consultants and do not work on a commission basis. We have 24-7 services at three airports and 24 hour hotlines.”