GET’s Now In India

ET&T STAFF - Kolkata

Gaurav Sundaram

Lionel India Limited, a KK Birla Group company has recently forged an alliance with US-based Total Travel Management, to launch Global Experts in Travel (GET) in India of which it owns a 10 per cent stake.

GET is a single-branded travel management joint venture and one of the largest travel management companies in the world with an annual turnover of more than US$ 2.6 billion with 1800 associates worldwide.

Launched in June 2004, GET provides global travel management services through the development of innovative global travel management solutions. At present, it has 10 shareholding members and seven non-shareholding partners in 17 countries. The company expects to sign new shareholding partners from China, Germany and Japan shortly. "As part of its initiative for the Indian market GET will soon introduce a complete web-based portal application, which will be a multilingual global travel portal", said Gaurav Sundaram, director (Asia) -GET Global and CEO- GET India.

"The portal will be customised for our local clients and will provide the entire range of travel services to our corporate clients," he added. It will allow Lionel India's 150-odd clients to create a secure one stop shop online source, which has the capability of integrating multiple global online booking tools, consolidating global travel management reporting in real-time, manage a corporation's preferred vendor negotiation programs, as well as globally integrate a client's groups and meetings.

Explaining the focal points Sundaram said, "Our main focus will be on corporate travel. Presently, corporate travel represents the second highest expense for multinationals worldwide and the same is reflected in their Indian operations. GET's combined technology resources and travel consultative expertise potentially reduces a company's annual global travel expenditure by almost about 30 per cent."

Elaborating on the initiatives for the Indian travel market the Company will soon be offering consultancy services to tap the potential Multi-National Companies (MNCs) and large Indian companies GET India. The company is also carrying out a feasibility study to set up a higher-end Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) unit that will provide outsourcing services for GET members all over the world by the end of 2005.