Allways Travel Focusing On Domestic Segment

ET&T Staff - New Delhi

Allways Travel is bullish about the domestic segment and has plans to increase business to Kashmir, add destinations like Kinnaur and Himachal Pradesh to its fold and increase flow of business to Kerala. This comes in effect as domestic tourism has started receiving due recognition and attention and has been tiding smoothly over seasonal factors as well as international upsets and upheavals.

"Growing incomes, improving work conditions, and increasing leisure demands together with destination accessibility, lower airfare, budget hotels and road tourism will certainly drive domestic tourism to double- digit growth in the future. What was considered 'luxury' yesterday will be the standard norm for tomorrow," says Arun Varma, owner, Allways Travel.

The challenge before the company, when it started in 1994 was to ensure its commitment to the customers as it was dealing with standalone properties from the unorganised sector. The company visited each destination, upgraded its destination knowledge and checked out hotels to ensure its quality of service.

Addressing the requirements of price sensitive domestic clientele was also a challenge. However, Varma thinks the Indian client is changing gradually and looking for quality experience and value for money.

Commenting on his future plans Varma said, "Through references from our loyal customers we entered the inbound segment because they wanted us to handle their relatives and friends from USA, Israel, Mauritius travelling to India. As outbound travel started growing, we started promoting tours to countries like Mauritius, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia because it made sense to diversify to outbound business. Now, we plan to pursue all the segments aggressively as tourism is back on track."