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TravelPort To Increase Number of Franchise Agents by Dec 2005
Vyas Sivanand - Mumbai
TravelPort, a reputed travel and tour organiser in the country, which operates
on an unique franchise model, is planning to take its franchise number to 100
from the present 65 by end of the year. The company specialises in conventional
pack of services like air tickets, holiday packages, hotel reservations etc,
which also includes innovative concepts such as corporate loyalty management
and incentive travel.
According to K Venkatesh, CEO, TravelPort, "We have adopted a unique model
wherein we involve entrepreneurs who are already in some kind of business but
want to get into something new. We train them, groom them and then make them
our partners. Our focus is to increase our network and have maximum number of
franchisees."
The company conducts training sessions once every two months for these franchisees.
"We have a franchisee manager who keeps track of each of our franchisee's
performance. There is always ongoing support and as the entire process is target
oriented, it is quite fruitful. If a franchisee performs, we perform, if he
does not, we fail," says Venkatesh.
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We are identifying small pockets
across the country, which mainly include B & C class cities, as the
potential lies there. We have seen that currently, more of travel happens
from rural than from urban areas. We are a B2B company who make the product
and our franchisees know their respective markets very well
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While most travel agents in the country go for Preferred Sales Agents (PSAs),
TravelPort has chosen to have exclusive arrangements instead. "We do not
mind taking in travel agents as our franchisees, but with them there is less
flexibility as they already know the field and want to do things the way they
want. But with such entrepreneurs, whom we groom, there is a lot of flexibility
as we can mould them the way we want," explains Venkatesh.
The company is aggressively targeting B & C class cities stating that these
cities are realising more business. The company also has its radar fixed on
metros and other big cities, but through the franchise agreement they hope to
exploit the huge potential which is currently evident in the travel market.
Says Venkatesh, "We are identifying small pockets across the country, which
mainly include B & C class cities, as the potential lies there. We have
seen that currently, more of travel happens from rural than from urban areas.
We are a B2B company who make the product and our franchisees know their respective
markets very well. A merger of both of these factors leads to a successful business
model."
The company is also venturing into adventure and sports tourism. According to
Venkatesh, TravelPort is the first travel company to promote 'lesser known destinations
of Maharashtra'. "Milind Gunaji, the well-known travel connoisseur is our
consultant and he has hand-picked a few unknown destinations and designed packages.
The first chapter is covering Maharashtra, while the second chapter will cover
Karnataka and the third will cover Madhya Pradesh," he said.
The company is also focussing on sports tourism in the country. "In the
first phase, we have launched golf tourism and the second phase we will focus
on tennis and in the third, we will be looking at cricket. We are looking at
both inbound as well as outbound segments," he said.
The company is currently a leader in specialised tours to Kailash-Mansarovar
and Haj trips. They even have a separate division for religious tourism. The
company was the winner of the 'award for excellence in franchising and business
development' in the travel service franchise category in the year 2003 as well
as 2005.
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