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Reliance Industries plans foray into travel services

Ex-Amex country chief to head RIL's new venture

Reema Sisodia - Mumbai

The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has confirmed its foray into travel-related services in the coming months. Confirming this development exclusively to Express TravelWorld, a spokesperson from RIL also revealed that K L Muralidhara, the ex-vice president and country head of American Express, will head the group's travel services venture. Muralidhara will move to RIL after eight and a half years with Amex in India.

According to sources from RIL, Muralidhara is scheduled to come on board RIL in a month's time with the primary responsibility of initiating and driving the 'to be launched business' of the company, which would include travel services. Once he takes charge, he would spend the initial months identifying the right business strategies, analyse the growth potential and then get into the market with a bang with mega projects and multi ventures spanning across states in India. The company will closely monitor the developments and market trends within the hospitality and tourism sectors before finalising the blueprint for its travel services. A formal announcement about the specifics of the travel services will be made only after that, the company spokesperson affirmed. Hence, the coming months would be more of a study and research period to gain valuable market feedback that would help in chalking out a definitive course, he added.

RIL has recently invested heavily in the state of Haryana in a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) for which 90 per cent of the investment has come in from the company with only 10 per cent being pulled in by the Haryana government. Setting up hotels in the SEZ would be a natural fall out and the company is yet in the process of deciding whether they would venture into the hospitality business all by themselves or partner with the industry experts to run and management their hospitality ventures in the SEZ.