Welcoming regional prospects

Category : Best Regional Inbound Tour Operator
Winner : Swagatam Tours and Travels

R Parthiban Director, Swagatam Tours and Travels

It is a proud moment to be receiving this award for the second year in succession, and that too in the 'city of dreams'. We have completed 21 years in the hospitality industry and ours is a rags to riches story, similar to that of Ambani.

I am ever grateful for the support we have been receiving from all the tour operators who have been very faithful to us, as well as all our ground handling agents in India, hoteliers with whom we have had a fabulous rapport with and of course, our team which is very dedicated and puts its heart and soul into their work for the industry, as they work not just for the sake of working, but for patience, which makes it all the more interesting. This award will provide a tremendous boost of confidence to the group, so that we can achieve this feat once more with a lot of laurels.

We started as a tour operator but when the plague struck in 1994, we thought that the inbound industry would have a lot of problems. This is when we ventured into the outbound, domestic and as well as ticketing business and today this business is giving us dividends of Rs 15-20 crore.

Today, the biggest hitch for the inbound industry is infrastructure, in terms of the hotels. We need not only the five star deluxe hotels but also good, comfortable, neat and clean rooms. Since every problem provides more opportunity, in the coming years we want to venture into the hospitality industry; building properties to suit our client's requirements. Our first property would be in the form of small resorts in Rajasthan and we will be coming up with more concrete plans in a year or two.