TradeBytes

Lifestyle Holidays to focus on MICE movements

Andrea Lopez - Mumbai

Abhishek Dalal Vice President Lifestyle Holidays

Purvi Jhaveri CEO Lifestyle Holidays

Lifestyle Holidays, a division on Bulls and Bears Finance and winner of the best regional outbound tour operator at the 2007 Galileo Express TravelWorld awards, is looking at initiating more MICE movements from India to lesser explored destinations, including South America, Ireland and parts of Australia. Speaking to Express TravelWorld about the company and its plans for the year, Purvi Jhaveri, CEO - Lifestyle Holidays said, "While FIT and leisure travellers will continue to be our forte, we plan to concentrate on more MICE movements this year. We plan to become more robust and competitive in the offline space and continue to focus on our product strategy, which is servicing niche travellers."

Inflation may have slowed down the momentum of overseas travel; however, Abhishek Dalal, the company's vice president is of the opinion that the situation will soon clear up, and that inflation, although having affected travel, will not stop people from travelling. "The three-star category traveller would be affected; however, the luxury and high-end traveller will continue to see reason to travel overseas." In addition, the company has plans of fortifying its niche in the special interest tours segment, including religious groups, pre-site visits for film personalities, safaris and backpacking tours. Sports tourism is another segment that the company is exploring - particularly packages for the Singapore FI Grand Prix. To fully cash in on cruise tourism, the company also has plans of exploring new circuits. "Star Cruises is sold by every other agent, and apart from Asia, we want to concentrate on Alaskan, the Mediterranean and Caribbean cruising. We plan to continue targeting a very niche clientele," says Dalal. He added, "We had over 20,000 passengers by 2007 year-end and plan to increase numbers this year. We are due to sketch out our strategy soon in terms of target numbers. As of now, we plan to go with the flow of the market."