Cover Story

Seasonal tango

With the monsoons playing truant, operators in West and South India were beginning to brace themselves for another lean period. But the season is suddenly looking bright again with resorts reporting good occupancies. The trick lies in capturing the domestic market and keeping it buoyant through the year. By Andrea Lopez

Dismal rainfall in the beginning of this monsoon season had the industry all apprehensive about business. The Konkan belt, which is speckled with a number of budget and high-end resorts and has traditionally done well during the monsoons, was also keeping its fingers crossed for good visitor footfalls. Given that the industry is still trying to get its bearings right, it comes as good news that hotels that have traditionally cashed in on the monsoons with attractive packages are still reporting decent if not good occupancies.

Even the corporate segment which had taken a hit due to the recession is picking up. For the consumer, the reasons to take short breaks are many, beginning with the reduced ARRs. Going by estimates, room rates have dropped by nearly 20 per cent. Also, 2009 itself has seen a number of weekends that have coincided with public holidays, something that has encouraged more people to take short domestic breaks. Moreover with infrastructure needs being addressed, families and FITs are more open to three to four hour long drives outside city limits. In Maharashtra, the tried and tested Lonavla, Mahabaleshwar and Matheran continue to be popular. However, they have been showing signs of overcrowding and there is a need to look beyond at other pristine locations.

Dr Venu V

Ralph de Souza

Chinmay Divekar

Puneet Anand

Making a splash

Anandvan Resorts in Bhandardara which has diversified into the hospitality business has made it its mission to foray into untapped areas, and its target audience is the high-end luxury segment. Operational for five years now, the resort offers independent villa style accommodation with the theme of 'getting back to your roots', the idea being to urge guests to eat, think and act local.

Relying heavily on sustainability, the resort's USP is its proximity to Mumbai. But it is being positioned to attract travellers from Bengaluru and Delhi as well. Says Puneet Anand, its executive director, "Since we are a three and a half hours drive from Mumbai, we are definitely looking at this market. How many times can one travel to Matheran? As far as the rest of India is concerned, we would like Bhandardara to be what Coorg is to South India and would like to link it to Shirdi, which is two hours away."

The resort overlooks the Arthur Lake and clientele range from nature lovers to patients looking for a recuperative holiday. Last year, the resort averaged 60 per cent occupancy and is looking to cross this figure in 2009. "The domestic market is the biggest market today and 95 per cent of our clientele comes from Mumbai with three to four per cent coming from Pune and Nashik. We want Bhandardara to get its due as a destination in terms of visibility." The challenge, he says, lies in marketing the destination and marketing the resort since it receives no backing from the tourism department. "We also need good roads. The Mumbai-Nashik highway is very good and is nearing completion," he says.

According to Anuj Prakash, GM of The Resort, located a short drive from Mumbai, the growth in India's inbound has only been in arithmetic proportions and has yet to see any significant tourist inflows as compared to some of the other Asian countries. "At our property our target market has always been Mumbai, be it the corporate or the leisure segment. The domestic tourist is more than ever inclined towards short breaks now because such attractive options are available and holiday destinations around Mumbai are doing much better now than they were doing seven or eight months ago."

Nature Trails Resorts, a company that specialises in the weekend holiday market and owns properties in the Konkan region has been seeing growth in volumes year on year. Says Chinmay Divekar, its director, "Monsoons are always the peak season for travel in Maharashtra. I cannot comment about whether there has been a shift to short breaks since we have always been in the domestic travel market. However we have seen a consistent growth of 25-30 per cent per year in our volumes over the last few years. We did feel the impact of recession from February till June. But with the onset of monsoons, there has been a surge of enquiries and bookings. Corporate bookings that had dropped to zero in these months have started coming in torrents." The company follows a policy of identifying unique locations and banks on its adventure tourism potential. According to Divekar, the consumer is evolving; they have an increasing desire to spend quality time with nature and adventure without travelling too far. "We are capitalising on this and promoting our unique locations. In fact by the end of September we will be operating our resorts/campsites at six locations in Maharashtra, one in Rajasthan and two in Karnataka," he says.

Project Mahabhraman shelved?

The disheartening part for operators is that they often receive little or no support from local tourism departments for promotions. In February 2008, The Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) had announced that it would work with travel agents and service providers from untapped regions of Maharashtra to promote tourism along the state's Konkan belt.

Under 'Mahabhraman', MTDC planned to bring tour operators and travel agents from Mumbai in direct contact with service providers like hoteliers, car rentals, resort owners and adventure tour operators in these untapped regions.

Unfortunately, there is no information on the number of operators the scheme was able to mobilise and the kind of success it had. In fact going by what operators have to say, the project itself appears to be shelved. Says Divekar, "Mahabraman was a unique concept and was really effective in catalysing customers in the short span of time that it was active. However it is no longer being promoted by MTDC. As a private operator, we think we should do it ourselves and are promoting and marketing our properties by ourselves. However the government's help in simplifying procedures for permissions would be much appreciated."

At the time the project was announced in Mumbai, MTDC planned to create general awareness of the same and have more forums where travel agents could meet and jointly work out tour packages with service providers. Vijay Singh Mohite Patil, the then Minister for Tourism & Rural Development was of the opinion that the initiative would take two years to fully develop and if handled well, had the potential of becoming a brand in itself.

Weekend ahoy!

Anandvan Resorts, Bhandardara

Time and again, there have been speeches made about the potential of domestic tourism and the need to harness the same. However, few states have recognised the potential and acted on it. As part of its ongoing efforts to boost tourism within India, Kerala Tourism has tied up with Jet Airways for its 'Jet2Kerala' initiative, wherein both parties have designed a range of Kerala holiday options and packaged them with Jet tickets. This offers travellers packages of various price points providing a range of accommodation options including houseboats.

Dr Venu V, secretary (Tourism), Government of Kerala said that although Kerala has been positioned as an up-market, high quality international destination and was continuing with its performance of a 16.11 per cent increase in visitors in 2008, there was a need to concentrate on India's vast domestic potential, given the increasing propensity for travel. "The concept needs to be packaged and sold better irrespective of whether we have a poor year or not. Typically, hill stations close to metros have cashed in on the weekend getaway idea. However, destinations like Kerala will become more popular for weekend getaways, with better access, interesting options and attractive packages," he says.

He added that May had been good for Kerala, and the state was expected to increase its performance in weekend holidays. "Our Dream Season offering (www.keralatourism.org/dreamseason) has an array of holiday offerings during the monsoon. With attractive fares from Jet, tour operators in source markets will find it very easy to sell a monsoon holiday to Kerala," he says. Similar to this is another initiative called 'Golden Jet Escapes' and this time it is Jet Airways with the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation. The initiative offers holiday packages that includes tickets to Bengaluru and onward on Karnataka's famed Golden Chariot Train.

Ralph de Souza, president of the Travel & Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) outlines a four-pronged strategy to lure more domestic tourists during the monsoons. This includes floating more packages, providing more incentives to corporates, providing add-ons to tour packages and intensive domestic promotions with a focus on participation in trade fairs. "We have had interactions with the director of tourism informing him that the recession has set in our economy and that inflation figures have touched 12 per cent. Already the tourism industry is paying high taxes. Over and above this, the prices of the ATF had gone up making travel by air very expensive." Despite this, three, four and five star hotels in the state have been running on a 70 per cent occupancy rate. TTAG is exploring the possibility of marketing Goa in new markets as well as the present international and domestic markets. Additionally, it is looking to intensify its marketing campaigns and also explore new possibilities of enticing the NRI community in the Gulf, USA, Canada and South Africa to visit their homeland for a holiday.

It would benefit the industry hugely if there were more opportunities for private-public partnerships. Says Prakash, "At present all resorts in western India are doing their own thing. What is required is an industry-wide campaign to promote this vast untapped area. The burgeoning middle class has aspirational needs that these weekend destinations can fulfil." Although the domestic tourism industry receives a fillip during the monsoons, what it required is for the tempo to continue all year round. Perhaps a sustained campaign for domestic tourism would be a start. For example, Australia, recognising that there has been a dip in inbound figures due to the recession, has launched a campaign exclusively targeting the domestic market called 'No Leave, No Life'. Through the campaign, the tourism office of Australia is sending out a message to employers to encourage their employees to take short domestic breaks. Tej Sahni, founder Vista Travels agrees that ideas like these although novel, need to be actually executed. "Presently, I think the best thing is for operators to rely on their own steam. They need to do their research, develop packages and then approach the state tourism departments. It needs to be a targeted approach. It is true that there is a lot of domestic travel happening now, but my experience has taught me that it is best for operators to rely on their own strengths to sell themselves."