Face-to-Face: Rajeev D. Kale
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
Q) Thomas Cook India had recently launched personalised international holiday concept ‘Go Beyond’. What has the response been like so far?
At Thomas Cook India, we have believed that a vacation should always be out of the ordinary. Our internal research team has revealed that Indian FIT travellers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their preferences with ‘experiential tours’ clearly de rigueur. To keep up with this millennial trend which saw an impressive growth of over 30% in 2015, the concept of ‘Go Beyond’ was introduced. Since its launch, we have received an impressive uptake of over 15% in queries for our Go Beyond itineraries.
Q) How does your growth strategy in India differ from other travel companies?
Technology and a young demography (more than 50% of our 1.2 billion Indians are below the age of 25!) is changing the dynamics of travel and we are firmly of the belief that India for quite a while forward will demand a unique solution unlike those adopted in other markets. Thomas Cook India is uniquely positioned to offer our consumers not merely tickets, but also the entire portfolio of travel related products & services both online and offline.
This potent combination of range and reach is the basis of our unique hybrid “clicks + bricks” strategy – that is empowering to our customers, offering them the entire spectrum of travel related services, with the speed and simplicity of our online platform and the convenience and reassuring comfort of our extensive offline network – for personal interaction, comfort, personalisation and peace of mind. This hybrid capability in the Indian context, addresses the challenge of the “digital divide” that has plagued many pure online players in India as well as pure offline players who have not invested in their online marketing capabilities
Most travellers turn to our online portal for the most attractive deals and the convenience of minimal paperwork and instant booking/confirmation. Our holistic, end-to-end travel solutions be it visa and passport services, foreign exchange, insurance, tickets air & rail, hotels, cruises & holidays is difficult to match.
Innovation is in our DNA. To keep pace with today’s tech savvy Indian always on-the-go, Thomas Cook India unleashed a slew of innovative products: online forex store, forex on mobile online visas, India’s first end-end foreign exchange app etc. The added convenience of home delivery made for a sweet deal. Our visionary multi-currency ‘Borderless Prepaid Card’ in collaboration with MasterCard made us the first non-banking entity in India to launch a Prepaid Foreign Exchange Travel Card.
We also launched ‘One Currency Card’ – India’s first prepaid travel card that offers better value to the customers with its USP of a single load currency (US$) and zero cross currency conversion charges, anywhere across the world and truly believe it to be a game changer in the payment solutions space.
Thomas Cook India’s pioneering innovation ‘Holiday Savings Account’ was launched in December 2014 which involved three easy steps – save, earn and travel. Select your dream holiday package by opening a recurring deposit account with Thomas Cook India’s preferred Bank Partner – State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank or Kotak Bank. The cost of the package tour is split into 13 monthly instalments of which 12 are contributed by the customer in equated easy to pay instalments and the 13th instalment is a combination of accrued interest from the RD plus a top-up courtesy Thomas Cook India. At the end of the 12-month period, the money is transferred to Thomas Cook from the bank and the customer travel between the end of the 13th and 16th month from the date of booking (on a date pre-selected by them). We have booked more than 20,000 passengers since launch in February 2015. On the growth front, we are clocking anywhere between 40-100 passengers a day.
For the evolving Indian traveller, our research indicates that the consumer is clearly in the driving seat and, is looking for the best of both worlds – convenience of online research and the personalised service and expertise of his offline agent. As pioneers and market leaders, we are focussed on customer needs and constantly evaluating untapped blue ocean opportunities
Q) What is the main aim behind the launch of technology-enabled travel stores?
Thomas Cook India’s internal research having highlighted the powerful growth potential for retail transactions, including burgeoning remittance opportunities, and thus we conceptualised a quick deployment strategy of small technology assisted outlets to rapidly penetrate India’s underserved third tier markets; hence the launch of its innovative Thomas Cook Mini. The outlets have been designed optimising space and will be manned by a small team, equipped with technology via mobile devices/tablets for seamless online connectivity to central systems, thus facilitating quick customer transactions. This unique model delivers on a two-pronged strategy of efficiencies of quick market penetration and scale-up.
While Thomas Cook has chosen its Foreign Exchange business to pioneer this initiative, its Thomas Cook Mini outlets will see expansion to include other Travel Related Services, basis the demand dynamics of the respective location markets. Pathanamthitta, Kerala saw the Company’s inauguration of the first of its Thomas Cook Mini outlets.
Q) Why did you launch one currency card? How popular is the card?
Indians are progressively becoming aware of the importance and convenience of plastic money over cash while travelling abroad, which has led our prepaid cards business to witness a significant growth of over 25% year-on-year with one out of every two customers opting for a card. As market leaders, our focus has always been on innovation, and Thomas Cook One Currency Prepaid Travel Card is a path-breaking product with a strong USP of zero cross currency charges, across the world.
Added benefits of the Thomas Cook One Currency Card include embedded chip and PIN security, locking of funds (to avoid cross currency fluctuations), instant loading, emergency cash disbursement, encashment of the residual balance or use for future travel, free replacement card in case stolen or lost and 24×7 global emergency assistance available via toll free access in over 80 countries global access via 2.2 million ATM’s and 35.2million merchant establishments in over 275 countries. We have witnessed strong consumer uptake over 300% growth in Q1 2016 for our One Currency Card.
In a focused initiative to drive a shift to a cashless ecosystem, as also to leverage the peak travel season potential and inspire demand, Thomas Cook India has introduced its strategic “Travel Smart, Drive Easy” campaign – offering customers the opportunity to win a brand new Mahindra KUV 100 on the purchase of either the Thomas Cook One Currency or Borderless Prepaid Card or a send money abroad transaction. The offer is applicable on retail transactions of a minimum value of US$500 or equivalent, from May 2 – July 2, 2016. Additionally, lucky customers stand a chance to win an iPad Mini daily and an iPhone 6S weekly.
The two-month long campaign incorporates a healthy mix of print, outdoor, radio & digital focus across – Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad. The campaign is also being promoted aggressively via Twitter and Facebook contests and will see live updates on winners on its social media properties.
Q) How is the Indian outbound sector performing in business and leisure markets?
The impressive growth in outbound Indian travellers has made India one of the largest outbound travel markets globally- WTTC’s Travel & Tourism Economic Impact 2014 highlights that the total expenditure on outbound travel in India was INR750bn in 2013 and projected to INR1,605bn in 2024. McKinsey’s report on India’s growing wealth pyramid clearly reiterates the exponential growth India’s burgeoning middle class and discretionary spends- fuelling the short holiday opportunity. Added to this is the undeniable “brag value” of outbound vacations and the impact of social media – clearly giving impetus to the growth trajectory for short breaks. Our sales teams at Thomas Cook India indicate an impressive growth of over 27% for short holidays to eternal short-haul favourites such as Singapore, Thailand, Dubai, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi, and Hong-Kong–Macau etc.
Summer 2016 is seeing a healthy mix of both short and long hauls with easy access options like Singapore, Dubai, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bali, Malaysia, Kong Kong-Macau coupled with favourites like USA-Canada, Switzerland, France, Germany and New Zealand-Australia; and fresh destinations strongly emerging on the radar like Japan, Korea, Israel, Abu Dhabi, Flanders and the Philippines
Indian travellers are opening up to intellectually and educationally enriching getaways and traditional sightseeing vacations are a thing of the past. Experiential travel is the Indian traveller’s new mantra – they are clearly pushing the envelope. The traditional tick-box see-all-you-can package no longer finds favour, with fresh engaging experiences are in high demand and based on our customer’s interests we have curated a range of innovative and immersive experiential itineraries, from fissure snorkelling in Iceland, touring on horseback in South Africa, nature trails and a tree-top walk at Singapore’s MacRichie Reservoir, volcano climbs in The Philippines, to cooking classes with local chefs in France, zip lining and rappelling in Malaysia’s rain forests or the adrenalin rush of adventure sports in New Zealand.
In fact, as per the internal research team of Thomas Cook India, with average advance booking of one month to a week prior, our web portal thomascook.in has seen a healthy growth of 45% this year, compared to same period in 2015
Comments are closed.