Travel cos help India Inc beat crunch-time blues

[rahul_parab2006]

Travel cos help India Inc beat crunch-time blues


NEW DELHI: The negative business sentiment has grounded the jet setting corporate honchos. In a bid to cut costs, India Inc has trimmed travel budgets by almost 25% across sectors and up to 40-45% in the hard hit banking and IT sectors. To cope with the slowdown, travel companies are devising alternative strategies to keep the business flying.

These include offering indirect routes to business travellers as these are cheaper than direct flights to destinations, shift from business to economy class, attracting more incentive- based travel and offering service apartments instead of hotels for accommodation.

In fact, as IT companies and other financial companies cut down travel expenses by 20-40% and segments like manufacturing and consumer durables by 10-15%. Noticing such a decline in travel budgets, travel management companies are offsetting the impact by providing custom solutions to the varied sectors.

Says Cox & Kings executive director Arup Sen, “Financial crunch has provided us with an opportunity to derive the best value for the corporates at the least expenditure. This is the time when companies would rely on their travel agent even more. The travel packages are designed according to the needs of companies and the most economical means are being adopted to maximise corporate travel spends.”

As personalisation and customisation takes priority while offering packages to the corporate, the travel management companies are devising new strategies like offering indirect routes to business travellers as these are cheaper than direct flights to destinations to cope with the slowdown.

Adds Mr Sen, “We suggest our customers to take a route that may take a little more time but save money instead of taking a direct flight. We also provide an option of cheaper accommodation. There’s a shift from business class to the economy class as well.”

Affirms Travel Port sales head Rahul Joshi, “Besides shift to economy class and indirect flights, there has also been growing affinity toward service apartments. At present, service apartments are boasting of occupancy rate of 85%.” Since travel companies have rich base of clients, they are using this clout to attract more business.

Says Thomas Cook president and head for travel business Nalini Gupta, “Our company boasts of large corporate client lists which comes in handy to get the best deals. In tough times, networking helps.” Agrees Mr Sen, “We work closely with corporates and help them in optimising their travel spends without compromising on business. Also, as we deal with large number of corporates we can get the costs down for the companies.”

While corporate houses are decreasing their travel requirements, travel houses are banking on dealers to keep cash counters ringing. That’s why now incentive-based business travel is on upswing, providing much needed fuel to the travel industry.

Says isango.com (a travel company) COO Aseem Sadana, “Since there aren’t too many travel transactions, it becomes essential to keep up the business confidence. It’s mandatory to reward the people getting business to the company and travel opportunity is the ideal vehicle.”


Source : Economic Times