Stars at work wooed with box seats for World Cup party

For India Inc, corporate HR or customer retention now includes box seats or club house tickets for the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup. If that’s not enough, then how about airport pickups, drops, star accommodation and even some cricket merchandise. Howzat!

Move over Indian Premier League (IPL), cricket’s biggest carnival is hitting the subcontinent in less than three weeks. And our corporates are lapping up tour packages that are cantered around the tournament.

From MNC food and beverage companies to Indian cricket crazy banks, from Microsoft to HDFC Bank, from Citibank to Coca Cola, Pepsi, Castrol or Canon, these are either incentives for their senior and mid level managers or gifts for key clients that can each come with a cool Rs 50k tab.

“These companies are buying tickets to incentivise their senior managers, sales target achievers and distributors, too. Few companies have also bought tickets for their VIP guests,” said an agent doing bulk booking for these companies.

Citibank confirmed that it is buying the tickets as gift for its clients. Executives of two more companies, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that their companies are booking tickets in bulk to reward their mid and senior level managers. The reward however, is not extended to the family members of these executives.

Tui Travel Plc and Cutting Edge Events are the official travel agents for the World Cup 2011.

“Response for the event has been excellent so far. Bookings have primarily been from corporate India where they are buying tickets for their employees,” said Shad Siddiqui, Vice President, Meetings and incentives, Tui Travel Plc.

Both agencies are offering packages at two levels — match ticket and accommodation and match tickets and transfer packages. Under the match ticket and accommodation packages, the agencies are offering three-star, four-star and five-star hotel accommodation; a match ticket in the mentioned category along with airport and match transfers; travel insurance; an English-speaking guide and game merchandise.

Ticket and match transfer packages include one-match ticket in mentioned category; game merchandise and transfer to the match venue.

Tui Travel has also included high-tea at five-star hotels under its ticket and match transfer package. Match ticket and accommodation packages for the first day are sold ranging anywhere between Rs 16,000 and Rs 18,000.

For the finals, ticket and accommodation packages range between Rs 40,000 and Rs 46,000 for three-star, four-star and five-star accommodation. There are around a lakh tickets to be sold. These agencies have so far sold one-tenth of the tickets.

“India is a late market. People here react at the end moment. We are expecting the bookings to pick up pace in the coming weeks,” added Siddiqui.

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 will be the 10th Cricket World Cup with the opening ceremony in Bangladesh. The event would be hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh with the initial preliminary rounds leading up to the finals to be held at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.