Travel operators witness growth in business

Tour and travel operators in the Chandigarh region are observing a surge in the business as the economy’s sentiment turns positive.

Not only the leisure bookings but the corporate bookings have also witnessed a rise in demand.

Gurinder Bawa, Business Head, International Travel House, said that there was a 20 per cent rise in the corporate bookings corresponding to the previous year. The travel house recently booked a tour of 70 people for Egypt for one of the corporate houses. Bawa added that though the corporate business has revived a bit, it would definitely take time to reach the pre-recession levels.

Bawa maintained that earlier, when the business coming from corporates was affected, the travel houses focused more on medium and small scale businessmen from the region, on whom the impact of recession was less visible. In addition, real estate dealers, government employees and senior citizens had been the main focus for the travel houses.

Commenting on the plans for season ahead, Bawa added that they had created a database of 3,000 email ids. They are planning to introduce plans thorough internet.

“We have a data base of 3,000 e-mail ids and plan to do aggressive online marketing. Similarly, Thomas Cook is also expecting growth in the coming months. The spokesman of the company maintained that after having witnessed a period of despondency, they expected the market to improve. The spokesman added that queries from both leisure travelers as well as corporates were gradually improving.

Vineet Sharma, the proprietor of Sheetal Travels also maintained that queries from leisure travelers have started rising recently.

He maintained that in the coming months, the company would be focusing more on regular travelers as well as the government employees as potential customers.