Thomas Cook to launch 10 new products in India

Travel and financial services company, Thomas Cook India plans to make "significant" investments in the country this year, including 10 new product-launches over the next six-months.

"We are looking at nothing less than 10 new leisure products over the next six-months -- just for Indians travelling domestically and overseas. We are getting quite serious on international expansion for the in-bound business (foreign tourists into India), so we'll try and build new destinations for the international markets," Thomas Cook (India) Ltd, executive director-Travel Businesses, Rakshit Desai, told PTI.The BSE-listed company said it will embark on a marketing campaign from this month-end.

"We are going to make some significant investments this year and you will start seeing them from the end of November," Desai said, adding that the funding will be through internal accruals.

Thomas Cook also has plans to operate in one or two other markets in the South Asian region, Desai said, adding, however, that it was "premature to state which ones and how".

The company said it expects to clock better margins in the second-half of this calender year as against the numbers clocked in 2008.

Thomas Cook India saw extreme volatility in terms of bookings and cancellations in the second-half of 2008 owing to terrorist attacks and in early-2009 because of the swine flu scare.

"A few million dollars worth of bookings were cancelled. We would have done at least 15-20 per cent better had these things not happened. The swine flu tended to impact more of the out-bound side of the business," Desai said.

However, India was pulling tourists from eastern Europe, including Russia and from Japan in far greater numbers than ever before, he said.

"The Russian market is very interested in India. From a charter market point of view, it (Russia) is a growth market for Thomas Cook India. The Russian market in Goa is expected to grow substantially this year," Desai said.

"We have started to build demand for a northern India product, which has been very niche and we are trying to give it a broad base. Japan has always had some interest in India, but it was primarily from a religious point of view. Over the last 2-3 years, we have seen interest in Japan for the Golden Temple or the south of India," he added.