A majority of Indian tourists, who had booked their France itinerary, don’t intend to cancel their bookings after the Paris terror attacks even as tour operators eye other European and Asian markets to provide alternative destinations to sustain their business next year.
The fears of apprehensive customers have been belied, according to Thomas Cook. “Paris is a favourite with Indian consumers and continues to feature strongly on our programmes enjoying favoured-destination status across both group and the individual traveller segments,” said Jatinder Paul Singh, Senior Vice President & Head - Sales & Distribution, Leisure Travel (Outbound), Thomas Cook.
“Of course travel has become a non-negotiable, but it is the Indian consumers’ maturity that has been truly encouraging for us. We have made no changes in the Paris elements,” Singh said in an interview.
Asia accounts for a growing number of tourists in France, with an estimated 300,000 Indians visiting Paris every year and this number is increasing, according to a statement on the website of the French Embassy.
“We do not see any impact on travel to Paris or France next year as the situation has eased and life is back to normal,” Karan Anand, Head, Relationships, Cox & Kings Ltd., said.
“ Paris is a favourite with Indian consumers and continues to feature strongly on our programmes. ”
Robust summer bookings “All the places of interest have opened and tourists who are in Paris have indicated that life has returned to normal. Our experience indicates that destinations bounce back in quick time and they make all out efforts to woo travellers. Our summer bookings for 2016 have been robust and we have not seen any slowdown in bookings for France.’’
Seasoned travellers echoed Mr. Anand’s views.
“We are planning to travel in a group of six along with a child to Paris and some other European destinations in July 2016 and I am not cancelling. Things will improve by then I am sure,” said Tapati Mallik, a housewife who travelled to Turkey this summer.
To be on the safe side Indian travel companies are readying alternative travel itineraries for the summer of 2016.
Destinations Destinations which are now likely to be promoted are Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and HongKong, China, Australia and New Zealand, with attractive offers, said T. C. Guruprasad, Managing Director of Centrum, a forex service company, of which tour company Club7 Holidays is a subsidiary.
At 33 per cent, New Zealand is the ‘dream’ destination for Indian travellers, closely followed by France accounting for 32 per cent and Switzerland at 31 per cent of the total outbound travellers, according to TripAdvisor.
A major travel-company, when contacted said that although they had anticipated concerns from clients so far they have not seen need for changes in their Europe itineraries for 2016.
Officials of the company, which did not want to be identified, said felt that this reflected the maturity of the Indian travellers. A travel company dealing exclusively with women tourists too said that their 2016 plans remain intact till now.
Some other travel companies have, however, faced anxious queries by prospective individuals travelling with family and friends as well as corporate customers sending their employees and clients. This company recently held an emergency meeting to rework some of their products to avoid Paris.
“There is a growing feeling that this is not an one-off Iceland volcano eruption.. it is a problem which may cascade” said a senior official of a leading travel service company, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Compounding the problem is the recent episode between Turkey and Russia and now people are also keen to avoid certain carriers. “Enquiries for April bookings start around December but many travellers are now either flagging their concerns or are looking for alternatives. Some are favouring a wait-and-watch stance”, the official said.
MICE “MICE — meetings incentives conferences and exhibitions — is a very important segment for all tour operators and we recently faced anxious queries from a corporate client who were sponsoring their executives and dealers for a meeting in Paris in February,” a tour operator said. The client was offered Madrid as an alternative, he said. Italy, UK and Croatia were also being promoted, although many tour companies are not willing to share their concerns on Paris in public yet.
