Travel sector to keep soaring: Thomas Cook's Madhavan Menon

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : The year that’s drawing to a close saw many more young Indians flying abroad than before, a trend that Madhavan Menon, executive chairman, Thomas Cook India, expects to continue in the years ahead. In an interview, Menon spoke about visa-free travel, hotel rates and emerging trends. Edited excerpts: There is enough and more written about 2023, and it has been a great year, despite challenges of higher airfare, travel and hotel costs.

We’ve seen a great year. Indian tourists have left their mark on the world in 2023, and the sort of travel we have witnessed is the start of a long-term trend. There was something that happened during the pandemic that has led to this.

Thomas Cook has also had a decent year, and I can’t complain. While they may have had their rub-off effect, marquee events did not have too much to do with the entire upward trend. Other than the (ODI cricket) World Cup, the Khelo India Games, G20 (summit) or the National Games had some participation but not high-level participation.

Some of the spending around these events—which in my opinion is about ₹2,000 crore—is not going to change the way forward in the industry, which is doing well in any case. We all tend to believe that every good year must be followed by a bad year, but I don’t agree with that. The reality is that something has changed in the traveller.

The average age has dropped significantly, and we can see that in the data in our group’s travel bookings. Connectivity across the country has gone beyond pre-pandemic levels and there are a larger number of flights and seats, despite the large number of grounded aircraft. For instance, India registered on a particular day 4.5 lakh travellers—this number is not small by any definition.