Bookings for inbound travel in October decent: Thomas Cook

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Bookings for inbound travel in October decent: Thomas Cook

Madhavan Menon, MD at Thomas Cook India said that 2009 had not been a good year for the company and that the company had seen a downtrend in corporate travels, but said that the bookings for inbound season starting October looked decent.

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Q: We hear some comments about a very anemic travel season starting October, do you fear it is going to be another lean patch?

A: 2009 has not been a good year at all. If you look at it from the various travel components, while the outbond travel was relatively decent and held up, corporate travel has been down and this is reflected by the low occupancy on domestic flights as well as international flights. We have not seen a return to normalcy but having said that, I think we have plateaued or hit the bottom of the trough. We don't see the situation getting any worse from here. We expect it to improve as confidence returns to the economy.

Q: Have you sought any legal counsel at Thomas Cook India because there is one view that because this change of guard whenever it happens, is happening at the behest of the German government and because of government supervision, Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) might actually chose to give you some kind of a relaxation on open offer and not force an open offer in India; any thoughts on that?

A: We haven't reached that stage as yet. We are still awaiting advice from our parent but I would like reiterate here that it is just the placement of the 43% i.e. currently in play. Arcandor is viewed as a shareholder and we are both ringfenced from each other to that extent. So I am not particularly sure of how this whole thing is going to play out but clearly there are rules and regulations in the United Kingdom (UK), there are rules and regulations in Germany and there are rules and regulations in India too. I think once there is a decision out of Germany on what they plan to do with that stock holding then all of us will need to get legal advice on what needs to be done. But at this point of time we have not done anything.

Q: You were telling us how you expect the next few quarters to turn out in terms of business?

A: The travel businesses have stabilized with that. In months upto May there was a lot of fluctuation, there were drops then there was some claw back but since May we have actually seen a fair amount of stability and the volumes that are being booked. Admittedly the outbound season and the inbound season are not in season at the moment both the businesses are out of season. The inbound season starts in October but having said that I think at the moment the bookings look decent on the inbound in terms of our expectation of tourists. On the outbound, the season starts around November and stretches in to early January and then we start looking at summer.

We do not expect too much of a downside on the outbound season. Even if you look at the last year, the effects have been marginal and the economic slowdown did not hit us in a big manner. But I expect things to slowly claw back with corporate travel being a little slower than