Neeraj Chopra dinner to PV Sindhu match: Indian travellers shell out lakhs for the ultimate Paris Olympics experience

From meeting and greeting Olympic gold medalist Neeraj Chopra at Eiffel Tower’s Gustave to watching PV Sindhu in action, Indians are splurging lakhs of rupees to watch their favourite athletes in action at the ongoing Paris Olympics.

With Indian athletes like Manu Bhaker off to a flying start with two bronze medals, the interest is only expected to spike in the coming days.

A lot of the travel plans are getting finalised as the games are underway for DreamSetGo, the official hospitality partner of the Paris Olympics for Indian travellers.

The sports travel and experiences company from the house of Dream Sports, the parent company of fantasy gaming company Dream11, has facilitated travel for over 1,000 Indians including government bodies, corporates and high net worth individuals (HNIs). The company expects the number to double to over 2,000 by the end of the tournament.

Splurging on sports

"There has been a great traction but a lot of it has come in the last month and a half and it is becoming even more active now with the tournament starting. Now, we have a lot of clients who have come here on ground asking for more (in terms of packages).”

“For instance, people are seeing PV Sindhu advancing to the next round so people are booking accordingly. There was huge demand for the India versus Argentina hockey match. Highlight of the day (third day of the Olympics) was Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal tennis game," said Monish Shah, CEO & Founder of DreamSetGo.

He said that corporates, government bodies are taking entire packages including visa, transport, and sightseeing.

"Corporate packages range from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 4 lakh per person and HNIs have bought packages in the range of Rs 12 lakh to Rs 15 lakh. For the opening ceremony of the Olympics some clients have bought packages costing as high as Rs 25 lakh."

Indian tourists are also including in their packages meet and greet sessions with athletes.

"We are doing a meet and greet session with Neeraj Chopra on the 10th (August) and most likely at Gustave, which is the restaurant at Eiffel Tower. We are doing this session exclusively for 50 of our clients. As we go through the tournament either in Paris or as we come back we will have more experiences with some of our top athletes. These sessions are part of the packages like watch Neeraj Chopra's finals and come meet then on the 10th. Some of the packages have Neeraj’s (Chopra) final (match) included in the package," Shah said.

Sports tourism

He added that sports tourism is growing faster than overall tourism in the country.

Travel is growing at 10 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and sports travel is growing at 17 percent CAGR.

"Tokyo wouldn't be the right comparison because fans were not allowed due to the pandemic. But compared with previous Olympics like Rio, London there is a difference when it comes to the number of Indians travelling. One difference is that people are travelling with more expensive packages. And for the Paris Olympics Indian participation is massive. And this is all last minute. From India my estimates are that more than around 5,000 people will travel.

DreamSetGo is also betting big on the Paris Olympics with significant revenue contribution coming from the Games.

"It is a massive tournament for us. Paris Olympics will be north of 30 percent of the revenue we will do this year," Shah said.

Beyond cricket

Along with the Paris Olympics, Indians are travelling for cricket and tennis.

"Before the Paris Olympics, we had the T20 World Cup, Wimbledon. The T20 World Cup was very successful. It could have been better but there were some logistics challenges in terms of a lot of clients getting to the Caribbean and moving between cities. There was huge demand with a lot of Indians travelling from India and a lot of Indians travelling within the US. It opened up a new territory for us," the CEO said.

As many as 4,000 people travelled with DreamSetGo for the T20 World Cup 2024.

"India and Pakistan match itself had around 600 odd clients. And these are unique clients. If we look at repeat users then it would be over 10,000 clients. Packages were a combination of tickets and hotel stays for New York, Barbados. In the Caribbean, we did a session with Brian Lara for a corporate client. Our India versus Pakistan package was in the range of Rs 2-3 lakh per person excluding flights with the whole meet and greet session," the founder added.

Cricket has the highest share in terms of revenue for DreamSetGo. While cricket contributes 50 percent, the growing interest for tennis and football has made them the second big category for the company.

"Tennis and football are very good seconds. Wimbledon has very high demand. We had more than 250 people who travelled with us for Wimbledon and the packages are expensive anywhere between Rs 5-10 lakh.  Roland-Garros (the French Open) was successful. This is the year where other sports are dominant as well," he said.

The company is seeing huge demand for the Singapore and Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. "It is not just summer of sports, it is the year of sports. It will end with Border–Gavaskar Trophy in Australia and (ICC) Champions Trophy. In the second half of 2024, the whole focus will move towards Australia. We have done more than 30 events in Australia with Michael Hussey, Brett Lee, Michael Clarke. We aim to take a lot of corporates there. Our aim is to take 500 people there and around 100 people to the Abu Dhabi and Singapore Grand Prix."

With Indians splurging on sports travel, Shah said that the interest is across markets among Indians.

"Traction is led by the metros but we are surprised by the traction in second tier cities like Jaipur, Raipur, Ahamdabad, Mohali. HNIs across countries are looking for experiences. People post-Covid are saying that let’s collect experiences rather than gold. Post-Covid people used to talk about revenge travel. There was pent up energy. But it has gone beyond revenge travel. People first wanted to travel to a destination and experiences came along the way. Now, people want the experience and accordingly they make travel plans. People are planning around events be it sporting or a Taylor Swift event," Shah said.

He is looking at a 100 percent year-on-year growth thanks .to the growing travel demand for sporting events.