Next year as Gainwell Travel & Leisure celebrates 25 years as a leading tour operator in eastern India, Manoj Saraf, managing director of the company reveals how the strategy to adopt a different model from the very beginning has enabled the company to stay ahead of the curve By Sudipta Dev
Incorporated in 1991, Kolkata headquarterd Gainwell Travel & Leisure will complete 25 years of its existence next year. Manoj Saraf, managing director, Gainwell Travel & Leisure started the business because of his passion for travelling, along with the fact that whenever he and his family travelled overseas they were unhappy with the quality of services that local agents in Kolkata offered them at that time. “We felt there was a lot we could offer as a travel agent to travellers. We started not as a ticketing agent, but as a hotel booking and services agent,” says Saraf. He adopted a different model at a time when agencies were completely dependent on commissions from airlines. “The commissions at that time were as high as nine per cent plus incentives, but in spite of that our model was providing international hotel reservations and for iconic five-star hotels in India,” he adds.
A trendsetter
Gainwell was a trendsetter in many ways. It was the first company that started focusing on cruising holidays 23 years ago when it was a completely new concept in India. “We brought Star Cruises to India. We started selling Star Cruises, even well before they had an office in India. We were dealing with their Singapore office directly and were sending 15-20 passengers per month,” he mentions.
Over the years Gainwell has gone into educational tours and adventure tourism. The company has done religious tours regularly for the last five to six years. “In fact we were the first company in India to charter a ship and do a religious Bhagvat Katha on board for 1100 passengers about five to six years back. We have done many such programmes on cruises including the Alaska cruise, Caribbean cruise and of course Singapore cruise,” informs Saraf. These groups range from 1200 to 300 people. This December Saraf is taking a group of 400 people on a Dubai cruise. Destination weddings is another new segment the company went into three-four years ago, which has been growing well with several destination weddings organised within India, Thailand and in other countries. “Another segment that has come out of this is events like 25th anniversary celebrations and 50th birthday celebrations. Family reunions have become a trend where an upmarket client is looking for an excuse to get together and have a family reunion. We have been doing 15 to 20 such events in a year now. These groups are typically 50 – 100 people, but very event oriented where every lunch or dinner is a theme lunch or dinner. People want to have a party where the experience is different,” he says, pointing out that the clientele is mostly in the age group of 50 plus, who can afford to spend 20-30 lakh on their friends and relatives.
In eastern India, Gainwell is not surprisingly the first choice for events based tourism. While the company has been doing MICE for a long time, but in the last six-seven years the MICE business has grown. Saraf believes that no matter how strong the internet might become, MICE events will continue to require an expert or event manager. “Most of the MICE events are international tours. We have done a lot of MICE events on cruises, for instance Alaska and Mediterranean cruise,” he mentions. “We have grown to be one of the strongest brands in the industry in eastern India and this gives us a lot of satisfaction. We have a branch in Haldia and another in Siliguri – it is a deliberate strategy not to grow too much as in an online world, the offline companies find it difficult to sustain high overhead costs and that is why we have a limited number of branches. We have representations in other cities as well,” he says. It has been a strategic decision by Saraf to keep his company lean.
Many milestones
In terms of milestones in the last two and a half decades, Saraf mentions the first cruise charter that he did with 1100 people. “The cruise from Singapore was for seven nights. At all ports we had 24 coaches waiting for us for shore excursions,” he reminisces. In 1995, Gainwell had taken what was then the largest MICE group from India to Mauritius. “At that time the tourism minister of Mauritius had invited us for dinner,” he says with pride. The company had also taken the largest group from eastern India to Istanbul.
Considering the fact that there has been dynamic change in the industry in the last 10 years, Saraf is uncertain of the future changes in the industry. He is preparing the next generation, his children, to take over the charge. “My daughter who is 24 and 19 year old son are getting into the business. They have their own ideas and should be given the freedom to run the company,” he avers.
For a company that has always stayed ahead of the curve, Saraf believes that he has been lucky to survive and innovate and get into different spaces. “In Mumbai or Delhi, we would have done four-five times the business. The scope of doing more business is limited in eastern India, which is relatively a slower region. People have less disposable income here. However, we would have had more challenges and competition in Delhi or Mumbai. So there are pro and cons,” he states honestly.
The scenario in eastern India has changed with the increasing number of flights from Kolkata to the west Asian hubs as travellers do not have to fly to Mumbai or Delhi. Pointing out that while connectivity in terms of more international carriers has increased, but Kolkata still does not have a direct flight to Europe, Saraf states that ironically this is the same Kolkata where around 1965, people from Delhi would come to take a Pan Am flight to Europe and America.