Our strategic intent is to be an omnichannel player: Vishal Suri, SOTC Travel
Travel was among the first and worst sectors disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic and the last sector to recover. However, travel agency SOTC saw the downtime as an opportunity to re-pivot its business model and accelerate its investments to automate and digitize its internal processes. Says Vishal Suri Managing Director, SOTC Travel India, “As an organization, we have multiple travel brands and we looked at the synergies and created an integrated backend unit. We used technology to automate our processes to make the business sustainable and bring in the efficiencies.”
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In addition to technology, the other key lever was focus on customer-centricity - an extremely important component for the travel category at every stage of the customer journey. “As a 75-year-old organization, we have a rich knowledge and experience sitting within the organization. We wanted to make sure that we were ready and relevant to target the new-age customer and the customer's expectations. We have a deep understanding of the customer choices and their expectations from travel companies. Our stated position today and our strategic intent is to be an omnichannel player.” In addition to SOTC’s physical stores, the company sells its services through its websites with almost 15% to 18% of holidays now being sold through its digital assets. “A customer can engage with us across any channel - our website, app, or call centre, or he physically walks into our store. We leave the convenience and the choice to the customer of how he wants to engage with us.” “If the customer then calls our call centre or walks into the store, we can recognise them and continue the conversation seamlessly. This is what gives us an edge. You cannot deliver a fulfilling experience by just being on one platform. We will continue to be omnichannel for the foreseeable future,” says Suri. Post-Pandemic Recovery Speaking on post-pandemic recovery, Suri says that the business travel segment is at 112% of pre-pandemic levels, it predominantly being domestic travel. Incentive travel, both domestic and international, has seen the strongest recovery at 125 per cent over the pre-pandemic levels as of 2023. Domestic leisure travel is now 2.5X of what it was pre-pandemic while short-haul travel – less than 5 hours travel – has also fully recovered. However, what has not recovered is long-haul travel and Suri is optimistic that this segment will also see recovery this year. Currently, the leisure business is the largest business segment in the SOTC portfolio contributing to 40% of the total business, with MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) contributing around 30% and the rest coming from the business travel division. He says, “As a core travel organization, the different verticals balances our whole business portfolio, and allows us to mitigate risk if there are risks which emerge out of one segment or the other.” Betting on Customisation and Personalisation In a diverse and multi-lingual country like India, an important focus area for SOTC is to provide an elevated consumer experience by the regionalization of its product propositions, be it in terms of content, its website, guides available on tour or even taking care of the local food preferences of its customers. An interesting insight Suri shares is that the average age of its customers has dropped by almost 10 years. He elaborates, “Earlier the average age of our customer that we were targeting was between 35 and 49 years. Today, our average age is between 25 and 34 years.” Another change has been the upward trajectory of travel from Tier II and Tier III markets. In the past, these markets were seen as priority two markets but are now at the same priority levels as the top 10 cities in India. SOTC recently collaborated with the IPL team, Mumbai Indians, in a bid to showcase its multiple assets. Says Suri, “An insight we picked up was that people are now prioritizing their travel and experiences. Cricket is a big religion in India. We wanted to marry both these passions. April-May is also a period of peak travel and with Mumbai Indians being one of the most popular teams in IPL we thought this would be a great association. This association is for a nine-month period, and we are seeing a lot of mileage out of this.” Commenting on the media mix Suri says, “We today spend a disproportionate amount of our funds in on digital assets because that's an investment towards the future. While the ROI is not as attractive, digital is becoming more expensive and the cost of customer acquisition is higher on the digital platforms. However, we are committed to continuing to invest there, because we believe that's where the future is. A better ROI still comes from conventional print and outdoor activities.” On a final note, speaking of the key focus areas looking ahead, Suri says, “We want to be known as a company and the most loved travel brand in our category and want to look at profitable growth. These are the focus areas.”