Last year, CAAIR Travels, a partner of American Express, organised a conference of 800 delegates for global white goods major Whirlpool Corporation.
One of the largest conferences in the country, this was a tricky exercise in more ways than one. For one, the theme of the conference was an unusual one: to establish the Whirlpool brandname over Kelvinator, the company it had bought out. For another it involved bringing in delegates from all over India. CAAIR was able to handle this because it made use of the American Express network, which includes 28 travel agent partners.
If foreign investment picks up as fast as the government hopes, conferences on this scale could become the norm rather than the exception. For Indian companies too, conferences are becoming the preferred way of giving their employees a tax-free perk or of pampering their dealers.
There are already signs of a pick-up. Although conferences form a tiny part of the tourism and travel business, its share has been growing from roughly 2.4 per cent in 1993 to 4 per cent now.
Growth, too, is expected to be a respectable. CAAIR Travels, for instance, saw a 30 per cent growth in its business in the past three years. Overall, the industry is expected to grow 10 to 15 per cent over the next few years, according to Ranjit Vig, managing director, CAAIR Travels. Of course, this does not compare with the huge 65 per cent growth rates that occurred between 1993 and 1996, when conferencing started taking off. But as Vig explains, that only reflects the initial surge.
Either way, this is good news for agencies since a growing number of companies are looking to specialised companies to organise their conferences.
As the business grows, bigger companies like Thomas Cook, Cox and Kings, Mercury Travels are also diversifying into the conferencing business.
The reasons for choosing an external agency for organising a conference are two-fold. First, the organising agencies are mostly travel agencies, who can get better rates from airlines and hotels than individual corporations. Second, such transfer of responsibility keep executives free from the rigours of organisation. Moreover, since conferences are frequently being organised in obscure locations and sometimes outside the country, specialised agencies are in a better position to organise the logistics.
In India, one of the most favoured spots for conferences is Agra, where the participants get enough opportunity to sightsee. Over the past two years, however, the corporations are preferring obscure locations like Rishikesh, Leh and the Kanha and Corbett National Parks. The latest trend is called adventure or outdoor conferencing in which, the basic idea is to blend the feeling of adventure holiday with serious work. Among the noted corporations, Hyatt, American Express and Reebok are frequent users of such outdoor conferencing (see story on adventure tourism elsewhere on this page).
Apart from locations within India, agencies are also promoting locations like Maldives, Bangkok and Dubai for the purpose of conferencing. Says Rohit Seth, managing director, Connections, Holding conferences in Dubai gives the corporates an opportunity to travel overseas and take part in magnificent desert safaris.
Connections is concentrating on conferencing on a full-time basis and ever since its inception in 1996 has experienced a 90 per cent growth in the volume of business.
As yet, though, the conferencing business constitutes only rupee earnings for travel agencies from companies based in India. A recent report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce, however, points out that conferencing has the potential to become a major forex earner. The report says, It is estimated that a conference delegate spends nearly five times more than an average tourist. Conference tourism, however, is yet to take off in India. Only 0.1 percent of the tourists visiting India currently comprise conference tourists compared with 0.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent of Thailand and Indonesia respectively. Conference tourists look for requisite facilities [see page 6] not only in capital cities and in the industrial centres but also at exotic, novel and eco-friendly places to combine pleasure with business.
