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Travel agency platform Thomas Cook India is leveraging Artificial Intelligence, spiritual tourism, and tier-2 cities to scale up its business. According to Executive Chairman Madhavan Menon, "the group has and continues to invest significantly in AI-powered platforms, systems, and solutions to enhance the customer experience". The travel firm will achieve it through product and service innovation, and leveraging technology, he added.

Last week, the travel services company announced the launch of an AI-powered platform through which customers can customize their holidays. 

Additionally, Thomas Cook India has promised to 'redefine spiritual tourism' in the country by unveiling hidden gems or sacred sites and ensuring their accessibility. Thomas Cook and its subsidiary SOTC’s data have indicated an increased demand of 100% Y-o-Y for spiritual tourism.

Notably, spiritual tourism has witnessed a boom in India and makes up 60% of the country's domestic tourism. The industry is estimated to grow at a compounded annual rate of 16.2% and is likely to reach $4.6 billion in size by 2033, the Mumbai-headquartered company added.

The company has also intended to expand its offerings in tier-2 and tier-3 cities due to a surge in domestic tourism. Menon said in the calendar year 2024, they have opened five resorts and are planning to open 8-10 resorts during the rest of the year. The company will focus on "Expanding the sales and distribution footprint across the country to cover more than 5,000 partners, covering Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities", he added. Thomas Cook expanded its foreign exchange business in Tier-2 and 3 cities by opening seven outlets in the current calendar year, according to Mahesh Iyer, Executive Director at Thomas Cook.

Thomas Cook India's net profit was marginally up to Rs 73 crore in the first quarter of FY2025 from Rs 71 crore in the same period last year. The company's standalone total income stood at Rs 788.7 crore for the quarter, up from Rs 766.28 crore in Q1 FY2024. The company's advertisement expenses have increased by 92% to Rs 27.65 crore in FY24 from Rs 14.4 crore. The standalone net profit jumped to Rs 99.9 crore in FY24 from Rs 1.5  crore.

Thomas Cook India capitalizes on AI, spiritual tourism, and tier-2 cities to boost biz

Earlier this week, Cleartrip CEO Ayyappan Rajagopal announced a new captain on board on social media, keeping the identity under wraps. This strategic teaser campaign sparked curiosity and got people talking, perfectly aligning with Cleartrip's plan to generate buzz. The brand is onboarding Mahendra Singh Dhoni as their long-term brand ambassador to attract new customers and win back past users.

"We needed a celebrity who embodies trust and can say, 'This is the brand I use and endorse’ and there's no better person than MSD to do that for us,” said Rajagopal. 

In his conversation with Storyboard18, Rajagopal also discussed plans for the long-term Dhoni partnership, new product launches, upcoming campaigns, travel trends, and the growing "You Only Live Once" travel mentality across generations.



Edited excerpts


We saw your campaign teaser where you talk about onboarding a new captain and its none other than Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Why him? Tell us a little about this campaign that you are launching?




Firstly, this is a very critical campaign for us because it's the first one since onboarding hotels. We were wondering who would be the ideal celebrity to endorse our brand. ClearTrip is an OG (original) brand in the travel space and when it comes to anything related to established brands, you need someone who cuts across geographies and is a true legend. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (MSD), as we all know, is a legend and one of the very few personalities who connects with people regardless of whether they follow cricket. He cuts across demographics, ages, and geographies – every single target audience out there would say they can connect with Dhoni. Additionally, the online travel agency (OTA) space is all about trust. We needed a celebrity who embodies trust and can say, 'This is the brand I use and endorse’. There’s no better person than MSD to do that for us.




The timing of the campaign and getting MSD on board is interesting because its also the IPL season? Is this a coincidence or did you plan it this way to make the most of the craze around MSD?



It's a very interesting story for us internally. We always wanted to do this campaign but were divided on the timing. We debated whether to go for the summer season sale (typically April-May when bookings surge due to school vacations). After internal discussions, the entire campaign, from concept to execution, was completed in just one week. It was an all-in-house effort, with some help from external directors. Everything, from script to implementation, was done internally. Coming to whether it is a coincidence or a planned one on timing, yes its planned because of MSD and IPL. There is a lot of buzz about MSD right now whether its going to be his last IPL season or not, so there is going to be crazy noise in and around IPL across social media and it's very evident from the huge response we’ve gotten from the teaser.




What is the nature of your association with MSD? Is this a one time endorsement or there is a longer partnership in the picture? Also, what is the media plan around the campaign?

This is a long term association. Anything with MSD has to be long. As a brand we are here to stay and we are here with MSD with a longstanding partnership. We have a strategy in place around how we’d work with him. There are multiple campaigns planned with MSD for Cleartrip. With respect to mediums, considering we are a digital player, the over indexation will happen a lot more over digital medium starting with Insta, X, Meta and all the other platforms on digital medium. Of course there will be some amount of ATL as well but predominantly this will be a digital led campaign and considering the huge monthly active user base that social media has been garnering. This year we are hearing IPL is hitting it off the charts with respect to digital viewerships. We believe digital is the right platform and will give us enough new customers. 





Every new campaign comes with KPIs and expectations on ROI. What do you want this campaign to do for the brand?

What we have realised is that the stickiness of customers on Cleartrip is always very high. The moment customers come and book a ticket with us along with one of the flexibility constructs that we have, people know that we are here to back them through their entire booking journey. So if anything goes wrong with the booking we are here to support them and ensure they get the complete refund when they book with products like Cleartrip Flex Choice Max. So these are the products that have helped us to retain customers and hence this campaign has been designed to bring in a lot more new users which is a lot more top of the funnel for us. So people who would have never used Cleartrip in the past or have used it a long time back and not come back for whatever reason, we want them to come back to our platform. So this is about reactivation and the second metric being onboarding new users. 






What else will we be seeing from Cleartrip through the year? Walk us through our marketing strategies for 2024-2025.



In the last few quarters we have been launching several new product initiatives on both air ticket booking and also hotels booking. Our hotels catalogue is completely revamped and our ratings have become one of the best in the industry. It is completely Gen AI generated, it is not a typical manual rating and reviews system. That makes it a lot easier for consumers to understand which hotels are good for them. Even with buses the flexibility contracts we have launched is one of a kind. So all of these put together, the three critical lines of business are air, hotels and buses and there is a lot of work that has gone into these aspects. Secondly, we’ve always worked on affordability where we bring in the low cost EMI construct. These are the product led initiatives we are focussed on. 
When it comes to marketing we have always stood out with our campaigns. Our campaigns have been a lot more clutter breaking. We see ourselves as a challenger brand, and to effectively cut through the crowded marketplace, our messaging needs to be impactful. 



Every three months we will come up with something new that the market has not seen, it could be digital led campaigns, it could be social campaigns, it could be word of mouth campaigns but it will be one of a kind. That's what we’ve been focussed on and the next twelve months will not be very different from that. 




Moving on to overall market performance, can we say travel has touched pre-pandemic levels?

Travel has been one of the few categories that has been able to grow year on year in the last two years. Post covid everyone was talking about revenge travel. That definitely came up, no debate on that. We were all internally wondering whether it would be just an initial spike. However it wasn’t. The numbers have been stacking very very well. Last winter was very good. The current summer season bookings look very good and this is in spite of average prices shooting up like never before.


So the prices have gone up, the demand has gone up, the supply hasn’t gone up exactly in the same pace. So if you look at the number of aircrafts that are available both for domestic and international use, it is not the same as what it used to be pre pandemic. In Spite of that the number of flying passengers have hit the pre-pandemic numbers. It just shows that the aircrafts are running full and the prices are high but people are still travelling.



Initially it was just the GenZ who were going by the YOLO (you only live once) rule, currently we are seeing not just the GenZ but millennial and everybody out there saying YOLO, lets all travel. So overall the industry is looking very good. If supply comes up in the next few months, the numbers will look even better than what it is today. 



The government, especially our Prime Minister, has been very bullish about domestic travel. What are your observations on domestic travel?

We are very clearly seeing good upside on domestic traffic as well. And two trends are very clearly coming out. The first one being spiritual travel, which is to Ayodhya, to Puri and all these treasures across the country. The searches on Google and on the platform have all gone up. Again it's not just the senior citizens but across age groups and this trend is not going to die down anytime soon. 


The second part is about unexplored places and Instagrammable places

The number of social media creators who make content on travel is crazy. They don’t want to talk about your Agras and Jaipurs, they want to talk about hidden treasures and that has been going up tremendously. Creators are busy saying things like “Hey you know I found this hidden treasure, 80 kms from Mumbai”. 

That is what people want to talk about. Influencers finding unexplored territories is a big trend people are following. Coming back to the domestic travel bit, people have realised that there are a lot of places in the country unexplored and not just the top two or three locations that have always been in focus.

Cleartrip strategically announces Dhoni as brand ambassador during IPL season

Almost 16 years after launch, online travel agent Cleartrip has undergone a brand revamp. The company, which was acquired by Flipkart in 2021, has revealed a new brand identity and logo as a first step toward the brand's next growth phase.

At its core, the company said that the new brand identity represents the company’s refreshed customer-focused approach to enable an easy hassle-free travel journey and encourage customers to travel more. 

The new logo, while retaining its iconic element, stays true to the brand’s mission of making every travel dream a reality. Showcasing optimism, the tick breaks out of the box opening out unbound opportunities to travel.

Taking the brand narrative forward

In a conversation with Storyboard18, Kunal Dubey, chief marketing officer, Cleartrip, says that after the acquisition by Flipkart in 2021, the company has restarted its journey with huge ambitions attached with it.

“The pandemic has changed the whole perspective on travel itself. Also, when we look at the category, OTA has largely been the same and this was the motivation for us to relook at building the brand Cleartrip. We had to take a call on whether we would like to be just another booking agent or serve the customers through innovative products, service and hence gain trust,” he shares.

Dubey says that the new brand identity is only the first step towards steering Cleartrip to take a huge chunk of India’s travel market.

“Cleartrip is not a new brand and it has a huge brand equity. Almost one third of our base is still organic and every small intervention that we make on the brand side has given us extremely positive results. All our research shows that Cleartrip commands brand loyalty in the market, he says.  

The idea of the revamp is to build an image that aligns with the company's future goal of making every travel dream a reality. Hence, "we chose to retain the iconic tick mark, however subtly breaking the box that signifies our core thought of making travel inbound,” Dubey adds.

<img src="https://images.storyboard18.com/storyboard18/Cleartrip-New-Logo.png" alt="" width="586" height="160" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1970" />

Addressing consumer travel anxieties

In a post-pandemic world, Dubey says that people do not take travel for granted anymore. Hence, Cleartrip’s intention is to address consumer’s uncertainties, fears and anxieties. 

The company is currently working on a festive campaign which will be unveiled in the coming weeks.

“We are a digital first brand and most of our marketing efforts are digital heavy including martech solutions such as personalization, programmatic and even serving on TV through connected TV,” Dubey says.

In terms of travel trends, Dubey says that in today’s post-covid scenario, the booking window has shrunk across both air and hotel categories. In hotels, the company is witnessing over 50 percent bookings coming in a week before check-in.

“One interesting trend to note includes the length of stay has become longer along with an increase in the count of people in a booking. With respect to the air business, in addition to the quantum of domestic pent-up demand growing, we are seeing a continuous upward trajectory of growth in our international business as well. However, there are certain routes like India and USA where capacity is less than the demand,” he notes.

“The new brand identity had to reflect and deliver to the demands of the consumer and be more energetic, young and dynamic meant for all kinds of travel and travellers," shared design agency Clay that worked on Cleartrip’s new identity. 

"The refreshed design expresses the resurgence that the market will hopefully take to, with a confluence of a reworked identity in a bright orange and white, a more dynamic and free tick mark that breaks all boundaries,” the company added. 

Launched in July 2006, Cleartrip India Pvt was acquired by Flipkart in April 2021 and subsequently, Adani Enterprises acquired a significant minority stake in Cleartrip in October 2021.

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