New Delhi: British travel giant Thomas Cook going belly up has left Thomas Cook India worried. In a bid to ward off the impact of the same, the Thomas Cook India, on Monday tweeted that it is in no way connected to Thomas Cook, UK, the £1.85 billion-company that declared bankruptcy.
In one of the measures to firefight the impact, Thomas Cook (India) has decided to go in for a name change.
Thomas Cook (India) also put out a statement on Twitter that read, “Thomas Cook PLC (UK) has no relationship with Thomas Cook India as we were acquired by Canada based Fairfax Financial Holdings (Fairfax) in 2012. We are completely independent of Thomas Cook UK & hence the news of their situation does not impact us. Please be reassured that all your bookings and transactions will continue to be smooth and we look forward to having you enjoy your trip with Thomas Cook India.”
Meanwhile, Madhavan Menon, chairman and managing director of Thomas Cook India is quoted in Business Today saying that the company has the right to use the brand name ‘Thomas Cook ‘ till 2024, it could review the same in coming days.
An industry insider said it is a big task for Thomas Cook India to convince common people that it is not related to the ailing UK travel firm. Menon, however, expects other tour operators in the UK to fill the gap and said that the situation would settle down in the “medium term”.
Speaking to IANS, Menon said: “In the UK, I expect that other tour operators will take up the capacity. It will not be a problem, there are many tour operators.” “In the immediate terms there may be rise in prices… or the yields for the tour operators in UK, but in the medium term I expect things to settle down,” he added.
India’s inbound travel could be severely hit and hence adversely impact foreign exchange (forex) earnings too in the months to come.
Travel industry sources said that Thomas Cook sends a lot of high-spending tourists to India from countries such as UK, Germany and France. Countries like UK, Germany and Italy where Thomas Cook has a good presence are the key source markets for India.
“The shutdown of Thomas Cook would certainly impact inbound travel. The whole travel industry is struggling,” said Harjinder Singh, Director of Delhi-based 24*7 Travels.com.
As per the latest official data, UK’s share in India’s total foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) was 8.01 per cent in August 2019.
Among the top European source markets, German tourists accounted for 1.85 per cent of the total FTAs in the previous month. The total FTAs in August 2019 were 7,98,587 as compared to 7,86,003 in August 2018, registering a growth of 1.6 per cent.
