Issues & Trends – Mar 2010
C&K puts faith in local management as it builds Australian wholesaling powerhouse
ALMOST overnight Cox and Kings has become an Australian outbound tour wholesaling powerhouse, taking over the established operations of Tempo Holidays and Bentours and moving to establish its own Cox and Kings brand in this market.
Imminent next development is the launch of online travel agency Eezego, a “travel supermarket” website already operating in India where it is promot-ed as the county’s “biggest online travel bazaar” (travelBulletin, December/January). The initiatives reflect the high priority that Cox and Kings is placing on the Australian market as it looks to expand internationally on the back of profits generated by recent expon-ential growth of outbound travel in its home market of India.
Cox and Kings’ lofty ambition is to become Australia’s “pre-eminent provider of travel and related services across targeted market segments”. But the iconic Anglo Indian company, which revels in its status as the world’s longest-established travel brand, is at pains to stress that it will be relying on existing local management to carry on business as usual in its newly acquired Australian operations.
That message came through loud and clear when Cox and Kings chairman Anthony Good, accompanied by two of his directors Patrick Tully and Pesi Patel, visited Australia earlier this month for the official launch of Cox and Kings Australia. Steve Reynolds, who was chief executive of Tempo Holidays when it was taken over by the Indian company, has moved seamlessly into the role of chief executive of Cox and Kings Australia.
He stressed that the Tempo and Bentours brands will continue within the new corporate entity; they will continue to be strongly promoted and marketed as they have in the past and they will continue to interface with agents as they have in the past.
Reynolds was speaking alongside Good, Tully and Patel at a press conference in Melbourne ahead of a gala Indian-themed function at the city’s Regent Theatre Ballroom to launch Cox and Kings Australia.
Asked about the potential for achieving efficiencies within Bentours and Tempo by rationalising functions such as reservations, he welcomed the question as an opportunity to clarify that both brands will continue to operate independently. There will be no combined Cox and Kings, Tempo and Bentours reser-vations unit, Reynolds asserted.
“The sales and reservations consultants for each brand are experts in their brand’s products and that’s
where their focus will remain,” he said. “We believe, at a product and at a brand level, in maintaining that level of service and expertise.”
He added that the ability to provide expert guidance to agents was an intrinsic part of the wholesaler’s value proposition.
Noting that Bentours’ expertise is focused on the “highly specialised” Scandinavian holidays area, Reynolds suggested there were opportunities for that expertise to be deployed through-out the entire Cox and Kings group.
He said the only product rationalisation that will occur as a result of Bentours joining Cox and Kings’ stable of Australian brands will be the absorption of its relatively small Latin America program into Tempo’s.
Meanwhile the Australian version of Eezego will be accessible by the public but is being positioned primarily to service the agency market, Reynolds said.