State-owned Balmer Lawrie and Company Ltd plans to develop dedicated packages for domestic and outbound tourism to give a boost to its tourism business.
The company is primarily in the ticketing business and tourism currently accounts for a small percentage of its total revenues from the segment, said Mr Viren Sinha, director, Balmer Lawrie.
“More than 90 per cent of the total revenues in the segment come from our ticketing business, while tourism accounts for just about 9 per cent. We want tourism to account for about 15 per cent of the total revenues from the segment over the next five years,” he said.
Tours and travel business make for about 40 per cent of the company's total turnover at present. The business grew by 32 per cent to Rs 870 crore in 2010-11.
Balmer Lawrie has developed 42 packages on both domestic and outbound destinations. The company primarily caters to the Middle East, South East Asia and parts of Europe. “We want to develop more packages to attract customers,” Mr Sinha said. The company expects its online travel portal to be operational by March 2012.
Balmer Lawrie on Wednesday inaugurated its corporate social responsibility project to sponsor the training of 100 girl students in the travel and tourism sector across the country every year.