City Discovery Targets Indian Tourists

Online, July 30, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The rise of the Indian middle class brings a new exciting challenge for City Discovery, a leading e-travel company specializing in sightseeing tours. More of India's new middle classes are traveling outside their country, notably to popular destinations like Singapore, Dubai, USA and Europe.

The price-savvy Indian market has also adapted to today's new way of traveling. Where the previous mode of travel is to book all-in-one packaged tours, they now prefer to compare prices and book flight tickets, hotel accommodations and sightseeing tours separately.

City Discovery expects the trend to continue and is concentrating on expanding the range and coverage of their day trips and half-day sightseeing products. While online bookings are still not the norm in India, City Discovery foresees growth especially as the country's middle class continues to gain more economic spending power. "The growth of e-commerce, increasing access to credit cards and the emergence of a large middle class eager to travel are essential factors in the development strategy of City Discovery and World Airport Transfer," says Emmanuel Issaurat CEO and co-founder of the company.

The company also strongly believes that in the future, majority of Indian tourists will book online. Tourists will choose to travel with smaller groups and book one or two short originals tours instead of buying a pre-set package.

City Discovery's sister website, World Airport Transfer adapts a similar approach. Covering over 400 airports all over the world, it allows consumers to pre-book airport ground transportation without being tied to a particular tour or flight purchase.

In India, City Discovery is looking to penetrate the market through online bookings and by working closely with its (number?) Travel Agent and Tour Operator partners in the country. Its Affiliation and White Label program lets any agency, big or small, propose more than 5,000 sightseeing tours and activities all over the world. The program also scales and can be customized to a specific partners' market or destination coverage.

The main goal and strategy is to ultimately maximize the booking options for travelers, but still guarantee quality and offer more diversity than traditional offline booking methods. By booking individual sightseeing short tours, customers have the freedom to decide where they want to go and not just follow a pre-set tour program.

In Paris, for example, they can choose a two-night stay at a French castle, to explore Paris' secret places in traditional French car, take a cruise on the Seine, or a romantic dinner at the Eiffel Tower followed by the Moulin Rouge show.

"Our customers value unique experiences. They like to discover something new and original. Our main challenge is to provide them with as many options as possible," says Wladimir Guez, Vice President and Co-founder of City-Discovery.