GET Lionel Diversifies Into Sports Tourism

Bhisham Mansukhani - Mumbai

GET Lionel has signed a joint marketing initiative with SportzVillage to tap and grow the burgeoning sports tourism market on the domestic, inbound and outbound front. With an estimated potential of 100,000 Indians travelling abroad to specifically watch sports events over the next three years, the occasion to foray into this segment was seen as potentail which according to GET Lionel India’s CEO & Director - Asia GET, Gaurav Sundaram avers, is long overdue. GET Lionel, an KK Birla Group company specialises in corporate travel management, providing end-to-end travel solutions while SportzVillage is a Bangalore-based organisation which focuses on sports education for children and corporate sporting events.

This is GET Lionel’s first foray into a particular tourism niche and it sees the tie-up with SportzVillage as part of a larger, concerted campaign to make niche tourism, particularly in the corporate and school student arena, its own.

“The corporate community cites sports as an ideal HR strategy for interaction and learning. Further, a staggering number of corporates prefer to and do travel to Far East and Europe to soak in the live action of Formula 1 Grand Prix racing, Club Football and cricket. GET identified the need to structure the servicing of this developing niche. SportzVillage with its experience in conceptualising and organising sports events for corporate and kids will help us grown the market on the domestic and inbound front. We have identified a common interest for sports as a form of tourism. There are a lot of inquiries from the international market as well to come watch sports events and interestingly, even play against some of the local clubs. There is more than just the passive, viewership dimension to this tourism niche,” Sundaram said.

Interestingly, GET will also tap the student market making its first diversification outside the corporate travel space. “A concurrent aspect of this foray is tapping the student market. We will not target children directly but will work closely with schools. That said, we expect the corporate segment to account for 60 per cent of our sports tourism business,” Sundaram said. Sundaram stressed that the sports tourism niche in India was poised for a new level of maturity as unlike in the past, sports events have been elevated to the focus of a travelling experience instead of being incidental to it while general tourism activity is relatively less popular.