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The importance of going wild

Beacon Holidays, under the stewardship of Heena Munshaw, has virtually derived a culture of making the most contrasting decisions for a tour operator contemporary. Munshaw's dedication to international wildlife tourism ensured that a discerning and teeming lot of Indian outbounders took to it and continue to, find Bhisham Mansukhani and Vyas Sivanand

Why sell something as far flung, unpredictable and inhibiting as Africa at a time when the Indian traveller has reservations about getting as far as Singapore and few interests other than shopping. Beacon Holidays confronted this question in 1993 and chose instead to make the ‘wild choice'. To emphasise just how unusual and risky this choice was for this boutique outbound tour operator, it's important to examine the market back then. RBI's foreign exchange regime was still as tight as ever and international flight capacity to most destinations were modest. Most Indians travelling abroad had grave reservations pertaining to security and food and their idea of a vacation was to hop around chic urban locales, see precisely what the brochure promised them and bring the best bargains home. The idea of selling an exotic jungle safari experience in the 'dark' continent that didn't offer any shopping bonanza or parallels to the Big Ben or the Eiffel Towers, and wasn't always making the most pleasant headlines, at a price which was deemed premium to the benchmark, was considered as misplaced as the proposition of selling drinking water.

Columbus, Outbound

Heena Munshaw MD, Beacon Holidays

Beacon Holidays MD Heena Munshaw wasn't ignorant to all of these risks. She says she merely looked the other way, that is, towards the sweeping East African landscape, believed an Indian family could have an unparalleled holiday experience and do an encore. Having done just that with her family, Munshaw set about the unprecedented exercise of researching all the destinations, lodging and ground handling services that she intended to sell, and soon became seller to some of India's biggest tour operators. Beacon Holidays' eminence in terms of the knowledge of the supplier network that it quickly developed in Kenya, South Africa and other destinations in the region was a strength that saw it become synonymous with idea of vacationing in the region.

"Africa is not a destination one can decide to travel to on a limb. There are concerns, some of them real. Africa makes people anxious which is why selling this destination is a challenge in so much as reassuring clients. On the other hand, the challenge also lies in sparking their imagination about the African landscape, the wildlife that they see in its element and some of the world's most breathtaking natural splendour. All my counter staff have been to Africa and so have all the tour operators I have sold packages to."

Unlike the luxury of having close to 30 destinations including South Africa and Kenya either having an office or representation in India, which all tour operators enjoy today, Beacon had no such help back then. In that respect, Beacon Holidays pretty much played the role of a modern day Columbus, introducing the Indian tourist to Africa. And in spite of the daunting challenge, Beacon Holidays found opportunity in the fact that Kenya's low season coincided with the India's outbound high season, thereby making the prospect of a holiday more certain because of ready availability of rooms and lower prices.

Focus and gain

A decade on, and all that effort is now coming home to roost for Beacon Holidays. The boutique tour operator has come to be associated with a unique and well informed product that is far from typical and at a time when the high-end Indian outbound traveller is tiring from the cliché of South East Asia and Continental Europe, Beacon Holidays appears well positioned. Already, its business quantum for South Africa jumped 300 per cent for the first quarter of 2006 and its packages for the south Pacific twin destinations of Australia and New Zealand have been very popular with the FIT segment. However, the decision to sell the experience of African wildlife has now evolved into a larger culture of opening new vistas for the Indian traveller and in this direction, Beacon has been focussing on the French Polynesia and Fiji. "The Indian outbound market is maturing and as it does, it wants something diverse to hold its interest. Beacon Holidays identified this niche at a time when this segment was in its infancy so it makes sense now to build on it by continually identifying new destinations to grow this segment," Munshaw says. So, while South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana collectively still account for more than 60 per cent of its business, quite literally India's beacon on Africa has made it a mission to now bring more interesting destinations to light. Next stop, Brazil?