Bharatonline.com coming up with franchise offices

Bharatonline.com, an online portal of Savion Travel Services Pvt Ltd, plans to open franchise offices. Being a pioneer in comprehensive online travel, Delhi based Bharatonline holds an experience of six years in offering customised holiday packages. The company`s product offerings include hotel bookings, flight bookings, creating customised and regular holiday packages for Indians, NRI`s and foreigners. Initially, the company plans to open offices in Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai. Bharatonline.com sees a very healthy traffic from these cities and based on that Dhirendra Tiwari COO of Bharatonline is optimistic about opening franchised offices in Dehradun, Chandigarh, Mysore, Mangalore, Meerut, Pune, Thane, Jaipur and Cochin. The franchisees would require a capital investment of Rs two lakh with a minimum area of 200 sq.ft. The company believes that anyone who is ready to take the franchise of Bharatonline.com has to be passionate about travel and thus, have a basic understanding of the Indian terrain. As of now, the company hasn`t signed any formal contracts in the above mentioned cities. Rather, the company is hopeful about its action plan of further expanding its offline penetration in India. Commenting on the reason behind venturing into offline business Tiwari in an email interaction with Amanpreet Kaur of FIHL enlightens, “Physical presence is an important factor in Indian psychography. A local advisor till date is tipped to be the most travel savvy having hands on experience and understanding of the local terrain.” Adding further he says, “Simple tips like where to find, let`s say finding the right beach resort in South Goa, or probably the accessories you might not want to carry while holidaying at the backwaters of Kerala is what makes the advisor a hit. By doing an extensive study of regions, we propose to function exactly that way. Thus, our approach of localisation directly aims to add, what we call as the human touch.” Nowadays, the competition is increasing with the presence of many travel companies such as Travel Port, Via, Raj Travels, Makemytrip.com, Primetravels.com, Thomas Cook (India), Easy Trip Planners Pvt Ltd. On this Tiwari makes clear, “We have kept our strategies comparatively simple. We have designed a very unique low cost model of operation. This helps us to cut down on costs at a drastic level. This directly impacts our orientation with our clients giving them, way better deals than what is commonly found online.” At present, Bharatonline.com operates its two offices in Delhi and Bangalore.