ITDC looking for new business opportunities, strengthening regional offices: MD

New Delhi: State-owned India Tourism Development Corporation Limited (ITDC) is looking for new business opportunities besides strengthening its existing verticals as it seeks to carry forward the momentum of record financial performance of last fiscal, according to its Managing Director MR Synrem.

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The company which offers hospitality, travel and tour, events and engineering related consultancy services, plans to strengthen its offices in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata with an aim to develop these as regional hubs for its businesses.

"We want not to only expand but whatever we have now to take it a notch further ahead, take it much higher and look at new business opportunities also for ITDC as a company," Synrem told PTI on the sidelines of the launch of the company's new mascot 'Adyant' and a fresh tagline.

On the new business opportunities, he said, "We have won a bid for a new duty-free shop at the Vizag (Visakhapatnam) airport. We participated in the competitive bid and we have won it. It is a new thing which is coming up very soon."

Sharing plans to strengthen India Tourism Development Corporation's (ITDC) regional offices to expand its business, he said at present the staffing at the company's offices in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata is not reasonably strong with only one officer stationed in these regional offices.

"As a team we are studying how to develop the regional offices as also a regional hub so that we can take our business there as well. There's not a business that cannot be taken in these places of the well," Synrem said.

Citing the example of Ashok Events, which handles events of the Prime Minister, he said, "We are also looking at strengthening the event division so that we can not only take government events in Delhi but also expand our footprint beyond Delhi as well.

"There are so many government (departments) and state governments, who are willing to work with PSUs. Ashok Events can also go beyond Delhi to other states."

That's why there is a need to strengthen the regional offices and see how best and what kind of business can do, he said, adding, "Ashok Events will be part of that and take in more business".

Similarly, he said, ITDC will soon come up with a portal for online booking of tickets and is working with RailTel to move from offline to digital ticketing.

"Hopefully, before the code of conduct (for general elections) comes through, we should be able to get it up and running," he said, adding it will be initially for flight tickets and later on add other services.

Slowly, it will also start integrating booking for transport services such as cabs from airports to hotels in different cities, he added.

"We want to strengthen whatever we have, make them function to the optimum capacity that they can...and basically rejuvenate the whole system that we have," Synrem said, adding ITDC has the manpower and capacity to do so.

ITDC had posted a record revenue of Rs 458.08 crore in 2022-23 with a net profit of Rs 60.33 crore.

He said the company is looking to carry forward the growth momentum.

Speaking at the event, ITDC Chairman Sambit Patra said, "The financial year 2022-23 was one of the best financial years of ITDC..."

When asked about the hotels business amid speculation of disinvestment, Synrem said, "Suffice it to say that whatever we have now we are putting our best foot forward to ensure that the guests who come for stay, for any function, for marriages, get the best possible service from our people working in the hotels we have here in the capital city."

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