Intrepid Travel Highlights Importance of India For 2030 Strategy— India Report

28.03.2024 - 09:21 / skift.com / Darrell Wade / Air India / Bulbul Dhawan / Airlines

Intrepid Travel talked about the importance of India as a destination to the group’s 2030 strategy. The tour operator currently operates 800 trips in the country as part of its offerings that allow travelers to experience the local culture of the destination. 

Having operated in India for almost two decades, Intrepid aims to bring in 30,000 travelers to India by 2030, a bold ambition: It represents almost 300% growth. In 2023, Intrepid welcomed 7,500 travelers in India. 

Last year, Intrepid CEO James Thornton had said the company was looking to bring more than 12,000 travelers to India in 2024. This would mark the company’s return to pre-pandemic numbers in the country.

Speaking at the Skift India Summit earlier, Intrepid Travel founder and chairman Darrell Wade had said that Intrepid could see themselves playing a part in India’s domestic travel at some point in the future. “While we may not be looking at it for the next two or three years but by 2030, we would,” he said.

India’s domestic air passenger traffic had been 152 million in 2023.

Talking about India, Wade said that while people may tend to gravitate to certain circuits, like the Golden Triangle, wherever possible, Intrepid looks to break that model and get people into a more diversified range of product. “Very often we find people enjoy it more when they’re doing something that they don’t expect to do and didn’t really even know they were signing up for,” he said.

Intrepid also plans to expand into areas, including accommodation and grow its presence in countries, like India.

Intrepid Travel currently operates around 800 trips across the country. 

2030 Strategy: The company’s 2030 strategy is aimed at doubling the number of its global customers to 600,000 from 320,000 last year. Additionally, it is seeking to more than double its revenue to $1.3 billion by 2030. 

The summer schedule for Indian airlines has been released and it will come into effect from March 31. According to the schedule, 24,275 domestic flights will be operated every week. This marks a 6% increase as compared to the previous year. In the ongoing winter schedule, carriers are operating 23,732 weekly flights.

Budget carriers IndiGo and Akasa Air and full-service sister airlines Air India and Vistara are set to increase the number of flights, while troubled low-cost carrier SpiceJet will be cutting down its weekly departures by over 22%. 

The summer schedule includes 125 airports. These also include seven new airports that have been proposed by scheduled carriers, said Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Internationally, Indian carriers will be flying to 37 countries from 27 domestic airports. Scheduled Indian carriers will operate nearly 2,000 weekly