“These measures improve attractiveness, but we are far far away from some markets when it comes to overseas tourist numbers. Take a closer look at Thailand, which attracts 35 million people every year,” said Iyer.
“We need to do a lot more to get to these levels. I hope we cross the 10 million mark this year, which I am not too sure of. We create the required infrastructure and ecosystem around travel, but if we don’t market it enough, we may not see the required growth that we are hoping for,” he added. The budget increased the overall allocation towards tourism to Rs 2,438.4 crore from the revised 2025-2026 outlay of Rs 1,310 crore, but slashed the marketing and promotion outlay for domestic and overseas tourism to Rs 3.5 crore from Rs 103.4 crore.
Iyer said while the company is seeing a 12-13% higher growth on forward bookings, booking cycles could also move closer to April and May considering the new TCS rules kick in from the new fiscal year.
“As per the announcements, TCS on overseas tours has been reduced to 2% from 5%. The cuts give an extra cushion to families for group bookings as it puts more money in their hands. The effective date for this implementation is April 1, and some travelers might wait for these new rules to kick in,” he added.
Thomas Cook (India) posted revenue from operations of Rs 2146 crore for quarter three of this fiscal, up from Rs 2061 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. The company posted a net profit of Rs 45 crore in quarter three, down from Rs 47 crore in quarter three of financial year 2025. Iyer said the company posted a 20% growth in profit before tax to Rs 90 crore excluding a one time provision of Rs 30 crore due to the implementation of a new labour code.
“The new directive expects us to recognize the impact of the new wage code. We had to take the provisions on retirals on account of gratuity which we have recognized in the quarter on a group level for all India based companies,” said Iyer.“If I exclude that one time non-recurring charge and we focus on the operating performance, our operating performance has grown by 20%. This is coming in the backdrop of a 5% improvement in our revenues which is income from operations and better control over costs. Our cost of services and employee costs have remained in check. It was a not so great October, but December saw a good comeback from a forex and holiday perspective,” he added.
He said in the corporate travel income grew by 21% compared to the previous quarter. In the travel services space, the company reported a 3% growth in revenue from operations. In retail services, its retail turnover increased by 25% year on year for quarter three of financial year 2026.
“In the holidays segment, the B2C domestic segment didn’t fire. We didn’t see the growth we anticipated,” he said.
“Outbound was flat. Most of the bookings were for short haul so the average package price was lower compared to the same quarter last year,” he added.