India
Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) will set up duty-free
outlets at special economic zones (SEZs) and seaports.
The public sector company has already obtained permission
to set up such outlets at the Mundra SEZ and the ports
at Kolkata as well as Haldia.
ITDC would also bid for duty-free outlets at smaller
airports, officials of the company said. Once the undisputed
leader in India’s duty-free business, it is looking
at Pune, Nagpur, Mangalore, Calicut and Gaya airports.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is expected to
invite tenders for operating duty-free outlets at these
airports later this year. ‘Duty-free space is
expected to be made available at some other smaller
airports next year and we will bid for them too’,
the officials said.
ITDC has teamed up with Aldeasa of Spain to launch
duty-free outlets at the Mumbai airports. The 50:50
joint venture has signed an agreement with Mumbai International
Airport Ltd (MIAL) and the outlets are to be launched
soon in a much bigger way than the ITDC outlets which
are being run at the airport now.
‘Our aim is to re-capture our prime position
in the duty-free business’, the officials said.
ITDC suffered a setback in this segment as private players
have bagged the duty-free space available at the Delhi,
Chennai and Kolkata airports. ‘We may even go
in for further international tie-ups for the duty-free
business and spread our wings across the country’,
they added.
The enthusiasm of this public sector undertaking to
get back in to the duty-free segment is partially due
to the record profits the hotels division of the company.
The buoyancy in the tourism and hospitality segments
should be leveraged to rebuild the PSU business, officials
feel.
The morale of ITDC employees was down during the recent
years on account divestment of a number of hotels including
four in Delhi and apprehensions about loss of jobs.
The situation has been reversed now and the company
is on an expansion mode on the strength of growing revenue
and profits.
During the first quarter of the current financial year,
for example, ITDC has posted a 139.65% increase in profit
before tax to Rs 97.3 million compared to Rs 40.6 million
during the corresponding period last year. The hotels
division of the company contributed Rs 74.2 million
to the total profit, with Rs 60.9 million coming from
its flagship hotel in Delhi, Hotel Ashok alone.
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