TUI Travel share price: Tour operator aims to double Indian growth in 4-5 years

iNVEZZ.com, Tuesday, January 21: TUI Travel (LON:TT.), the world’s biggest tour operator, is betting strongly on India with a goal of doubling its pace of growth in the next four-to-five years by expanding its retail presence throughout the Asian country. TUI Travel India, which opened its sixth retail store in the country at the weekend, said that outbound travel is rapidly growing in India and it wants to boost its growth in the country.

“We plan to expand our retail presence in phases that will fuel our business growth. We are growing at 15 percent year-on-year and expect to double our expansion rate in 4-5 years,” TUI India Chief Operating Officer Vishal Sinha told Business Standard, an Indian English-language business daily.
The leisure and travel group’s new retail store is located in Mumbai, its first outside the Delhi/NCR region which is the most populous metropolitan region in India. Mumbai is the country’s second most populous city. Further store openings are planned in Ahmedabad, Chennai and Hyderabad during the next six months. The company intends to first establish its presence in the major cities and then move to smaller ones, with the shops aimed at both selling products and boosting brand awareness. The introduction of new international and domestic travel destinations is also planned.

Jeannette Linfoot, director of tour operations – new markets at TUI Travel, sees huge growth potential in the Indian market. “Our focus will remain on exclusive and differentiated products or experiences and our intention is to create a diverse product portfolio by bringing some unique and specialist brands from TUI’s global portfolio. Our focus is to grow brand presence and increase market share,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.

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India has emerged as one of the world’s fastest-growing outbound tourism market and in absolute numbers it is second only to China. The number of Indians travelling overseas is set to rise from around 15 million last year to 50 million by 2020, according to Tourism Australia.

**TUI Travel share price**
TUI Travel’s share price, which has risen some 46 percent over the past year, gained 0.3 percent to 429.9p as of 11:11 UTC, compared to a 0.2 percent gain in the blue chip FTSE 100 index.
According to a survey of analysts published by Analyst Ratings Network, TUI Travel has a consensus rating of ‘hold’ and an average target price of 387.65p. Six research analysts have a ‘buy’ rating on the stock, 13 have it as a ‘hold’, and one calls it a ‘sell’.

**As of 11:00 UTC buy TUI Travel shares at 429.90p.**
**As of 11:00 UTC sell TUI Travel shares at 429.60p.**
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