Advantage Asia will be the country’s first leisure travel consortium and follows a deal with India’s Pricol Travel, which is part of the Worldwide Independent Travel Network (WIN), a majority owned subsidiary of Advantage. Pricol will run Advantage Asia under a licensee arrangement.

Julia Lo Bue-Said, managing director at Advantage Travel Partnership, told TTG the acquisition of WIN in March meant opportunities to extend the WIN concept into the leisure sector under the Advantage name.

Pricol Travel is part of the manufacturing giant of the same name. It has operated a travel business for 17 years, primarily geared towards business travel.

The company has a branch in Delhi but its other 10 locations are in key southern cities including Mumbai, Cochin and Chennai. It will replicate the Advantage model in India and already has five leisure agents signed up, following its launch at the South Asia Travel Trade Expo in Delhi in February.

Lo Bue-Said said it was hoped Advantage Asia would attract “about 100 agents in the next three to four years” after 600 enquiries from prospective members at the trade fair. “Pricol is a very big business and runs a business travel network already. They looked at what we were doing on the retail side and saw an opportunity to develop a leisure consortium in India,” she added.

She said India had around 10,000 travel agencies, mainly focusing on domestic travel, and that Advantage Asia could offer them the consortium’s web and back office technology plus new product to attract the growing market for international travel.

Lo Bue-Said said India “was a start” but declined to identify any other countries that would be targeted next. However, she added: “We think that what we do in the UK can be replicated in different marketplaces.

“India is the test bed to see if this can work. We believe the [Advantage] brand can carry across continents. This gives us the opportunity to get a lot closer to the international sector.”

It will also benefit Advantage’s UK members, she believes. “Pricol has access to hundreds, probably thousands of software developments – we can tap into that,” she said. “Product is another one; we will have more of an understanding about what is available in that market.”