(L/R) Liberatha Kallat, MD, DreamFolks, Yogeshwar Dutt and Mark Koch, CEO, Dragon Pass
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DreamFolks, one of India’s leading providers of travel benefits and services, has partnered with DragonPass with the objective of enhancing customer experience of DreamFolks’ Indian clients on global travel as well as to provide best in class Indian hospitality to inbound DragonPass’ global clients. This tie-up will provide facilities in a total of 1800 plus touch points globally in over 120 countries for world class lounges access program and specialized restaurants access at airport terminals. Additionally, other bouquet of airport services such as worldwide duty free shopping experience, airport meet & greet services and access to globally recognized wellness programs will also be made available. In summary, the alliance offers an unprecedented opportunity of a comprehensive go-to market strategy wherein encapsulating every single touch point in the airport ecosystem through a rich bouquet of global offerings.
Currently, DreamFolks provides support to over one million footfalls in airport lounges across 41 locations in India. Complementing this is DragonPass vast access to a global suite of products including over 950 airport lounges, 1,000 + airport restaurant access, limousine and concierge services and currently servicing more than 12 million customers worldwide. Prominent clients worldwide for the alliance include the likes of American Express, VISA, MasterCard, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Diners Club International, RuPay and several other non-banking clients from the airlines and travel industry.
As DreamFolks continues to rapidly expand its global coverage, there is palpable excitement in the travel industry. DreamFolks’Managing Director Ms. Liberatha Kallatstates, “Our vision is to make every traveler’s experience serviced by us easier and more enjoyable with a wider suit of global products. Addition of DragonPass’ significant global reach to our widespread Indian operations allows us to continue to enhance our high standard customer offering to give clients even more global choice and comfort. This drives significant tangible value to both our corporate and individual clients.”
She further said: “The lounge management service industry in India is believed to be worth $30 million in value currently, which is expected to grow to over $100 million by 2020. Globally the market size is around $400 million and the expected growth annually is around 15 %.”
With over 6.7 billion passengers travelling per calendar year, the global market in aviation is seeing a substantial upsurge in terms of facilities that are being provided at airports. This burgeoning need to meet increasing customer travel needs, whilst still driving the right commercial expectations is becoming the key demand for the travel industry. The DreamFolks-DragonPass’s platform approach addresses this demand as well as bridges the gap between offline merchants and online travelers through utilizing state-of-the-art technology and customer data analytics. Such shift to cutting edge digital technologies will be an industry leading initiative.
Mark Koch, CEO of DragonPass, advises, “DragonPass is excited to be exclusively teaming up with DreamFolks to offer an unprecedented proposition positioned at driving enhanced customer value. DreamFolks’ local knowledge and synergetic customer centric solutions are invaluable contributions towards servicing every customer touch-point in the airport ecosystem. Together with DreamFolks we can ensure a seamless and significantly more enjoyable travel experience for all Indian consumers.”
Elaborating on the above trend with context to India specific market and the alliance role; DreamFolks’ Anurag Prakash Lal, CEO, highlights, “Indian aviation sector is growing faster than in any other large country. Indian domestic aviation passenger traffic has achieved 100 million mark and international passengers 60 million mark during calendar year 2016 and with expected growth rates of 15%~20%; India will soon be the world’s third largest aviation market. In addition, India is uniquely advantaged in scalable digital technologies thanks to various initiatives by Government of India. As DreamFolks business is at the crossroads of hospitality, aviation and technology; such megatrends will buoy up aviation travel services demand. Indian market has a potential to expand very quickly and customer engagement via digital will be a game changer.”
Mr. Lal further said that DreamFolks expects to close the current financial year with revenues of over Rs 120 crores. “Currently we are in the B2B segment. We are India’s leading lounge management company and diversifying into a full bouquet of airport management services such as meet & assist, airport restaurant, wellness and airport retail. With this alliance, we foray into B2C segment as well including travel trade and employee benefit program by introducing the membership card and app”. He further said, adding, “We are experiencing industry leading growth rates in revenues. We expect to grow 200% in the current financial year FY 2016~17 and about 110% in the financial year FY 2017~18. Our alliance with DragonPass will greatly enhance customer experience globally as the primary benefit. In addition, the financial numbers will be enhanced as well. We expect to service additional 2.4 million footfalls globally. We expect volume growth to be 140% and the value growth to be 46% in the coming financial year.”
To address the above mentioned burgeoning traveller’s need both in India and globally, DreamFolks and DragonPass passionately share the commitment to provide customer service of exceptional quality, integrity and attentiveness. This partnership leverages the strengths of each organization’s team and networks to meet the growing demand for airport services globally and hope to set industry leading standards for international customer experience.
