Thomas Cook signs MoU with JTB Corp.

Thomas Cook India Ltd has announced that the Company on December 13, 2007 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with JTB Corp. Japan, one of the largest travel solutions Companies in the world.

The alliance will allow Thomas Cook to access the JTB Corp. network across 30 countries alongwith affiliates spreading over 800 offices. For JTB Corp. the alliance will provide a ready platform to enter the Indian market.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Udayan Bose, Chairman, of the Company said, "The year 2007 was designated as India-Japan Tourism Exchange Year. Both countries hope to increase the number of visitors between the two countries to approximately 300,000 by 2010, which will be nearly double that of the 2005. Hence, we are pleased to enter into an alliance with JTB Corp., the largest travel Company in Japan and one of the largest travel companies in the world. We see great potential in this co-operation across a wide range of travel activities including Leisure Outbound, Corporate Travel and Inbound Travel to India. In any case Japan was being looking at by us as a target country for inbound and outbound tourism. This co-operation will benefit both the Companies and countries immensely".

Thomas Cook expects to witness growth in areas such as in-bound and out-bound tours. With this alliance, Thomas Cook also expects to see tremendous growth in its corporate travel business as it would now have access to the global relationships of JTB Corp. Mr. Madhavan Menon, Managing Director, of the Company said, "With business travel growing at the 20%, this alliance will provide further impetus to our corporate travel business."

Every year with increasing number of travelers into India from Japan; JTB Corp. being the leader in the Japanese market, would be able to use the network of Thomas Cook to serve its clientele better. The travel cooperation arrangements would be for inbound, outbound and corporate travel across markets such as Japan, China, South-East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and America.