MAANAV SARAF, DIRECTOR, GAINWELL TRAVEL & VICE CAPTAIN, GAINWELL SPORTS
TMS. Kindly tell us about your professional journey and how did you end up in this industry ?
Maanav Saraf. Gainwell was started by my parents in 1991 and has become one of Eastern India’s strongest travel brands over the years. I am extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to be attending work from the age of 18 while I was still in college.
The travel trade is definitely a very glamorous industry to look at from the outside and despite the various challenges we face such as being an competitive industry, there are still massive opportunities all around and the pros of doing what I am far outweigh the challenges.
TMS. Sport tourism can strengthen national heritage, identity, and community spirit as local people join together to promote their culture. What are the key services and products offered by Gainwell Travel in the sports travel industry ?
Maanav Saraf. I would love to say that Gainwell Sports is playing a part in promoting India’s national heritage and community spirit but that won’t be a very accurate statement. Under Gainwell Sports we’ve primarily focussed on selling match ticket inclusive packages to ultra high demand sports matches globally – the matches that are literally always sold out. When we started the sports travel brand in 2016, the primary focus was to make it a fast growing profitable vertical within Gainwell and since most of these large eventsS have happened overseas we haven’t really been involved with too many activities within India.
That said however, the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 in India was a mega project for us and naturally when we sold packages or handled corporate incentive groups for these matches, many travelers visited local sightseeing spots across India alongwith watching the games. With Ahmedabad hosting key matches like Ind v Pak and the final, I assume the footfalls at key monuments like the Statue of Unity and Gandhi Ashram would’ve been at record highs during the world cup and in that manner we did help support promotion of national heritage in some way.
TMS. Due to covid, every element of sports was affected, from athletes and clubs, sponsorships to the media coverage. How has the revival of the sports tourism been like in the post-pandemic era ?
Maanav Saraf. The revival of sports in general and sports tourism along with it has been unimaginable to say the
least. The number of mega sports events that have happened in the last 2-3 years since the pandemic is something like never before. With so many large scale events such as FIFA World Cups, Cricket World Cups, Olympics, etc happening in such frequency, the sports travel market has also naturally boomed to record highs.
In 2022-2023 almost 50% of Gainwell’s revenue overall came from sports travel which is something we couldn’t have imagined pre pandemic. We did amazing numbers to Australia as Official Hospitality agent in the 2022 T20 World Cup and sold a large number of FIT and MICE packages to Formula 1 races throughout that year which led to such a high revenue from sports. This year looks set to be even greater again with massive events such as the T20 WC in USA, Olympics in Paris and the Euros in Germany all taking place in 2024.
TMS. In your opinion, how does sports travel contributes in boosting the local economy and promote tourism ?
Maanav Saraf. Sports travel is a massive contributor to the local economy and we don’t need any proof of that now after watching what happened in Doha in 2022. The massive bid by Qatar to be able to host the FIFA World Cup was global news and with a record number of visitors to the country during the world cup, Qatar has set an example for many more countries to follow suit in trying to get these events to their nations at any cost. We can already see Saudi in talks to host one of the future FIFA World Cups and India expressing interest to bid for a future Olympic Games. Many global tourism hubs like Dubai, Singapore, London and New York get a lot of their visitor numbers from the hundreds of sports and music events hosted in these cities.
TMS. How has 2023 treated your business and what are some major events that you were a part of ?
Maanav Saraf. 2023 has been a record year for Gainwell overall – our MICE business in general is better than it ever was before, the sports travel brand has been growing steadily and we’ve become a lot less concentrated on cricket only which was the case earlier. In 2023, our revenue from Formula 1 was almost as much as it was from cricket which is quite unbelievable when you compare the following for cricket and F1.
TMS. What does the trajectory of your plans for 2024 looks like, what are some major projects that you’ll be a part of ?
Maanav Saraf. We are in the middle of strategic partnerships with some companies to capitalise on the major events happening this year. We already have official reseller rights for major F1 races including Bahrain, Singapore, Baku, Imola and Monza and will be selling a large number of F1 packages this year. The T20 World Cup will be a big draw for our MICE clients and some of them have already launched incentive schemes for their dealers featuring big India matches. The Euros will also be a big draw for our clients especially with it coinciding with summer vacation dates in India – our leisure groups to Europe in summer 2024 already look very promising.
TMS. What are some key elements to look after while conducting services to have sustainable travel ?
Maanav Saraf. We’ve seen sustainability become a major part of travel services all around. Plastics and one time use products are fast being removed in hotel chains globally. Airlines are starting to use reusable cups instead of plastic bottles, in flight magazines are going digital even full fledged sports stadiums are being reused – the Stadium 974 in Doha made completely out of shipping containers was amazing! In fact there’s news of the India v Pakistan game in New York in June to be held in a temporarily built stadium which’ll later be dismantled and reused for other events so by just being a modern day traveler we’re already compelled to think more about sustainability all the time and that can only be a good thing!
TMS. A truly happy customer is so confident in your ability to meet their needs quickly and effectively that they don’t hesitate to recommend your brand to others. What is your approach towards customer satisfaction ?
Maanav Saraf. Sports fans travel in groups and travel for multiple events throughout a year. Customer satisfaction is important in any business but in our area, it is priority number one. Once we’re able to win a customer and deliver more than their expectations on a certain tour, they not only build loyalty with us but refer various others and we again have a chance to build loyalty with these other customers continuing the chain further. Here’s our approach to this – we dedicate a big part of our marketing budget to customer satisfaction and retention – the idea is rather than having to spend money to win new customers, if we invest that amount to enhance the experience for our customers or deliver some surprises or solve crisis without charging them, they become loyalists and will end up referring a lot more customers than any marketing would’ve been able to get us anyways. Currently the sports travel market in India is very untapped and there are only a few big brands – what’s an advantage to us is that some of these big brands have been terrible at customer service or retention and after almost every big event we get customers from these brands switching over to us because of the bad experience with these brands.
TMS. You’ve given your services at Men’s ODI Asia Cup 2023. Please tell us about the project and how successful it was for you.
Maanav Saraf. The Asia Cup in Sri Lanka was a tournament organised at very short notice and so even though the sales window was very short, we were able to do considerably good numbers. Sri Lanka is a great destination in terms of value for money for both individual travelers and corporate incentives – we were able to add further to that value by combining it with key matches such as India v Pakistan and the packages sold very well. We in fact had supply side issues with limited availability of rooms in places like Kandy because of the last minute nature of the event and had to curtail some sales because of that. Had this tournament been announced even a month prior to what it was, I’m sure we could’ve doubled our passenger numbers.
