CIOTechOutlook >> Magazine >> December - 2014 issue

Mahindra Holidays: Make Every Moment Magical

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Caught in the humdrum of city life, one often wishes for a holiday experience with the rippling sound of a river, the vast forests, and the gigantic snow clad mountains. Driven by the aspirations of a burgeoning middle class segment and increased Central and State Government investment in promoting tourism, India today enjoys vast potential in the domestic tourism sector. One of the high growth segments in this industry is the vacation ownership segment. A study by Cushman & Wakefield foresees that India's vacation ownership industry will grow at an annual rate of 16% between 2006 and 2015. Mahindra Holidays, as India’s largest and most trusted vacation ownership brand, is well poised to take advantage of this expected growth. Started in 1996, the company today has a fast growing customer base of over 1.75 lakh members and 40+ beautiful resorts at some of the most exotic locations in India and abroad. The Economic Times reports that currently over 70 percent of active vacation ownership users have a Club Mahindra membership.

“We at Club Mahindra are committed to creating ‘Magical Moments’ for our members with the aim to forge a long lasting relationship with them. All our resorts offer the highest standards in luxury hospitality and focus on offering an exquisite holiday experience”, says Mr. Subhash Kelkar, Chief Information Officer, MHRIL. The Club Mahindra brand identity stands testimony to this commitment. The Club Mahindra logo is inspired by the thought ‘make every moment magical’. Inspired by the Buddhist mandalas, the symbol is made up of four hearts coming together, symbolizing families and friends.

As a Club Mahindra member, one can avail of a 7 Nights - 8 Days holiday in each year depending on eligibility and availability, for 25 years at any of the 40+ resorts the company has in India and abroad. Apart from these, there are also the 4000+ RCI affiliated resorts across the globe that one can exchange the days / weeks for. While acquiring membership, the choice of membership is categorized into colour coded seasons - Purple, Red, White and Blue. Apart from this, one has to also select an apartment type. Club Mahindra offers the option of a studio, a one bedroom apartment or a two bedroom apartment, according to one’s needs and family size/number of adults. The membership opted for is a combination of accommodation and season opted for by the member.

Driven by the thought ‘Make every moment magical’ the company provides fun activities in its resorts that range from entertainment to skill development for children and parents. Every resort of Club Mahindra has Fun Zones and recreational activity centers. The resorts have teams of specially trained Fun Rovers and Holiday Champs, who take charge of engaging kids so that adults can indulge in some fun events without worrying about their kids. Some of the children’s activities conducted at Club Mahindra resorts include special musical nights, Aqua Zorbing, Puppet Making, Backgammon, Pottery, Towel Art, Paper Craft, Rock Painting, Kho Kho, Lemon Spoon Race, Sack Race, Dance Classes, pool volley ball, Video Games, and much more.

As a company, Club Mahindra believes in investing in infrastructure that helps it improve upon its brand promise of delivering magical moments to its members. Club Mahindra is a front runner in usage of technology, especially in marketing. The company has developed a unique platform called ProDis (Pro-active distribution), which is an interface that connects Club Mahindra with all the Major Online Travel Portals (OTAs) for “real time” supply of information on inventory and rates. It’s a part of the company’s internal Process Improvement. Before the implementation of ProDis, the Club Mahindra F.I.T. (Free Individual Travellers) Team used to update inventory and rate information twice a day, 6 days a week manually on OTAs. The FIT team is a small team not part of the main stream business whose only job is to sell spare inventory which Club Mahindra members do not book. The team was using a “channel manager’ platform which required manual intervention at 10.30 am and 4.30 pm, 6 days a week. The company realized the need of real time inventory management that can aid in maximizing contribution of online portals to FIT business by improving timelines of inventory availability and information update.

The implementation of ProDis has enabled Club Mahindra to deliver real time inventory management, 24x7 real time availability, flexibility to business, manage dynamic rate changes, reduce opportunity lost due to last minute cancellations and many more advantages. ProDis went live in April 2014 and currently has most leading OTAs onboard including Makemytrip.com, Ibibo.com, Travelguru.com, Yatra.com, Cleartrip.com, Expedia.com, Booking.com and Agoda.com.

Club Mahindra also has a proactive digital strategy that aims to engage with its customers, understand their behaviour, capture market insights, respond to customer queries and even carry out acquisitions. Apart from this, the company runs a campaign called ClicPic on Instagram where its members are asked to click pictures at Club Mahindra resorts and upload them with hashtags. Club Mahindra has also designed India’s first crowd-sourced travel e-zine for children and by children – Club Mahindra Teddy Travelogues. The e-zine features stories, anecdotes, drawings, poems and photos contributed by children from across the country. The content for this magazine is crowd sourced through a digital campaign where entries are uploaded online.

Moving ahead with a positive outlook, this brand continues to delight its members with fun, enjoyment and precious moments of togetherness.

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