Apart from the property at Raichowk, the group also has a Radisson hotel and a TGI Fridays restaurant in Delhi and a Country Inns & Suites by Carlsons resort near Calcutta. The company is looking at various places all over the country for possible locations and properties to manage.

The company is also looking at the possibility of introducing the Regent brand in India. "Regent is a super premium brand, six-star you may call it, and will have facilities better than any other hotel in India today. We are looking desperately for a site or property that can take on the Regent brandname and Calcutta is one of theoptions," said Samuel.

The Regent brand was acquired by the Carlson group in 1997. Regent hotels and resorts are currently operating at nine locations in eight countries, including Hong Kong, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Singapore, Taipei, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, and Beverly Hills, California.

In fact, the group is also looking at a possible Radisson hotel in Calcutta. The company has already looked at two or three locations and is speaking to some interested parties. The group does not invest in real estate.

A lot of the publicity for the brands is done by the owners of the properties of Carlsons-managed hotels and resorts in variuos countries and in India too the same pattern is expected, according to Samuel.

K B Kachru, senior vice-president, Radisson Hotels Asia Pte, said: "We have plans of launching all the Carlson brands in India and are looking for suitable opportunities for doing so."

One of the interesting things emerging out of the sales conference, according to Samuel, was the idea of promoting theFfort at Raichowk as a honeymoon destination. "In fact it can do well in the international market in this segment," he said.

"We are also looking at the possibilities of using the Haldia-bound traffic for the Ffort. We were discussing various ways of introducing a ferry service across the river for executives who will be visiting Haldia, once the Haldia Petrochemicals start operating," Samuel said.

The Ffort has seen a 51 per cent occupancy level, of which five per cent comes from the Haldia-related traffic today. Another 35 per cent comes from the leisure sector and the rest from the corporate conference business.

Tieup with domestic travel agency likely

CALCUTTA: Carlson Companies Inc is all set to tie up with an Indian travel agency within a month, Cecil Samuel said.

"The travel agency will cease to exist in its present form and take on the Carlson Wagonlit Travel name," Samuel told The Financial Express on Saturday. Carlson Wagonlit Travel is a brandjointly owned by Carlson Companies Inc and the Paris-based Accor Group.

"Since we are in a critical stage of the deal I cannot name the agency but they have an all-India network with offices in all major cities, including Calcutta," Samuel said.

"We expect everything to fall in place within a month," he added.

The Carlson Wagonlit Travel network for business travel was created out of a merger of the travel-related businesses of Carlson and Wagonlit in January 1997. The network has offices at more than 3,000 locations in 141 countries and the annual sales figure of the network stands at $9.5 billion.

Samuel feels that there is a "huge potential in the travel scene in India, specially the outbound traffic can expand manifold. By the year 2,000 we expect our travel business will be sending over one lakh people abroad, every year," he said. The company is expecting to send around 2,000 people in 1998-99 itself.

"The travel wings of Carlson has a history of contributing heavily in the success of thehotels managed by the company," Samuels added. It has already contributed around 14 per cent of the business generated by the Radisson Delhi, and around eight to nine per cent of the business of The Radisson Ffort at Raichak near Calcutta.

The entire travel-related business of Carlson Companies Inc adds up to 20 million airline tickets, seven million room-nights and four million train tickets.

About the 24,000 people that the international travel business of Carlson sent to India in 1997, Samuel said: "Thinking in terms of the potential of the country, that is a very small number. It is going to increase significantly in the next few years."

"What we will be bringing to India as Carlson Wagonlit is an advanced and tested delivery system that uses advanced technologies, and will be the best in the country, simply because it is the best in the world," Samuel added.