The outbound travel arm of John Keells Holdings (JKH), Mackinnons Travels, celebrates its 50th anniversary this month.
Founded in 1971, Mackinnons opened its first office on June 14 of that year, at the Mackinnons Building in Fort, which itself is an architectural monument that dates back to 1917.
At the time, corporate travel was a fledgling market and leisure travel was not a privilege many Sri Lankans had access to, and for the next eight years, its monthly income rarely exceeded 5-6 million rupees. The team included individuals who would go on to build long, successful careers in the future, including former chairperson of JKH, Susantha Ratnayake, whose first job was at the agency in the late-1970s, and the late Dayalan Subramaniam.
Trevor Rajaratnam, who served as CEO of Mackinnons from 1996 to 2011, describes this era as one that is perhaps incomprehensible to present day travelers, who can easily book a flight or plan a holiday through an endless array of booking websites and apps and online travel guides. Back in the 1970s, he says, travelers could not even purchase flight tickets directly with Sri Lankan currency.
It was a lengthy process, he describes, where travelers needed a pre-paid ticket purchased for them by their sponsor in the visiting country and the travel agent’s role was to ensure this process took place smoothly, communicating via telex to the customer, airline and sponsor. By 1976, however, the agency had signed up as the sole representative of American Express Travel, which allowed it to expand its portfolio of corporate travel solutions and achieve steady growth by the early-1980s.
By 1991, when Rajaratnam joined Mackinnons, its revenue had reached 12-15 million rupees and by the mid-1990s, the team had grown to 75. “This chapter was a turning point for the agency as it coincided with the boom of recruitment for work overseas, particularly in the Middle East,’’ says Rajaratnam.
“The traffic from travel in the recruitment sector accounted for 50% of the agency’s business and segments such as business and leisure were also taking off. By the early-2000s, Mackinnons was among the top three travel agencies in Sri Lanka, with around 150 million rupees in revenue”.
Mackinnons currently focuses on seafarer travel, including the travel of returning seafarers, and repatriation flights, which allows Sri Lankan citizens and residents to return to the country safely. The company also plans to introduce quarantine packages to returnees and tourists who will arrive to the country once the ongoing restrictions are lifted, which will offer customers pre-arranged hotel reservations, transfers, PCR tests and an insurance package that covers COVID-19.
“For Sri Lankans, international travel may not be a possibility for several months, but Mackinnons remains hopeful.”
0 comments: