Cricket World Cup - and the winners are..hotels, airlines and pizzas!

So congratulations to India, well deserved winners in a thrilling final. As well as the team out on the field, there are probably going to be a few other winners as well.

I don't have the figures for this year but last year, corporate India spent an estimated Rs 500-600 crore (GBP 7-8 m) on two cricket tournaments — the IPL and the T20 World Cup.

These tournaments and the many new product launches that accompanied them led to consumer products companies increasing their advertising and promotion (A&P ) spends by 25-40 % in the April-June quarter.

Even this year, the quarters ending March and June are going to see higher adspend by most consumer companies , like HUL, ITC, Godrej Consumer and Dabur and the increase in the consumption of alcohol through the season is also going to be of benefit to market leader United Breweries as is Jubilant Foodworks, a quick service restaurant selling the Domino's Pizzas in India.

The Airlines and hotels sectors will also benefit from this. In February, there was a 15% growth — more than the normal growth of 8-10 % — in the arrival of foreign tourists in comparison to last year's February . Besides business travellers, these include cricket fans from different countries. This would be particularly beneficial to companies such as Indian Hotels Company and EIH which are more dependent on foreign tourists for revenues.

At the same time, many airline companies also increased their ticket prices . For instance, domestic airline companies increased their one-way ticket price of Mumbai-Chandigarh flight from a normal day fare to Rs 24,000 from Rs 6,000 on the day of semi-final cricket World Cup match. Companies like SpiceJet, Indigo Airlines and Kingfisher benefited well from this.

The Spice is Right..

Congratulations to SpiceJet, the low-cost carrier for the Indian domestic market, which has just secured recognition at the World Travel Market for it's growth and multi-channel approach to distribution.

World Travel Market Chairman Fiona Jeffery presented an award to the carrier’s CEO Sanjay Aggarwal, at today’s WTM 30th Anniversary VIP Opening & Reception Ceremony.

SpiceJet currently connects 18 domestic destinations with 125 daily departures. The depth of its network provides customers a variety of options for interconnecting flights, giving them access to second tier destinations via connections at major hubs.

It has been growing recently, despite the economic pressures. SpiceJet increased its daily departures from 98 in October 2008 to 125 by May 2009. Its market has increased from 7.9% in September 2008 to 12.8% in June 2009, making it the fastest growing airline in India during this period. During the first seven months of the current year, SpiceJet’s passenger traffic has grown 14% compared to a 5% decline in the overall Indian domestic traffic.

Unlike many other low-cost airlines, it has a multi-channel approach to sales - 24% of bookings come directly from consumers booking at www.spicejet.com, 14% book through its call centers, online travel agents account for 30% with offline travel agents its largest sales channel with 32%.

It differs from other low-cost carriers by having a cargo business, which covers 13 stations. It has carried more than 19000 tones of cargo since May 2008. This side of the business currently contributes more than 3% of its total revenue.

Overall, it deserves credit for having made a profit while growing during an economic slowdown In the first three months of the year it made a profit of INR 26.3 crores (£3.6m) after two quarters of near breakeven numbers.