The market for travel to India in Bermuda has exploded, and C Travel is now looking to hire a Hindi-speaking travel agent to help with this growing sector.

The increase in the number of Indian guest workers has led to a surge in the demand for flights to this part of the world, and C Travel chief executive officer Carl Paiva said that there has been such an increase that often there are queues of Indians waiting to be served to book flights home.

“It is a growing market,” said Mr. Paiva. “It has been a substantial part of our business from our inception in 2000 and it has become a large part of our core market.”

And this week the business, which has grown to 32 full time and 20 independent agents, is looking for both a new Indian specialist and another Portuguese specialist.

The advert for the Indian specialist was placed in Monday's Royal Gazette and states that the company is looking for a travel consultant who can communicate in Hindi and a knowledge of travel in India.

Mr. Paiva said he would love to find someone in Bermuda who could fill the role, but would look overseas if there was no one to fit the bill.

Mr. Paiva said that one of the attractions of coming to C Travel was that they offered trips to India that were 38 percent cheaper than the scheduled British Airways flights.

“It is important to make sure our customers get the best deal,” said Mr. Paiva. “Especially since they work very hard for their money.”

Many of the growing Indian community in Bermuda work in the hospitality industry and work in restaurants and bars, but have been moving across all sectors of Bermuda society.

Mr. Paiva said that not only was the Indian population on the Island turning to his agency to travel home, but they had a growing segment of the Portuguese and Filipino and had specialists in all these areas.

And he said in the main the job of looking after all the Indian, Portuguese and Filipino had fallen on one employee, Jose Amaral, but now there was so much work that more staff was needed. “Jo has been really busy,” said Mr. Paiva. “We have had times when we have had 16 people waiting for him in reception to book trips home.”

Mr. Paiva said that the company, which is owned by its employees, has grown three times the size they had anticipated when they started out in November 2000.

“When we started we thought we would have 20 people max,” said Mr. Paiva. “And our business would move around that.”

But now he says that they will be expanding even more after they have seen extra demand from their customers.

“It really is very busy in here,” he said. “I think the success is due to the dedication of our staff. All our staff have a share in the company, so they see what goes into making this a successful business.”

He added that there had been “very attractive dividends” paid out last year and business so far this year looks as if it is going to be another good year with another dividend paid to its shareholder employees.

“We have done very well,” said Mr. Paiva. “We have a dedicated staff who also own the company, which makes for a good team.”