Travelxp

About Travelxp

Travelxp is a global travel and lifestyle television channel broadcasting destination, food, culture, nature and heritage programming to audiences in more than 50 countries. Founded in India in 2011 by Mumbai-based Celebrities Management Pvt Ltd under chairman, managing director and chief executive Prashant Chothani, the channel has grown from an Indian pay-television service into one of the world’s most widely distributed travel brands, producing its entire output in-house and shooting exclusively in high dynamic range. In the United Kingdom the channel launched on 30 April 2018, becoming the first Indian television channel to target mainstream British audiences, and it is now available on Sky channel 178. Its official website is travelxp.com.

Founding and early history

Travelxp was launched in India in 2011 as a specialist travel channel at a time when the genre barely existed on Indian television. The channel was the creation of Prashant Chothani, the chairman, managing director and chief executive of Celebrities Management Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based media company that set out to build a travel brand with global ambitions from day one. Rather than licensing programmes from other producers, the company made the unusual decision to own the intellectual property for all of its content, building a production operation that would eventually amass a library of more than 1,000 hours of original programming across destination, food, nature, culture and heritage genres.

The channel’s early programming established the template it still follows: presenter-led journeys through cities, landscapes and cuisines, with an emphasis on practical travel information as well as spectacle. Series such as XP Guide, which explored cities with local guides, dated from the channel’s earliest years, and the company steadily expanded its catalogue with lifestyle and food formats. By the time of its international expansion, Travelxp described itself as reaching more than 75 million homes worldwide, with a stated philosophy summed up in the slogan “one world and no boundaries.”

The UK launch

Travelxp’s arrival in Britain on 30 April 2018 was presented as a landmark for Indian television. The channel launched on the Freeview digital terrestrial platform, reaching close to 16 million television homes, and went free-to-air in the UK even though it remained a pay-television channel in India and every other territory. Prashant Chothani told Indian media that Travelxp would be India’s first television channel to launch in the UK for mainstream audiences rather than as an ethnic or diaspora service, and the company backed the launch with an aggressive marketing campaign spanning mainstream television advertising, digital billboards, bus and Underground advertising across the UK, and social media.

The commercial response was immediate: the company claimed to have sold 100 per cent of its advertising inventory for the UK channel ahead of launch. Travelxp established a Greater London office to lead its British operations, with Sumant Bahl, the network’s managing director for Europe, taking charge of Travelxp UK. The company also announced plans to set up a production centre in the UK to produce content locally for British audiences, with the UK production house intended to serve as the hub for western, central and eastern Europe within four to five months, followed by further production houses in eastern Europe and the Americas.

Ownership and leadership

Travelxp is owned by Celebrities Management Pvt Ltd, the Mumbai-headquartered company led by Prashant Chothani as chairman, managing director and chief executive. Chothani has been the public face of the channel’s expansion, announcing the UK launch in Chennai in April 2018 and setting out the company’s ambition to build a global travel media brand. European operations are led by Sumant Bahl as managing director for Europe, who has overseen distribution deals including the partnership with Deutsche Telekom in Germany and the development of the UK business from the company’s Greater London office.

The company’s business model rests on full ownership of its programming. By owning the intellectual property for its shows outright, Travelxp can repurpose its library across linear channels, language feeds and digital platforms without licensing costs, a structure that has underpinned its rapid international rollout. Chothani has spoken of the economics of production in unusual detail for a channel chief, noting that producing an hour of high-definition content costs the company nearly $10,000, a figure that reflects the channel’s commitment to high production values across its catalogue.

Programming and genres

Travelxp organises its schedule around six main genres: destination, lifestyle, food, culture, nature and heritage. Destination programming includes long-running series such as Backpack, the channel’s first series shot in 4K, which follows presenters experiencing places in depth on a low budget rather than following standard tourist itineraries; Off The Grid; Glimpses; the Xplore franchise, with editions covering countries and regions from Thailand to Spain to Oman; City Breaks; Nordic Quest; Summer Escapes; and special series such as Nepal – Hope Never Dies. Lifestyle strands include Unwind, Bliss, World Spas, Great World Hotels, Best From The Rest, Cruise XP and Tracking Royalty.

Food programming draws on series including Strictly Street, Food Fact Fun, Food Highway, Quest and Foodicted, while culture is served by Divine Destinations, World Festivals, a special Mount Kailash series, and festival specials covering events such as the Hornbill Festival, Rann Utsav and the Pushkar fair. Nature and heritage genres have their own dedicated strands, including the World Heritage series documenting UNESCO-listed sites. More recent additions to the schedule include 72 Hours Unplugged, 10 Days Cyprus, The Savvy Nomad, Mr. & Mrs. Roy on the Maharajas’ Express and Timeless Tamilnadu, reflecting the channel’s continuing investment in new original production.

4K production and technology

Travelxp was an early adopter of ultra-high-definition production. The channel began broadcasting Backpack, its first series filmed in 4K, in September 2015, and subsequently migrated its entire content creation pipeline from high definition to 4K, shooting exclusively in high dynamic range to deliver what the company describes as a true “wow factor” for viewers. The 4K HDR version of the channel, branded Travelxp 4K, became a premium product for international distribution, launching on Deutsche Telekom’s Magenta TV package in Germany in May 2019 with localised shows for the German audience.

The company’s crews have filmed in more than 55 countries, and its programming is produced with detailed research and narration designed to combine entertainment with practical travel insight. Travelxp describes itself as the single largest producer of travel content in the world, a claim rooted in its wholly owned library of original programming, which gives it unusual flexibility in assembling localised feeds for different markets without depending on third-party acquisitions.

Global expansion

From its Indian base, Travelxp has built one of the most extensive distribution footprints of any specialist channel. The service is relayed in local languages in the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria, while in India it offers feeds in Hindi, Tamil and Bengali, with further Indian languages including Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada planned. Launches in France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary and Austria have been announced as part of the pipeline, and the channel claims to reach more than 500 million viewers across more than 50 countries.

The network has also diversified into spin-off channels. Foodxp, a dedicated food channel, was first launched in the UK on Sky in August 2019 before being introduced in India, offering more than 1,000 episodes of food programming with chefs including Ajay Chopra, Harpal Singh Sokhi, Vicky Ratnani and Neha Deepak Shah. The channel was named the best Asian food channel in the UK in December 2021 and ranked among the ten most-viewed food channels in the country, demonstrating the parent brand’s ability to extend its travel-and-lifestyle formula into adjacent genres.

Marketing and brand strategy

Travelxp’s international launches have been accompanied by heavyweight marketing. For the UK debut the company ran television campaigns on mainstream British channels alongside digital billboards, bus and Underground advertising and social media activity, an unusual level of spend for a specialist channel entering a new market. The strategy reflected the channel’s positioning: unlike the South Asian channels that had previously launched in Britain as diaspora services, Travelxp targeted the mainstream British audience of travel enthusiasts directly, competing with established factual and lifestyle channels rather than with other Indian services.

The company has also developed a digital strategy alongside its linear channels, announcing plans for a dedicated digital platform and maintaining a strong presence on YouTube, where it has long run promotional content. The wholly owned content library gives the brand a natural advantage in digital distribution, allowing it to repackage its catalogue for streaming, short-form and on-demand audiences without renegotiating rights.

Availability in the UK

Travelxp is currently available in the United Kingdom on Sky channel 178. The channel’s British history began on Freeview, where it launched free-to-air in April 2018 as the first Indian channel aimed at mainstream UK audiences, and its subsequent move to the Sky platform consolidated its position in the British pay and free television landscape. The channel’s programming is produced in English for the UK feed, with the same presenter-led, high-production-value style that defines the brand worldwide.

British viewers can also sample the channel’s output through its digital platforms, including its YouTube presence and the travelxp.com website, which carries programme information and highlights from the schedule. The channel’s UK operation continues to be run from its Greater London office under the network’s European management.

Official website

Travelxp’s official website is travelxp.com, where viewers can find programme schedules, show descriptions, destination features and information about the channel’s international feeds. The site serves as the global home of the Travelxp brand, covering the main travel channel, its 4K HDR service and its spin-off channels.