Thomas Cook Group is buying back the Indian business it sold to the Dubai Financial group two years ago, the first stage in its strategy to expand the brand in emerging markets.

The travel operator is expected to announce on Friday it is bringing Thomas Cook India back into its stable, re-establishing its presence in a market it entered in 1881.

Thomas Cook India has 180 outlets in 40 Indian cities, employs 2,500 people and is India's biggest tour operator. It was offloaded in 2006 when the operator decided to dispose of non-core assets to focus on developing UK, German and other prime European markets.

However, the merger last year of Thomas Cook and MyTravel and its listing on the London Stock Exchange has opened the prospect of a return to non-European markets, in particular the fast-growing travel markets of India, China and Russia.

The deal is recognition that the Indian market is ripe for significant growth. The World Travel and Tourism Council on Thurday said India's tourism demand would be the fastest in the world over the next 10 years, expected to increase 9.4 per cent a year from 2009-18.

Thomas Cook India, listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, has a foreign exchange business, fulfilling another strategic aim, namely expanding the financial services business.

The Indian company has been 62 per cent owned by Dubai Financial, a vehicle of the Dubai Investment Group, an arm of Dubai Holdings.

Its latest figures show it made revenues of €23m (£17.6m) and has a net worth of €29m. Thomas Cook India handles corporate accounts for multinational companies and has a leisure division that operates more than 40 global tours, and a travel insurance business.

Thomas Cook Group said last November it would increase the value of its mainstream and independent travel businesses, develop online operations, foreign exchange and financial services and capture value out of M&A, particularly in emerging markets.

It added to its independent travel operations by buying Hotels4U.com for £21.9m.

It is forecasting synergies from its merger of £200m and targeting an operating profit of £620m in 2009-10.

Last month, Thomas Cook said trading for the winter and summer seasons was encouraging, with strong demand in Germany and Norway.

Thomas Cook's connections date back to the Victorian era when John Mason Cook, son of the founder, opened an office in Bombay in 1881. It operated tours for artisan and middle classes of India and helped to transport Muslim pilgrims to Mecca.

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Transport for nabobs, tigers and the odd howitzer

Nowhere epitomised Thomas Cook's pioneering spirit better than India. Cook was more engaged with the work of Baptist missionaries than its tourism offerings when he visited the subcontinent on his world tour of 1872-73.

But his son soon had India on the company's tour schedules, offering a first-class three-month ticket by P&O steamer to Bombay, Calcutta, Darjeeling, Delhi and Lahore for £113-7s-0d (£66-4s-0d second class).

The company arranged for Indian princes and senior officials in British India to attend Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee celebrations in London.

The travel arrangements of maharajas and nabobs could prove cumbersome. One prince demanded 200 servants, 50 family attendants, 20 chefs, 10 elephants, 33 tigers, 1,000 cases and a small howitzer.

For a while, Cook's, as it was then known, also organised transportation for Indian Muslims on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

British India gave Cook's plenty of business sending civil servants and military officers back and forth. The origin of the word "posh" (port out, starboard home), is said to come from such trips.

The best cabins were on the port or left-hand side because they were in the shade when travelling out from England, and on the starboard side coming back.