Cleartrip to offer travel packages too

Online travel company not offering any itinerary for travellers with an idea of keeping flexibility to the travel plans

Cleartrip.com has finally entered the packages business to compete with its peers including MakeMyTrip and Yatra.com. Online travel market has been bullish about the growth prospects in the packages business because it offers much better margins than air bookings.

For Cleartrip, the move comes after it received feedback from its customers asking for the product. It has taken two months for the company to design the interface for booking packages. Until now, Cleartrip was offering airlines and hotel bookings separately.

“We can deliver significant savings to the customers by clubbing the two products. We are offering specially negotiated rates with the hotels and airlines, for our packages business,” said Noel Swain, Executive Vice President–Supplier Relations, Cleartrip.

However, the online travel company is not offering any itinerary for the travellers with an idea of keeping flexibility to the travel plans.

Cleartrip will add car bookings to the packages in order to connect with the non-airport destinations like Manali, Kovalam etc. “We already have a captive customer base which we will tap into. Our focus is more on individual travellers than the large groups,” Swain added.

The company feels it will have an edge over its competitors because of its hotel inventory offering 9,000 options for the domestic traveller and even more for the international destination.

Unlike MakeMyTrip and Yatra which have also built presence in the offline market with 40 and 20 outlets respectively, Cleartrip does not plan to have its own stores.

Due to shrinking margins in the airline business, travel companies have increasingly been focusing on packages business for better profitability. For instance MakeMyTrip’s holidays business accounts for 25% of the total sales. Yatra’s hotels and packages business contributes nearly 35% to its overall revenues.

Even the marketing campaigns of the leading OTAs have focused on selling holidays and vacations. Cleartrip too, would soon start its campaign to promote its latest offering.

Cleartrip at this stage is not differentiating into business and leisure categories, but experts say that as its product evolves, this could mark a shift in the overall strategy of the company.

In an earlier interview with Business Standard, the company CEO Stuart Crighton had said, “The biggest challenge for us is focus, because there are so many directions to go. We have to be very disciplined with what we do and do not want to do.” Clearly, Cleartrip has made a choice which is bound to create a flutter in the online travel market.