Global online travel firms hope to click in India

India is fast emerging as a hot-spot for global online travel companies. A host of international online travel companies like Expedia, Tripper and Travelgenie have India on thier agenda and are gearing up for exploring the country's fast growing travel market.

During the last two months, few other leading travel companies such as Cleartrip, Yatraonline and Travelocity have announced plans for launching their India-specific online travel companies.

These companies are expected to invest about Rs 50 crore each to create India specific sites to mark their entry. Leading online travel companies currently present in the country include Makemytrip, Travelguru and Iyatra.

"The rapidly increasing traffic of low cost airlines is taking the domestic travel to new peaks. Realising the potential, we began to aggressively promote ourselves. For the year ended March 2006, we ended up with a business of Rs 200 crore, compared with Rs 98 crore, the previous year," says Makemytrip founder-chief executive officer (CEO) Deep Kalra.

The domestic travel industry is estimated at around Rs 3,000 crore. However, the market is growing exponentially. In 2005, India witnessed about 3.85 million international tourists, which is likely to go up to 4.5 million in 2006.

Over 5.5 million Indian tourists visited overseas in 2005, which is likely to cross 7 million in 2006. Scott Blume, chief executive officer, Zuji, the operating company of Travelocity in the country is of the view that by 2011, online will corner 30 per cent of the travel trade in India compared with less than 2 per cent today.

Promod Haque, general partner, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), the promoter of Yatraonline, said, factors like growing economy, foundation of a robust domestic, outbound and inbound travel, low cost airlines and increased understanding and growth of e-purchasing, have converged to create an ideal platform for the growth of travel portals in the country.

Globally, online travel market is expected to corner 28 per cent of the total travel trade by 2007, with total sales of $ 25.6 billion.

This will be a growth of 112 per cent from 2004.

An OTC essentially has access to airlines and hotels across the globe. It will offer complete travel solution, including flight packages rates, hotel rates, details on transportation, cruise information, information on leading holiday destinations within India and abroad and travel insurance for both the inbound and outbound travel.