Travelocity launches travel portal in India

Travelocity, an online travel portal, launched its website in India today and introduced its teams based in Delhi and Mumbai. The website will have on offer a choice of 72,000 hotels, 1000 cruises and over 4000 popular sights, tours and activities.

Travelocity wants to make India one its top third market in the Asia Pacific region and plans to promote the portal by search engine marketing and advertising through the mainstream media.

"We are bringing some clever marketing practices to this part of the world. There are alot of travel portals in the market but they merely put up plain content online. We however, will stand behind our customers and give them quality service," Scot Blume, CEO, Travelocity said.

The domestic online travel industry is roughly about $800 million (around Rs 3,600 crore). As per the estimates of Internet and Mobile Association of India, online travel transactions have increased nearly fourfold from 207,000 a month in 2003-04 to 795,000 in 2005-06.

The Indian online travel market already has players such as Makemytrip, Yatra, Travelguru and Cleartrip. Expedia, another international travel portal is planning to come to India later this year.

With internet usage growing at 50% per year, e-commerce projected to double by 2007, low-cost carriers making a way to India and the credit card market booming, industry experts peg the online travel market to touch the $2 billion mark by 2008.