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INTERNET: Indian travel sites do all they can to compensate for their lack of recommendation engines.

Hitch-hiking was never this hot. This time round, though, it's not regular hitchers who are making news, but the online travel sites that aim to ride high, thanks to piggyback offers from some popular multipurpose websites.

About 93 per cent of the 28 million Indians estimated to be online belong to the 18-45-years age group (the high-spend bracket), and they make a perfect audience for holiday deals.

But as travel portals multiply, what makes the holidayer favour one over the other?

The quality of holiday recommendations, clearly. This is where technology in the form of a "recommendation engine" plays a big role. This is software that works like any other search engine, but has antlers out for the best packages that meet your specified needs.

Travel portals that use such engines find a sudden jump in the overall user experience they're able to deliver, as also an increase in fruitful conversions.

Internationally, Travelocity, Orbitz and Cendant's travel portals are reported to have made good use of the technology. Indian websites, however, are yet to invest in recommendation engines in a significant way.

Sachin Bhatia, co-founder and chief marketing officer, makemytrip.com, though, claims that a recommendation engine did make its debut in India.

"We had a recommendation engine called Planmytrip," he says, "but it did not go down well with Indian audiences, primarily because there were not many recommendations to be made, either deal or budget based."

Meanwhile, Rajnish, head (digital marketing revenue and strategic business), MSN India, is content with the "advisory links" that feature on MSN's newfound travel partner desiya.com's interface.

"People are encouraged to write their personal experiences on vacations which can guide and act as recommendations. A good vacation is discussed with passion, coupled with photographs to guide any prospective customer," he exults.

To grant them their due, Makemytrip, Travelguru and now Desiya are all planning to use as much information as they can to help guide travellers.

The potential is vast, as endorsed by MSN's desire to edge itself into the Indian market for online travel-related information. It has struck an agreement with the New Jersey-based Desiya to help its own customers plan holidays in India.

"There would be a few exclusive deals and packages for the MSN users, but we also retain our individual travel portal, besides advertising on MSN's website," says Amit Taneja, managing director, desiya.com.

Interestingly, MSN's deal has not sent makemytrip.com or travelguru.com running for cover.

"Standalone travel sites will still have an upper hand as they can appeal to a wider audience by advertising on various media instead of restricting themselves to a specific portal," says Ashwin Damera, CEO and co-founder, TravelGuru.

Sure, online or offline, independence has its own value. And as the cloud cover begins to grow and trees begin to lose leaves, you'll have more and more people logging on to the net to log out of the daily grind.