Online Travel Industry in India-A snapshot

Today there is the buzz of E commerce in almost all aspects of web. Recently the silicon valley VC have set their sights in India & many of them have invested in booming E commerce ventures ,the new kid on the block being the Group buying, but the hottest story of last year is Undoubtly Make My Trip IPO which has raise the capital value of the company to appox $ 2 Billion . Indian online travel industry is booming since 2004 when it gets started, through still at the nascent stage in comparison with the developed markets of UK, UK & Europe… Its getting bigger and tougher as new competitors & new models are entering at a faster pace!

The online travel industry has witnessed remarkable growth and is attracting large number of national and international players. This is mainly due to rise in spending power of Indian middle class & better internet connectivity which is increasing day by day.

Air travel dominates the current online travel industry in India with 60%+ market share. Railway bookings has a 15%+ market share (thanks to IRCTC),Hotels constitute as 13%+ of market share & the rest is occupied by Bus, Car& Cruise

Ticketing facts in India:

• Total Domestic ticket for sale-per day in India : Appox 275,680
• Ticket Sold by Online(Including OTA & Airline Websites) per day = Appox 51690
• Tickets sold are through Online – Nearly 40%

Reasons for Growth of OTA in India:

• More penetration of internet
• Secure payment mechanisms
• Rising Purchasing power of Indian Middle class

Challenge’s for OTA:

• Low margins & high operating costs
• Airline are tending to reduce distribution costs which is appox 12% hence looking for a model to acquire customers on their own websites.
• Travel Meta search model

Growing Trends:

• OTA are moving away from air to non-air segments
• M-travel
• OTAs looking for offline counters in Tier 2 cities to increase penetration

Players Overview:

• Online travel Industry is the most crowded arena in the E-commerce segment with many new players entering this space leveraging their innovation.
• MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Cleartrip, Ezeego1 are the leading players in the OTA segment.
• Ixigo, Zoomtra, traveltoogle.com are the leading Meta search engines in online travel.
• Consolidation has started in online travel industry as Desia has been acquired by travelguru & Travelocity then acquiring Travelguru
• MakeMyTrip is a clear leader in Online Travel Industry in India having 37% of the Online travel market, Next is Yatra & cleartrip respectively