With the Indian online travel market expected to grow at an average of 46% annually to reach the $4 billion mark by 2011, hoteliers as well as online travel portals are gearing up to make the most of it.
Hoteliers are not only working closely with multiple travel portals, wherein travel portals list hotels for free and work on commissions like travel agents, but are also revamping their websites to make them more user-friendly.
To start with, Marriott International, which sees 5-6% of its booking being made online currently, is expecting the same to rise to 40% in the coming weeks. The company is not only busy revamping its website to make it more user-friendly, but is also not ruling out the possibility of a website in Hindi.
“We don’t have any plan as of now, but we are not striking out a possibility, either”, said Geoff Garside, executive VP-Asia Pacific, Marriott. The hotel management company puts around $10 million annually on e-commerce, indicated Garside.
Similarly, InterContinental ( Marine Drive , Mumbai) sees online bookings in the range of 15-25%, depending upon the season. “All hotels today rely on online business. We too get a fair amount of business from the internet,” said Romil Ratra, GM, InterContinental. “We are constantly working with multiple travel portals to ramp up sales through e-bookings”, said Ratra.
Travel portals are also tying up with retail outlets and travel agents for a mass presence. ?Almost 90% of travel bookings still take place offline,? said Sandeep Murthy, CEO, cleartrip.com. Cleartrip.com has tied up with the Future Group for a retail space in all the Big Bazaar outlets and has plans to join hands with travel agents in the country.
Currently, the portal has a market share of 35% and expects to break-even by next year end. The portal earns 3% to 6% as commission on airlines and 10%-20% on hotel bookings. Yatra.com, another travel portal, has tied-up with Sify Technologies, to increase the penetration of travel related services, including air tickets and hotels/packages at retail level, via 7000 Sify’s retail points.
