Ixigo To Focus On Hotel Booking Business Over Next Few Quarters To Boost Growth: Chairman

Online travel agency Ixigo is planning to ramp up its investment in the hotel booking segment, which traditionally has been a significant contributor to the revenue of its peers, according to the company’s Chairman and Managing Director Aloke Bajpai.

Ixigo has primarily been known for its bus and train segment, helping customers book journeys through their platform. The company also offers flight ticket booking services.

Talking to NDTV Profit, Bajpai said Ixigo is now focusing on the hotel booking business to boost revenues.

“We have been talking recently about hotels being an area of priority for us. We recognise that for most OTAs (online travel agencies) out there, hotels are a sizable chunk of their revenue and GTV (gross transaction value),” he said.

“Globally, in fact, there is an established template that you launch with flights and you build hotels out. That is how people used to build OTAs,” Bajpai added.

While flying might be the preferred mode of travel in other countries, Indians generally go for buses and trains, when it comes to journeys. Ixigo tapped the middle class and started with train and bus booking services as its focus, Bajpai highlighted.

“It's just that in India, only 4% of people fly. So our strategy was to go after train and bus, with equal forward and sort of build those out because we wanted to tap into the middle class. We wanted to start with trains and as that person graduates up into flights, hotels then become an important leg,” Bajpai said.

Therefore, Ixigo has been “doubling down” on the online hotel booking business for the past few quarters and will continue to do so, the top executive mentioned.

“Naturally when somebody is going from A to B and then staying in B for three days, they would need some kind of accommodation. So that's why we have been kind of doubling down on building the right product, on getting the right supply, all those things in the last few quarters,” he said.

“Over the next few quarters, you will hear more from us about that. It's too early to talk about more details there,” the Ixigo CMD added.

Other value-added services will also continue to be a focus for the company’s growth.

“Ancillaries like value-added services that we have (will be a focus)… recently, we launched a travel guarantee, which gives you up to a 3 times refund if your waitlisted ticket on the train doesn't confirm. Those kinds of products we will continue sort of innovating and coming out with. Each product solves customer problems, as well as improves the ability to monetise,” Bajpai said.

Shares of Le Travenues Technology Ltd., the parent company of Ixigo, closed 1.35% lower at Rs 158.95 apiece on the NSE on Friday. Compared to this, benchmark Nifty 50 ended 0.18% lower at 23,559.95.