The online travel market, as we all know is overcrowded. Here is a quick recap of the existing players, what they do and their funding status:
| OTA (online travel agency) |
Funding | Investor | Extra plugs |
| FlightRaja (now called Via) | $5 million | NEA Indo US ventures (owned by Vinod Dham) | Domestic + International flight ticketing, bus ticketing, hotel reservations. |
| MakeMyTrip | $10 million | SAIF Capital Partners | Domestic flight ticketing, hotel bookings – bundled/packaged service. |
| Yatra | $5 million | Reliance Capital, Norwest VC, TV18 | Domestic flight ticketing, hotel bookings – bundled/packaged service. |
| TravelGuru | $10 million | Sequoia Capital India (Sequoia Capital and WestBridge Capital Partners) | Domestic ticketing, hotels, cruises, holiday packages, corporate travel |
| Cleartrip | $3 million | KPCB, Sherpalo | Domestic booking, hotels, place information |
| Arzoo | Sabeer Bhatiya’s factory! | Domestic + International flight ticketing, Holiday package, car rentals | |
| Rediff Faresearch | Rediff | meta search engine. | |
| Yahoo Farechase | Y! | meta search engine – though not too sure why Y! is not promoting this in India. | |
| Zoomtra | * | meta search engine. | |
| Ghumo | * | meta search engine (for flight/train and hotel bookings) | |
| iXiGo | self funded | meta search engine, read our review here. | |
| ezeego1 | Cox & Kings | probably the most relevant meta search engine. | |
| Travelocity India | N/A | Sabre Holdings | Initial focus on hotel bookings. |
| Travel Chacha | * | Domestic + International booking, car rentals, hotel bookings, Packaged deals | |
| TripMela | * | Focuses only on travel related deals | |
| Meratrip | * | Main focus is on travel related deals | |
| Airdeccan.net | AirDeccan | has a tie-up with TravelGuru for hotel bookings. | |
| Indiatimes | Indiatimes | Travel booking for partner sites |
‘*’ = lack of information on investors (if you have any info, please let me know).
Few interesting info (via livemint)
- Travel portals in India did business of $800 million (of the total $15.5 billion travel market in the country) in 2006. This is expected to increase to $2 billion by 2008.
- In 2006, India attracted 4.43 million foreign tourists; the same year, around 350-400 million domestic tourists are estimated to have traveled around the country
- Air passengers in the country increased from 22.788 million in 2005 to 32.172 million in 2006.
- Flightraja is already profitable and does business of Rs1 crore a day.
- On an average, commission from air tickets which account for the bulk of the business are the lowest and range from between 2% and 9%.
- For hotel bookings, the commission is much higher and varies between 8% and 25%
Who said Internet will kill the intermediaries? They are flourishing and are going strong!
Ashiish K Sinha
