Traditional travel players moving towards dotcoms in search of profits!
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BusinessStandard: Traditional travel players are taken by the online boom in the travel industry and are now using their resources to get a foothold in the online travel space. |
| The possibility of making profits from exclusive online portals seems to be catching on with small and big travel agencies alike. Though online travel agencies account for less than 5 per cent of the market currently, they are expected to double their share by 2008. |
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According to Urrshila Kerkar, CEO (India), Cox & Kings this trend is the “second movers advantage” as a few traditional tour operators are thanking online travel agencies such as makemytrip.com and travelguru.com for exploring the Indian online travel market and providing them a chance to gain the an insight. "It is imperative to adopt a joint online and offline model to succeed in India,” she said |
| “It is imperative to adopt a joint online and offline model to succeed in India,” she says, adding that the brand equity of a traditional player counts in the end. |
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Cox & Kings is soon to launch its own online travel portal www.ezeego1.com, which is to be launched next month. |
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Another Traditional travel player that’s going online is Indo Asia Tours, which is investing Rs 10 crore in developing and marketing www.indiaholidaymall.com. |
| They expect to get business worth at least Rs 50 crore in three years and break even in 18 months after its launch by the end of this fiscal year. |
| Another advantage for traditional players who are going online is that they can reach out to their existing distribution base faster and cheaper. Sixty per cent of the business on Sahara Global’s portal will be from B2B while the rest will be from B2C transactions. |
| Stic Travels another one in the online portal race and is already working on its travel portal which will be launched in a month, at a cost of Rs 30 lakh. The portal according to Arun Khanna, head, strategic initiatives, will offer real-time hotel bookings and air tickets, both international and domestic. Car rental though will only be domestic. |
| According to Arun Khanna An interesting feature of the portal will be its dynamic online maps, he stresses, which will be updated monthly. Khanna is targetting about Rs 10-12 crore of business through the website by the end of March 2008. |
With already more than a dozen travel portals like makemytrip.com, cleartrip.com, travelguru.com, yatra.com, arzoo.com, flightraja.com, xplorz.com etc.. Its to be seen how many of the new ones actually survive the competitive heat!
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