We had recently covered iXiGo.com’s strategy of going mobile and essentially eliminating the OTA with their new mobile click to call feature. We caught up with Aloke Bajpai of iXiGo.com to know more about their business model with the mobile version and on current traction at iXiGo.
Here is the interview:
1) Why go mobile whats the business opportunity?
iXiGO Mobile taps into those users who call up travel agencies because they are away from their computer. We are essentially telling them – “Look, here is a way to search all airlines and hotels, and yet save in the booking fees these travel agencies charge you”
2) How many users do you see using you mobile version?
We launched yesterday, and have already seen over a thousand searches. iXiGO Mobile will be featured on some TV shows and newspaper articles over the next week, and with more popularity we expect that early next year we will have tens of thousands of searches over mobiles daily.
3) How many travel searches are done per month on iXiGo?
iXiGO processes nearly half a million travel searches every month. We are generating a monthly total transaction value (TTV) of nearly 10 Crores through iXiGO on airlines, hotel booking sites, bus booking sites, and it’s increasing at a healthy double-digit growth rate month on month despite the market environment.
4) Are you looking at more such tie ups like the one with NDTV? What is the revenue share like in such tie ups?
We already have many such affiliate relationships, and some more are going live in a couple of weeks. We monetize together with our affiliates from ads, bookings, and sponsored listings.
Rajiv Dingra
Rajiv is a prolific blogger who has over 1000 blog posts to his credit at WATBlog. The Founder & CEO of WATMedia our parent company and the Chief Blogger at WATBlog, he has been the driving force of the WAT Evolution. Rajiv does some excellent analysis of the digital media industry in India and often brings out deep insights with his inimitable style of interviewing. Just mail rajiv|at|watblog|dot|com and it will reach him..
are the regular OTA actually making any profits given the clutter in the market? I am quite sceptical about this strategy