Saloni Bhatia – New Delhi
The cash crunch in the economy may have affected travel plans in the short term but it is not stopping OTA players from planning big for 2017. Yatra.com is looking to expand in hospitality and at the same time focus on creating experiential vacations for its customers. Talking to Express TravelWorld, Sabina Chopra, co-founder, Yatra.com stated, “The younger generation is starting to research online for new destinations and experiences which has given more mileage to online portals. There is more demand for new experiences like heritage walks, unique food joints and local experiences in a city that come along with the package. While our main focus will remain to add more hotels, home stays in our portfolio, the concentration will also be in making these experiences available online with the right content.”
The way people travel will soon change as India is headed towards a cashless economy. Commenting on whether the move affected the online travel sales, Chopra said, “99 per cent of transactions on Yatra.com are done through cards as OTAs were the first to introduce digital transfers. In the initial days post the demonetisation announcement, we certainly saw a dip in traffic to our site, however things are coming back to normal since then. The move will encourage more people to shift to digital money which will benefit everyone.”
Commenting on the MakeMyTrip and Ibibo merger, she opined, “It is surely a good move for the industry as investors are now looking at the true potential of this sector. The merger will bring fair competitiveness among players who were earlier fighting off discounts. At Yatra.com we will continue to focus on providing the trusted service to our customers as we always have.”
Targetting the Tier II and Tier III cities, Yatra.com had launched its new mobile application Yatra Mini in August this year. The team continues to introduce new features like self serve, Facebook chat bots, seller marketplace and voice search on the app in order to be relevant in the market. Chopra stated, “With everyone owning a smart phone today, the day isn’t far when the economy entirely shifts to transactions through mobile. These apps are the ideal way to make the product reach the consumer while the content further drives the sales.”
In order to expand into further verticals, Yatra.com will also be looking at partnerships in the homestay space. The brand is already in talks with a few tourism boards, added Chopra.