ETW Staff – Mumbai
Yatra.com has launched a new mobile application, Yatra Mini, targeting budget travellers. The app features bus, train and budget hotel bookings. The key feature of the app is its space – 4.5 MB – which allows it to load in poor network areas. The app is built to cater even to lower-end Android phones. The multi-lingual app is available in Hindi, English. Regional languages such as Tamil, Bangla, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu will be added in order to reach out to various regions of the country.
Over the past few years, Tier II and III cities have shown higher growth of online travel bookings driven by the rising penetration of smartphones and increased access to the internet. A large part of these travellers are travelling by bus and train and choosing budget hotels for their stays on these trips. Yatra aims to target this segment through Yatra Mini.
As per a recent report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), India has 402 million internet users as of December 2015, thereby overtaking the US in total internet users. A large part lot of this growth has come from rural India which has witnessed a 99 per cent surge in mobile internet users and now has over 80 million users. However another facet of rural India growth story is the demography: 75 per cent of internet users from rural India are in the age group of 18-30 years and Yatra is looking to catch them early in their journey of online travel bookings with this platform.
Sharat Dhall, president, Yatra.com said, “Yatra is focused on the needs of the Indian traveller and in this case, we have identified a clear gap in the market with no one catering to a very large and rapidly growing segment of mobile users, who access the internet using their entry level smartphones, and are seeking an app that enables them to make their bookings speedily and does not occupy much memory space. By offering this app in regional languages, we are also tapping into the non-English traveller who is looking to shift to the convenience of online booking. We also researched the needs of this traveller and based on the findings, limited the product offerings to bus, train and budget hotel bookings so that the app is sharply focused on the needs of this segment.”