The Middle Eastern travel portal that's looking at an IPO for 2013

Middle East's leading online travel portal Cleartrip plans to go public next year, said a top official.

"We are actively looking at going public simply because there is an appetite for high-growth companies. There haven't been many IPO stories out of the Middle East. Different markets have pros and cons, but we look at US as a benchmark for technology companies and it makes sense for us as we are an internet company," Jae Hyung Kim, president of Cleartrip, said in an interview with Gulf News.

He said the Middle East travel industry is worth $60 billion this year based on gross bookings, while the global travel market size is estimated to be approximately $1 trillion based on gross bookings.