Skift India Forum Highlights: Where CEOs See Growth – and the Biggest Challenges

While the inaugural Skift India Forum in 2024 focused on “celebrating India,” the focus this year was on the challenges.

“India is now a force domestically as well as outbound," Skift CEO and Founder Rafat Ali said Tuesday at the second edition of the Skift India Forum. "This year, along with seeing how that story has advanced, we will also be looking at the challenges, particularly inbound.”

“India is at the forefront of the global travel revolution, and our time has come. Our country is no longer an emerging player, it is a defining force shaping global travel trends, and we need to make the most of it,” said Anjali Mehra, the Advisor of PR Strategy and Media Relations at The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts.

Discussion with CEOs and industry leaders focused on six key themes: 

• Outbound’s Rise: Is the world ready?
• Inbound needs a public/private boost
• The live tourism surge: Sports, concerts, religious travel, and experiences
• AI and apps takeover of travel booking: Is the connected trip finally coming?
• Sustainability: A critical balancing act
• Geopolitical threats: Economic slowdown and closed borders

Despite the domestic and outbound tourism boom, inbound tourism has been struggling in India. In 2023, about 9.5 million foreign tourists visited India, about 10% less than pre-Covid.

In 2002, India launched the ‘Incredible India’ marketing campaign to showcase the country’s tourism offerings, and a revamped version of it was launched in 2016-17. 

Dipak Deva, Managing Director and CEO of Travel Corporation India, said, “Incredible India 2.0 was a very important milestone in our digital campaigns. In 2018-19, we earned $30 billion as a country in foreign exchange. We are now down to no campaign and no money being spent. We need a well-funded digital campaign which should be measured not by foreign tourist arrivals but by foreign exchange earned.”

Air India CEO on Capturing India’s Outbound Travel Demand

As India is poised to be the fifth-largest outbound travel market by 2027, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson believes that the power to capture a lot of this growth is in the hands of Indian airlines. "As time goes on, more and more of Indian aviation's critical mass will be in India," he said, while acknowledging aircraft supply constraints.

According to Wilson, the issue for Indian aviation in recent years was not deploying more capacity. Now, Indian airlines have a combined order book of more than 1,000 planes. 

"I think that's a good thing because it's bringing the locus of Indian travel back onto Indian soil, and all of the spin-off economic benefits that brings tourism to airports, caterers, hoteliers and everything else," Wilson said.

Talking about the implementation of generative AI, Wilson said that AI would be used for "augmentation," not "substitution" of workers. Issuing refunds and training pilots, cabin crew and ground staff would be areas where gen AI would be a fit. 

Oyo’s Aggressive 'Premiumization' Strategy

Oyo is following a premium strategy in India as rising incomes have created a demand for higher-end accommodation, said Founder and Group CEO Ritesh Agarwal. "It's a relative premiumization, not absolute, which means we're going from a classic Oyo to Townhouse Hotels, which is the one level up," he said.

Agarwal highlighted the unprecedented travel boom in India, mentioning Kumbh Mela (a Hindu pilgrimage that drew hundreds of millions of visitors), and strong growth in spiritual tourism destinations, like Ayodhya.

Outside India, Oyo is expanding in the U.S. Agarwal believes the company's technology savvy can give its newly acquired brand Motel 6 a competitive edge. "Motel 6 is by far the most recognizable economy [brand] in the U.S. It's become a cultural icon."

These moves come ahead of a planned IPO, even as Agarwal was non-committal on timing. He emphasized the company's strong financial position, and said that the board would ultimately make any IPO decision based on earnings, market conditions, and the desired share price. Agarwal said his current focus remains on business growth, customer service improvement, and executing Oyo's premium strategy.

MakeMyTrip CEO’s Ambitions for Travel Superapp

Online travel agency MakeMyTrip wants to push ahead with its plan to become the country's 'travel superapp,' with the company expanding to experiences, activities, and even cruises to its travelers. However, Rajesh Magow, Co-founder and Group CEO of MakeMyTrip, said the venture could challenge how Indian travelers purchase travel products.

"The challenging part is consumer behavior. When you analyze buying behavior for travel products in India, it's very different from the Western market. In India, not many people end up buying a product in one session," said Magow.

At the heart of this strategy is the concept of the “connected trip” — a vision to integrate highly diverse and fragmented travel segments to create an end-to-end experience. Keeping in mind that most Indian travelers don't shop this way, Magow said the company will work to "stitch together" products over a number of different sessions.

"It’s an a la carte buying behavior, so you need to follow their journey on and off the platform. You need to stitch together that consumer flow. Even at the global level, single transactions are incredibly low, but the wallet share over a period of time is higher."

India to be Marriott’s Third-Largest Market

India is a cornerstone of Marriott International's future growth, with the company projecting it will become its third-largest market. This vision, however, is being navigated against a backdrop of growing global economic uncertainty. 

“The public markets thrive in times of stability and reliability, and I think the early portion of the Trump administration has provided neither of those,” said Anthony Capuano, Marriott International CEO. 

The company already has a large footprint in India: Over 30,000 rooms, plus a substantial pipeline. 

"Will we see a recession? I’d almost hold my answer until we get through the end of first quarter earnings season," Capuano said. "If we get through that season and we see strong corporate profits, we continue to see strong employment numbers, then I will feel much more bullish about the economy. If, on the other hand, you see a real pullback on corporate profits, we may find ourselves in a different set of circumstances.”

Still, Marriott is not planning to revise its financial forecasts. "We've got a couple weeks left in the quarter, but the momentum we're seeing on a global basis, both in terms of occupancy and average rate growth, is really encouraging.”

Why IndiGo is Different From Other Low-Cost Carriers

India’s largest airline IndiGo is different from the traditional low-cost carriers in Europe, said CEO Pieter Elbers. “They operate in secondary airports, have relatively low frequency, do not carry cargo, and have no loyalty program. IndiGo flies to all major airports in India and is a market leader in all, flies 20 times a day each side between Delhi and Mumbai alone, has good cargo operations, and a loyalty program.”

For Elbers, the focus is on ensuring that customer needs of India are well catered to by the product that IndiGo offers. That includes catering to first-time flyers and the emerging aspirational class of travelers as well, he emphasized. 

He is also not concerned about delays in delivery of planes by Airbus. According to him, IndiGo accounted for one in every 12 or 13 planes produced by Airbus, and that even with supply issues, it had received 58 deliveries. “The big size of our order book gives me the confidence that we are well-positioned to deal with these fluctuations,” he said. 

Despite its venture into business class and loyalty programs, IndiGo wants to compete at budget price points too. “India is a cost-competitive, price-sensitive, and consumer value-conscious market. Maintaining cost leadership is important for us. Every step we take is keeping that in mind, because if we don’t, we would be out of business.”