Indian Online Travel Companies Are Done Just Selling Tickets
Photo Credit: India Gate in Delhi. Pixabay / Shalender Kumar
Skift Take
Indian OTAs are done competing purely on price. The new game is about how much of your travel life they can absorb before you think to look elsewhere. Partnerships and AI are the tools. The real prize? Travelers’ attention.
The dust is still settling after this month’s state election results in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Assam and then the swearing in ceremonies, though “settling” may be generous. Every airport lounge television in India last week had been trapped in an endless cycle of vote-share graphics, shouting panels, and sometimes strategic silences from party spokespersons pretending they definitely saw this coming.
The election results confirmed one thing the travel sector already knew. India is fragmenting into dozens of different consumer stories happening simultaneously. The same country that gave us helicopter campaigns in Bengal also gave us a huge jump in five-star hotel bookings this summer — they more than doubled.
That’s the headline number from Cleartrip's PeekABoo summer tracker: five-star hotel bookings are up 108% this summer. Not budget hotels. Not mid-range. Actual five-star hotels.
The old assumption about the Indian traveler b
