Articles tagged “makemytrip”

The decision by MakeMyTrip, India's largest online travel agency, to start selling Oyo budget lodging is significant. The move recognizes that the heavily funded Oyo is no longer a rival marketplace and is instead primarily a supplier. Asset-light hotel chains need to wake up to Oyo's rise.

India has many homegrown online travel players, but only a couple will thrive. MakeMyTrip will be one of the survivors, but it may take until 2022 for it to achieve profitability. Expect it to make more acquisitions and investments to consolidate market share.

The online travel market in India is ripe with opportunity. But competition is brutal. In response, MakeMyTrip has recently debuted loyalty programs and technological upgrades to entice well-heeled customers to choose it over the discounters.

Travelport's distribution deal with India's largest online travel agency suggests that it can punch above its weight. But Travelport still faces a struggle against its much larger competitors.

In India, market leader MakeMyTrip is betting on a multi-pronged strategy to defend itself against the intrusion of Booking.com on its turf. Execution matters. But so does the patience of MakeMyTrip's key backer, Ctrip.

China's largest online travel company says that it has changed its practices for upselling customers to comply with a consumer watchdog's request. The hiccup shouldn't knock Ctrip off its growth stride.

OYO Rooms founder believes that the future of travel is brands becoming their own distributors, which is, of course, every brand's dream. It may turn out to be true for super brands in isolated cases but it would be a very fragmented and unsatisfying user experience. There is a lot of convergence going on but the mammoth online travel agency sector isn't checking out anytime soon.

MyGola had a creative product but struggled to find an audience and to monetize it. It appears as though MakeMyTrip will now use MyGola to focus on travel inspiration and in-destination activities for the Indian traveler.

Rather than working on making it easier for Indian travelers to transition easily between various devices, MakeMyTrip is focusing on keeping consumers on smartphones, and solving the clunkiness of the payment process on mobile. It's a bet that is India-specific, but might be instructive for some other parts of the developing world.

There are exceptions, but nearly all of the booking sites want to increase their hotel mix because the margins are higher than for airline tickets. MakeMyTrip's acquisition of EasyToBook can be seen in this context.