Online travel sails on strong VC funding, low cost-carriers Mumbai, Aug 14. (PTI): The business of online travel agents seems to have taken wings on the back of huge fundings supplied by Venture Capitalist (VC) firms and a booming aviation sector. Unlike the dotcom bubble at the turn of the millennium, online travel ventures like 'Makemytrip.com', 'Travelguru.com' and 'Yatra.com' seem poised to replicate the success of their overseas peers like 'Travelocity', 'Orbitz' and 'Expedia', in the Indian market, which is expected to grow at 25-30 per cent per annum. Makemytrip has, in the last year of operations, notched up a turnover of $ 50 million and in FY 07, its CEO Deep Kalra, expects the figures to more than double. "Last year, we earned revenues under $ 50 million, but this fiscal we hope to earn about $ 120 million," he told PTI. The site has, itself, secured an investment of $ 10 million from SB Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF), of which about 40 per cent has been deployed to boost the growth momentum. On a similar growth trajectory is Travelguru, founded by Harvard graduate Ashwin Damera, who launched the site with a funding of $ 10 million by WestBridge Capital (now Sequoia Capital), that had in the past backed ventures like Google. "Though it would be another 12-15 months before we see profits, we hope to clock a revenue of $ 20 million this year," says Ashwin. He is also confident that the Venture Capital partners will support his firm throughout. Earlier this month Yatra.com, a venture promoted by Reliance Capital, Norwest Venture Partners and TV 18, too began operations. The venture has been promoted by Dhruv Shringi and Manish Amin, the duo behind 'Ebookers', an online travel website, which was acquired in a buy-out deal by Cendant for $ 410 million in 2004 "We are not the first in the market and we will not be the last, but we are confident of cornering a significant marketshare," said Dhruv, who feels the company will capture about a 25 per cent share in the medium to long-term horizon. While not disclosing the funding details of his venture, Dhruv said, "adequate resources" were available and that the venture partners were committed to his venture. According to an NCAER study, around 550 million domestic tourists in India took over 230 million trips in 2002. And industry estimates that the domestic tourism business is growing at 20-25 per cent annually. The Indian Railways is currently selling 15,000 tickets online a day, of which 40 per cent was coming from the non-metropolitan areas of India. The online travel market in India is still at a nascent stage and we hope it will consolidate in the coming years, Dhruv said. "In the next few years, the Indian online travel market pie should be worth $ 1.5-2 billion, shared between three to four major online players," he maintained. Echoing similar sentiments, Deep Kalra of Makemytrip said "let the dust settle," adding that technology and the user-experience will be the real differentiator. Travelguru CEO Ashwin feels that while the current start-ups will be competitive to get people on board, going forward, the pie was big enough for three to four niche players. For Yatra, the strong retail infrastructure via Reliance Infocomm will help it reach 5,000 Indian cities and villages and use the outlets for fulfilment and payment purposes "Our call centre, which, when fully operational will have people speaking 18 languages," he said. Yatra also plans to leverage the bouquet of channels of 'TV 18', one of its venture partners, for branding purposes. On the other hand, Makemytrip is betting big on user experience to be its critical differentiator in the market. Travelguru, with an advertising outlay of about $ 3 million, will shortly be undertaking a branding exercise for its site. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200608140310.htm http://www.froggy.in/ Private Reply to Tribal Route | 
