MakeMyTrip Is Latest to Join the Tours and Attractions Bandwagon
Photo Credit: Shown here is Jai Mahal Lake Palace in Jaipur, India, one of the places travelers can book a trip to via online agency MakeMyTrip. Jai Mahal Lake Palace
Skift Take
MakeMyTrip's management deserves credit for ending a period of decelerating growth and for reducing operating losses over several quarters. But many investors are impatient for an era of profits.
Online travel agency MakeMyTrip has begun offering a new product category of attractions and activities, such as tickets for theme parks and group walking tours. The new product, soft-launched on its Android app, adds to the flight, hotel, alternative lodging, and intercity-bus tickets that it sells.
MakeMyTrip executives said Thursday, during an earnings call with investors, that they hope to use the product to increase engagement with its customers. The company follows a global trend in online travel companies aggregating tours and activities content online.
MakeMyTrip is India's largest online travel agency. Its brands process 63 percent of India's gross air and hotel bookings online, while its number-two competitor Cleartrip, and number-three competitor, Yatra, collectively have only 26 percent share, according to estimates for 2017, included in a May 2018 Morgan Stanley analysts note. MakeMyTrip said its Redbus brand has about 70 percent share of Indian bus ticketing online.
