Articles tagged “yatra”

Good morning from Skift. It's Monday, January 24, in New York City. Here's what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Sabre’s chief commercial officer Roshan Mendis has become an independent director, which seems enough to settle a dispute that could have derailed Yatra's plan to go public.

This push into cargo is risky, because Yatra needs as many investors on its side as possible as it prepares to go public in its home country, where corporate travel stands to rebound strongly.

The activist investor Maguire has raised fair points that Yatra has taken too long to hire a chief financial officer and to hold board elections. But otherwise, CEO Dhruv Shringi and the management team have led the company well.

It's an updated version of the classic bait-and-switch, and any travel business that comes in will be welcome after the Ebix deal fell through earlier this year.

As well as the devastating short-term effects, we're now starting to see how coronavirus can equally have longer lasting impacts on the corporate travel sector.

Corporate travel and event planning seem to be the only profitable paths in India's online travel scene, at least for now.

Ebix has made a generous takeover bid for Yatra, a corporate travel services provider and online travel agency, to create one of India’s largest end-to-end travel services businesses. Ebix's shrewd CEO Robin Raina is cornering the rare travel segments in India that aren't facing fierce price wars, namely, corporate travel services and currency exchange.

This tuck-in deal is minuscule, but it underscores Yatra's drive to maintain its position as India's largest online provider of travel booking tools for corporations. Yatra has the potential to build an "Egencia for India" over the course of five or 10 years.

Surprising factors have delayed the coronation of MakeMyTrip Group as India's queen of domestic online travel. Paytm came out of nowhere to grab share, Oyo upended budget hotel distribution, Ixigo tried to make price comparison chic, and Booking.com outmaneuvered Expedia for premium hotel bookings. From this scrappy mix, online travel will find new lessons.