India has become the priority market for online travel company Booking.com as the market is booming. The company is also tapping on Indian youth to increase its growth in India.
In an exclusive conversation with CNBC-TV18, Laura Holdsworth, managing director (MD) and vice president (VP), Asia Pacific (APAC), Booking.com said, "Indian market is very hot to watch. We're all watching it with a lot of anticipation and we see a lot of destinations that are ready to welcome Indian travellers. There is a lot of travel potential in India with a population of over 1.4 billion people. The younger travellers have more disposable income and they're prioritising travel."
Notably, Indian travellers have been ranked number 2 on APAC’s most confident travellers, as per the company. 86% of Indian travellers are optimistic about their future travel plans, while 61% have no intention of postponing their travel plans in the next 12 months, Booking.com said.
Investments in India are yet another area of importance for the travel portal and efforts are being made to remove friction points.
Holdsworth feels it is the company's mission to make it easy for everyone to experience the world. She said, "We want to remove all friction points. We launched flights in India, that's a driver for new travellers to use our portal. We're seeing that almost one fourth of travellers who come to Booking.com are young travellers.
Investment here is a priority not only for the region, "but even globally."
She further added, "We're doing a number of things to continue to grow, we've ensured the connected trips are possible from India."
Indian market continues to be a focus market for the portal. The company launched Hindi as a language in Q1 this year which is available across all Booking.com platforms. The Dutch travel portal is up against MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip, EaseMyTrip, Yatra.com in India and has a lot of ground to capture in terms of market share.
Booking.com is seeing new trends globally too post the pandemic. Trends have changed in terms of destination, time of travel and mode of travel. In 2022, the company saw over 90 crore room bookings, registering a jump of 52% in comparison to pre-pandemic level and 13% uptick in revenue. The company had a decent Q2 too on the back of robust leisure travel demand. The portal registered a 9% jump in terms of Average Bed Revenue, while overall revenue surged 27% to $5.5 billion globally.
EBITDA exceeded the company's expectations jumping 64% to $1.8 billion. In Q2 there was a 40% increase in room night growth in Asia. According to the travel portal's APAC head, there is a rise in alternative accommodation like home stays, hostels, campsites and vacation rentals.
Holdsworth said, "We're seeing change in typical seasonality and rise in offbeat travel destinations. Similar trends seen in Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 Indian cities."
Holdsworth told CNBC-TV18, "Hotel chains are opening up in these Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 cities, so are the alternative accommodation spaces. So we're making sure that we're capturing that in India. We will continue to work across the country to make sure travellers can go where they want, when they want at the right price."
When asked about expectations from the festive season and upcoming winter season, Laura said, "There's a huge opportunity here, we're seeing a significant increase in booking already. We also know Indian travellers tend to book last minute, so we expect to see a surge in bookings near festivals and winter break. For the upcoming winter season we will continue to see the rise in some of these additional destinations."
(Edited by : Keshav Singh Chundawat)
First Published: Oct 19, 2023 6:02 PM IST
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