ETtechTravel booking volumes for the October-December quarter will exceed the levels in the same quarter of pre-Covid 2019 by 1.4 times for Cleartrip with December being a “record” month, Aditya Agarwal, CFO of the Flipkart-owned online travel company told ET in an interview.
On a quarter on quarter basis, booking volumes in the current quarter will exceed July-September by at least 30%, he said.
“We are upgrading the hotel experience on Flipkart and Cleartrip and next would be buses and trains,” he said.
Agarwal said the company has seen “huge” growth across the board this year. The recovery last year was at a smaller pace. “It (2021) was far more impacted by Covid than the current year,” he said, attributing part of the current jump in volumes to recovery from that. “But, even beyond that, we have picked up market share across all verticals,” he said.
“We have recorded a 2x growth this year. Within that, hotels have grown at 4x, but from a very small base. Air has grown by 1.7-1.8x. We are also investing a lot in other channels such as B2B, which has recorded significant growth this year as well,” he added.
Agarwal said the company has made “significant” investments in areas such as customer experience and product and technology.
Hotels are also a big area of investment, he said, adding the company is scaling up contracting of hotels.
“We work with aggregators as well, which gives us access to more than 300,000 hotels worldwide. And then we have contracting, which is something we are scaling up,” Agarwal said. “Hotels is a big area of investment for us.”
He said Cleartrip has contracted 20,000 hotels directly this year, which are expected to drive close to 80% of its business. “We will take that number close to 40,000-50,000 over the course of 2023,” he added.
“Our research shows that while pricing is important, the most important attribute that customers are looking for when they are making their decisions on where to do their online travel bookings is the customer experience, which is throughout the funnel – at the discovery stage, bookings stage, and even post-bookings when people need assistance for cancellations and amendments or any other reasons,” Agarwal said.
He said the company has grown its product and technology team by 2.5 times and customer experience team by more than three times. “We have also upgraded some of our tech infrastructure,” he added.
Agarwal said flights and B2C continue to be the most dominant categories for the company, but the mix is changing.
“We have had a strong presence in hotels. Earlier this year, we launched hotels on the Flipkart app as well,” he said. “We are also upgrading the entire hotel experience on Flipkart as well as Cleartrip. Next would be other categories such as buses and trains. So, the mix is going to become more evenly spread out. With Covid recovery, the domestic flights business has come back faster than other categories. As the market recovers in other areas, we will see the mix will continue to change,” he added.
On a quarter on quarter basis, booking volumes in the current quarter will exceed July-September by at least 30%, he said.
Post the acquisition by Flipkart, Cleartrip does not see capital as a constraint and has grown its headcount by 162% since April 2021, Agarwal said.
“We are upgrading the hotel experience on Flipkart and Cleartrip and next would be buses and trains,” he said.
Agarwal said the company has seen “huge” growth across the board this year. The recovery last year was at a smaller pace. “It (2021) was far more impacted by Covid than the current year,” he said, attributing part of the current jump in volumes to recovery from that. “But, even beyond that, we have picked up market share across all verticals,” he said.
“We have recorded a 2x growth this year. Within that, hotels have grown at 4x, but from a very small base. Air has grown by 1.7-1.8x. We are also investing a lot in other channels such as B2B, which has recorded significant growth this year as well,” he added.
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Agarwal said the company has made “significant” investments in areas such as customer experience and product and technology.
Hotels are also a big area of investment, he said, adding the company is scaling up contracting of hotels.
“We work with aggregators as well, which gives us access to more than 300,000 hotels worldwide. And then we have contracting, which is something we are scaling up,” Agarwal said. “Hotels is a big area of investment for us.”
He said Cleartrip has contracted 20,000 hotels directly this year, which are expected to drive close to 80% of its business. “We will take that number close to 40,000-50,000 over the course of 2023,” he added.
“Our research shows that while pricing is important, the most important attribute that customers are looking for when they are making their decisions on where to do their online travel bookings is the customer experience, which is throughout the funnel – at the discovery stage, bookings stage, and even post-bookings when people need assistance for cancellations and amendments or any other reasons,” Agarwal said.
He said the company has grown its product and technology team by 2.5 times and customer experience team by more than three times. “We have also upgraded some of our tech infrastructure,” he added.
Agarwal said flights and B2C continue to be the most dominant categories for the company, but the mix is changing.
“We have had a strong presence in hotels. Earlier this year, we launched hotels on the Flipkart app as well,” he said. “We are also upgrading the entire hotel experience on Flipkart as well as Cleartrip. Next would be other categories such as buses and trains. So, the mix is going to become more evenly spread out. With Covid recovery, the domestic flights business has come back faster than other categories. As the market recovers in other areas, we will see the mix will continue to change,” he added.
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