The Travel Web

What’s Next For Indian Travel Portals...

Indian travellers are no longer just gleaning websites for information. They are freezing their travel plans online. But with the number of these travel websites set to increase, both with indigenous start-ups and international incomings, Bhisham Mansukhani and Charmaine Fernz contextualise and examine the trend and its potential

Travel websites have been presumed a complimenting bridesmaid to the orthodox brick and mortar format for a long time, their plight compounded further by the burst of the infamous dotcom bubble in the late nineties and a sudden commercial aversion for all things Internet. It has been a bumpy ride for websites for various industries and much like most of them, travel portals in India have begun to arrive with the assurity of not just sustenance but profit, tapping the affluent travellers and creating revenue streams that exceed the basic holiday package. Indian travel websites have thawed through the cliche of being information processors for curious, iffy surfers. They are making money.

What Does It Take?

That is a question that haunted the initial dotcom area that came to grief. The question still lingers but it has, in most part, been answered by some of India's current travel sites. One such is Journeymart.com. Its chairman and CEO Gautam Chadha proffers, "Good travel portals have two inherent USPs - first, travel lends itself naturally and easily to the visual and immediate Internet medium. It is a product that the Web can almost tangibly display to the user and customer. Second, travel portals instantly respond to a user's quest, ie, they provide travel information - destination, products and services - and they provide an ability to query and transact in real-time online. Unlike a vanilla portal that may skim the surface of varied and general information and then lead nowhere, thereby frustrating users, a good travel portal will target a traveller's needs, offer choices and fulfill his travel requirement. It is a formula for success - give a customer what he wants where he wants it."

People who run a travel dotcom must ensure it is run like a regular business - a business that offers a value product and service easily to an identified target audience, at a viable economic level Gautam Chadha

Traveljini.com is another website that has endured through the hard, flat times and incessant industrial sceptesism to evolve a sustainable business model. Anaggh Desai, CEO, offers his insight into how to make a travel site go to work.

"In one word - focus. Though with economy on an upward swing, people willing to travel and more important, experiment with travel, it has added to the success. Everyone wanted to be the leader in travel in the Internet space in 2000, leading to chaos. Today after the shakeout, there is a healthy respect for the Internet space and travel people are using Internet as a distribution business model instead of wanting to encash a quick buck. One needs to have a specfic focus on the Internet space, with an emphasis on innovative products, reaching out quickly to the subscriber base and encashing referrals," Desai said.

Chadha is of the opinion that people who run a travel dotcom must ensure it is run like a regular business - a business that offers a value product and service easily to an identified target audience, at a viable economic level. "The difference lies in the kind of display, the immediacy of transaction and interactivity and the importance of updated information. This difference is important to success within the internet medium," Chadha said.

Consumer Convenience Does It

The challenge for travel portals, most experts point out, is to make a compelling case to the potential passenger to make the computer screen the literal one-stop shop for sealing travel transactions -- no need to get out of one's comfort zone, meet a counter staff or mull over a brochure. The travel portal has to replicate that entire process with a thrust on customer empowerment and convenience. Deep Kalra, CEO, Makemytrip.com, has had some success in doing that. "It's all about making it easy for the consumer and in his best interest. The website must put out a plethora of choices for a passenger. He should be able to compare rates offered by different suppliers on the same screen, work out equations from the comfort of his own home without having to be given a preset gamut of options by the travel agent."

To be able to think about the portal the way the traveller does, Kalra stresses, "Sites must ask for user reviews which would throw up a whole range of ideas and even criticism which can be channelised towards making the site as relatable to the user. It should pretty much be his site." Reigning in the ability of the portal to manage transactions in isolation, Kalra proffers online rather than offline consultancy as complimenting the portal. "Consultancy can be looked at as an added advantage. Investing in technology eventually helps tighten the noose on operational costs, besides making operations a lot more sophisticated. Kalra adds that it makes good business sense for conventional travel companies to transcend their business to the Internet space.

"Agents should really want to become a dotcom as there are certain inherent advantages that accrue to both. Them and the customer, resulting from a cost-savvy model. Most big travel companies are looking at India as a very vibrant space. Things are working so fast that there would be an online travel conference by the end of the year," Kalra said.

Business Sense

The website must put out a plethora of choices for a traveller. He should be able to compare rates offered by different suppliers, work out equations, without having to be given a preset gamut of options by travel agents Deep Kalra

The Internet is a facilitator and offers a generation ahead opportunity for business travel management. For the business traveller, the Internet can allow corporations to keep their travel policy up-to-date and current and viewed through their intranet by eligible persons only. This allows for executives to be kept abreast of all that they are entitled to as an information tool, to book within their authorisation, for such bookings to be authorised as need be, to be then actioned by the in-house travel agent and to be auto billed and accounted for through into payment settlement - all via a desktop computer without paper and the movement of this paper from desk to desk.

"There are many tools already available and the best part is that the software can be customised to suit corporations independent needs. Many corporations being serviced by professional corporate travel agents are already using the internet but this has not been quantified in India," Chadha said.

Kalra agreed, saying, "Business travel has begun to move to the Net in developed countries. In India, corporates do use the Internet for booking while still retaining implants. For the corporate model to be successful in the dotcom context, it has to blend with the company in travels - company feeds in information which needs to be catered to - this requires in depth knowledge of the way the respective company's systems work and how these are integrated. However India has a long way to go in this regard. Corporate booking engines still do not exist in India, Kalra revealed.

The Second Coming

Today, there is a healthy respect for the Internet space and travel people are using the Internet as a distribution business model instead of wanting to encash a quick buck. One also needs to have a specfic focus on the Internet space Anaggh Desai

The hedonistic aspirations of the dotcom aspirants during the bloodbath towards the close of the last decade were held chiefly responsible for the fall from grace. The vanguards of the second dotcom revolution are sanguine about their prospects this time around and not without reason. At the time of the dotcom bust in 2000, the travel industry in India had yet to discover the power and potential of the internet and realise how well it was suited to their trade. There was a meagre understanding of web technology in general and most companies and their senior executives were apprehensive about using the Internet and about facilities in the country for users to access the Web. Dial-up connections were slow and few and far between. Not many people could visualise how great the leap would be and how fast it would come about. The few travel websites that existed were basically brochure websites and belonged to companies like airlines or large hotel chains that had an international presence and were beginning to realise that an international internet market had begun to slowly emerge.

Says Chadha, "Today, there is a sea-change. Broadband connections have made the Net a common feature in the traveller's life and not only internationally and in the metros but also in A and B towns. Users have developed a confidence in online commerce. A website has become a viable sales and promotion channel and the travel trade is well aware of this."

Vital signs of Chadha's viewpoint are already emerging. Air Deccan sells exclusively through their website and offline offices. The Indian Railways website has gone a long way in engendering faith in the efficiency of selling and buying a travel product easily off the Web. There are some that are keen to hop onto the new age bandwagon but aren't quite there yet. While almost all travel companies have web-brochures, most still don't know how to maximise and promote their usage within a potential market. They lack the infrastructure and cohesiveness to adapt their product for the medium and update it continuously.

Chadha adds, "Travel is their forte, not technology. The expertise and ready platform for the industry could make that vital difference to many travel and related organisations while giving a boost to the tourism business in India."

The reason why the pitch this time around seems a lot more favourable dotcoms to consolidate is the changing profile of the traveller and the social landscape of the country. "India is fast becoming one of the best networked countries in the world. The Indian traveller is ready to put up his credit card details and his passport number on a secure site. He buys his railway tickets online and shops on auction sites. He is a member of a burgeoning middle and upper class where affordability is increasing, spending is on a high, and travel is a neccessary luxury. According to Desai, "The few of us who are around, surviving, making money would say that the Indian traveler is maturing, with an intense curiousity to experiment in travel. A lot of the "emerging" travellers are the seasoned travellers knowing what they want and also at what price. They have become very educated and specific in their needs."

The online medium is far and away, the most successful vertical in the case of travel. People can buy travel in the most convenient way. Post-CRS, the net has afforded many benefits to its users by offering a whole host of choices and wealth of information via a single medium," Kalra said. The confidence of India's second generation of dotcom successes is redoubtebly endearing. To their credit, this batch of dotcommers have a certain street smart circumspection about them. Moreover, their core experience spans an understanding of the offline travel business and modern technology alongwith the skill to integrate the two. More such enterprises could well catapult India to the hitherto pinnacle of global travel transacting -- a almost phenemenon that has been pending for a long time.

B2B Or Not?

B2B or not b2b, that is the question concerning many budding dotcom millionaires. B2C is out of fashion with much of the investment community but B2B (business to business) is another matter and many entrepreneurs are busy re-writing their business plans to reflect this. If you have a good B2B e-commerce proposition that serves an industry community you might just get the necessary funding to get your business off the ground. As a budding b2b online travel entrepreneur you will, of course, face some stiff competition. Krisia Holidays MD, Suraj Dalwani is a package wholeseller who has taken the unique initiative of hosting a comprehensive website for his agents. He still posits his faith in potency of a B2B site as a revenue driver in the long term. "Granted that the modern Indian traveller is relatively more Net savvy now, but B2C portals have not been effective. The problem, I think, is that Indians still don't percieve the computer as an adequate substitute to human contact. But when you take technology into the commercial context, things are different. Krisia Holidays uses its website primarily as an information and distribution channel for our partners to help them get more efficient and have more than just a brochure to work with. Our portal offers client rates with regard to hotels and airlines as well as the facility to book on the system. We then process the booking details, track the booking as well as service the agents and their clients through a call centre. Though the human element cannot be downplayed, the real strength of the site is the real-time advantage in terms of instant quotations and confirmations. The turnaround time is next to nothing. I have witnessed an exponential growth in my business and distribution network since the portal went online a year ago," Dalwani said.