Airports clogged with burgeoning traffic. One flight takes off from the runway as another gets ready for launching skywards. Hotels opening up in every possible lane you surround yourself with or stand in. The term ‘Reservation’, at least for a change, is the buzzword dominating busy minds if not “maligning the politics and socio-cultural fabric” of the country. Few industries are booming and have been the way travel industry in India is, without a speck of doubt.
If, in case there was some unsureness, it could be slashed away instantly by simply remembering which was the last time we physically walked down to a travel agent’s office to book ourselves a ticket to Goa or even for that matter a bus journey to Amritsar? And now, given the great surge of the constantly rising number of aggregators in both hotel and travel space- in India- there’s good news around the corner. The online travel market in India is experiencing a boom that not many in the world would’ve thought of, truth be told.
Experts are suggesting that fuelled by an unprecedented rate of flight and hotel aggregations, the said market is to touch a staggering $13.6 billion mark by 2021. Lest it be forgotten that we are sitting only less than 3 years from it. The online travel market in India, furthermore, will singularly account for 43% of the total travel category in the country. But that said, just how did India’s travel market fare three years ago.
You instantly understand the exponential current rise factoring in the revelation that back in 2015, the growth of the online travel market in India was only $5.6 billion. From thereon, it’s been making most of each passing day. Given the fact that new online travel-hubs are rising akin to a free-falling hailstorm, the likes of Yatra, Cleartrip, MakeMyTrip, only increases the thrust in an industry that for now does not know a thing about slowing. Let alone stopping or coming to a halt.
But amidst these bustling figures just what has made the cut ever so efficiently, one wonders? There is reason to believe that the combined packages of flight and hotel bookings are a top draw especially among Indian consumers. Back in 2016, stats suggest that the number of hotel rooms booked in India- when you take into consideration both online and offline travel- were a whopping 11.4 million. In 2018, the figure as expected had to rise. A perfect figure is yet to be known. But what is known, thus far, is that flights and hotel bookings in India are slated to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 16% during the 6-year period from 2015 to 2021.
If this doesn’t prove that online travel segment isn’t a lynchpin to increasing numbers in travel industry overall, then what will ever suffice?