MakeMyTrip.com gets big on Bangalore

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 12 June 2007, 19:30 IST
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Bangalore: MakeMyTrip.com, an online travel company today launched its regional office in Bangalore. The offline presence complements the company’s online offerings, to provide customers in Bangalore with greater flexibility and choice in buying international and domestic holidays. This launch is part of the company’s broader strategy to maintain market leadership by strengthening its presence in existing markets, expanding to newer markets, and introducing new and varied customer touch-points to purchase travel anytime and anywhere. Commenting on the launch, Deep Kalra, Founder & CEO, MakeMyTrip.com said, “The Bangalore market presents a huge opportunity to travel solutions providers. It has always had a strong corporate travel opportunity – and today the leisure travel industry too is booming. Holiday or leisure travel currently constitutes around 24 percent of the total pie – but this segment is growing fast and strong, and is expected to grow 2.5 times to 750 crores in the next three years.” “We recently made 1 million trips, and firmly believe that the key to maintaining our market leadership is an unrelenting commitment to innovation - innovation in our product offerings, technology and customer service. Our ongoing investments in full-service walk-in offices is a step in this direction,” he added. The new Make My Trip office is centrally located at Residency Road and includes a dedicated sales and customer service team. Customers will be able to walk in, consult with the travel advisors. Elaborating on the customer benefit provided by the Bangalore office opening, Kalra added, “We are constantly looking for ways to improve customer access and experience. We recognize that Bangaloreans are evolved leisure travelers and the focus here is on new, offbeat destinations. With the regional office, we would be able to assist customers and develop a customized holiday as per their unique needs and preferences.” Make My Trip set up its India operations in September 2005 after four years of profitable operations in the U.S. to cater to the India travel market. The India operation was launched to address the needs of the growing travel community in the country, and today Make My Trip sells over 5000 flight tickets, 1000 hotel room nights and more than 50 holiday packages every day. The site attracts over 1.8 million unique visitors every month, and during 2006 – 2007 helped its customers plan more than one million trips. As the market leader in online travel domain, MakeMyTrip has several firsts to its credit – First to provide a lowest airfare guarantee, introduce online bookings for hotels, cash back offer for various travel products ranging from air ticket to international holidays. The recently launched advanced hotel search engine is another first as it allows for one-click search to a database of over 2500 hotels in over 300 locations. The new enhanced Hotel 2.0 search engine provides for easy search for any information related to hotels. In an industry-first, the site also maps hotel locations (distance and accessibility) from reference points like the city centre, and major local attractions. One can search and buy for hotels by going to the cities map, or shortlist the hotel and then find its location on the city map, search by rate, reviews and more.