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Global travel search company, Skyscanner, says India is one of its priority markets as its focuses on forging local partnerships with online travel firms, airlines and hotels.
It also plans to offer tailor-made products for Indian consumers, such as the bus-booking feature it added to its website in May, in partnership with Redbus.
The travel search company offers comprehensive flight search services as well as comparisons for hotels and car hire.
Andy Sleigh, General Manager, APAC, Skyscanner, said: “If I break down the markets in the Asia-Pacific region, Malaysia and Indonesia are what we call “on the runway” that are still facing some barriers in growth, while markets like India are, we believe, at the “take off stage”, and others like Japan, South Korea and Australia are in the “flying high” group.”
He said: “In India, what we are seeing is the acceleration of Internet penetration, that is growing faster than anywhere in the world and we can piggyback on that. By 2016, we expect it to move up to the top end, as booking online will become standard, thanks to the young, tech-savvy population in the country.”
The travel search firm has set a target to grow Asia-Pacific’s contribution to its global revenues to 33 per cent by 2016. Sleigh believes India will play an important role in achieving this target.
“Personally, India is a very interesting market for me. As, unlike some of the other Asian markets, it has a growing base of independent travellers, who are seeking to explore the world on their own and looking for airfares, hotel rooms and car rentals,” he said.
The company saw 150 per cent growth year-on-year in search traffic from India in 2013; nearly 70 per cent of these searches from India are for international destinations.
Mobile devices are a key growth driver for Skyscanner, with much of Internet use coming through smartphones.
“Nearly 40 per cent of searches from India come from mobile phones — higher than the Asia-Pacific average,” he said.
The company’s mobile App use has grown nearly 350 per cent y-o-y.
Besides focusing on growing partnerships with hotels and airlines, Skyscanner is looking at non-traditional partners, such as travel websites that offer information and may look to integrate Skyscanner’s search options on their websites.
The company is now powering flight searches for Lonely Planet.
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