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Online travel platform Booking.com plans to focus more on Tier-II and -III cities in the coming days, to further expand its reach in the Indian market.
“For some time, our focus has been on Tier-I cities; however, as we are getting lot of attention from Tier-II and -III cities as well, there would be more focus on them this year,” said Gillian Tans, CEO, Booking.com.
In its efforts to increase supply, the company is reaching out to more hotels and alternative accommodations in the country, she added. Keeping in line with the global trend, the alternative accommodation segment of the Amsterdam-headquartered company is growing faster than the hotels segment in India too.
According to the firm, Goa, Kerala and Karnataka have the highest number of properties in the alternative accommodation segment in the country.
“Our investments have resulted in an alternative accommodation business with a meaningful size and scale — notching up revenues of $2.8 billion in 2018 — representing approximately 20 per cent of the company’s (Booking Holdings) overall revenue for the year. The company also reached the important milestone of over $1 billion in revenues in the third quarter of 2018 alone,” said Pepijn Rijvers, Head of Accommodation, Booking.com
Approximately 40 per cent of the travel platform’s active customers globally have booked an alternative accommodation over the past 12 months.
According to company data, Dubai, Bangkok, Singapore, London and Kuala Lumpur were the most popular cities in 2018 among Indians travelling abroad. On the other hand, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad were the top picks of domestic travellers within India.
However, New Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Chennai and Bengaluru were among the sought-after destinations among international travellers visiting India.
The reporter was in Amsterdam at the invitation of Booking.com
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