Continuing with our series on Recession, Downturn and Startup Survival, here is an interview with Hrush Bhatt, co-founder of ClearTrip.
How are you adapting your business model to the current circumstances. How are you now thinking about revenue and monetization of business?
At Cleartrip, we’re putting much more emphasis on the things we can control as opposed to those we cannot.
Revenues in the travel industry are always heavily impacted by the macro environment, so rather than focus our energies on more growth, we’re focusing on controlling costs and optimising margins.
That said, there are a few things we’re doing on the revenue and monetization side-we’re 
taking a much closer look at ancillary revenue opportunities through targeted cross-sells, online advertising sales and, as you already know, we recently launched our trains product and it’s off to a big start.
What are you doing now that you were not doing previously – has anything in your execution changed?
The biggest change is in how we’re approaching costs. It’s an area where we’re being much more cautious and demanding much greater measurement. Costs and margins are both currently under the microscope and we’ve made some good progress, but we’ve still got a few more things identified on both fronts to improve things further.
Is hiring getting tougher – how will you convince potential candidates to join you when they want the certainty of a secure job in a large company?
We’re not really looking to hire much right now, so I can’t really answer that. We have two or three open positions, but that’s it. We’re quite proud of the team we already have-most of whom have been with the company for a long time now and are some of the most talented people in the space.
What are you doing to manage attrition?
Our attrition rates are negligible. We’ve seen a few people leave, but it’s usually for personal reasons and not because they don’t believe in the future of Cleartrip. We have an amazingly committed team. Personally, I regard that as one of our biggest accomplishments. You can literally see the team’s commitment every time Cleartrip launches a new product. Trains or our international flight search or our hotel map search, for example, each set new benchmarks for the online travel experience; and that’s down to the DNA of this team. People here believe in product excellence, there’s no detail that’s too small.
How have your growth plans been affected by the current market situation – are being more aggressive or cautious.
We’re erring on the side of caution, but we’ve always been big believers in building with a long-term focus as opposed to thinking short-term. There’s a couple of key initiatives that you’ll see us being extremely aggressive about in a few months, but I can’t talk about them in too much detail right now.
What activities do you wish you could engage in right now in the current climate?
Heads down execution and a laser-like focus on our core business of online travel, which is exactly what we’re doing.
Cleartrip’s interface is awesome. iXiGO’s rates are better though. These 2 guys are truly taking travel search a step higher.
@FF:
Guess you forgot to add that you are from iXiGo.
-Ashish
Don’t comment trolls just suck?
Yes it does (sometimes) – and that’s why a cleansing act from me.
The downside of a anonymous-styled commenting system is the ways in which it can be exploited (or rather abused).
As pluGGd.in is a neutral platform (and will always be), I do keep a tab on the trolls and ensure that we keep it clean.
Out of curiosity, how do you identify the abusers? How did you identify that the above poster is from ixigo?
IP – have been running this blog for 1.5 yrs (and blessed with lots of comments). Mostly companies/startups leave a comment when we write about them..and tend to troll when we write about their competition..
and we have their details from those interactions.
They just miss the fact that they replied earlier too !
Nice. At Cleartrip, we’ve always stayed very far away from trolling via anonymous comments or pretending we’re not affiliated with Cleartrip when commenting.
That’s the key – I mean one doesn’t need to do all this. Bitching about competition doesn’t really help – not with us!
True. And I just don’t understand the benefit of posing as an impostor, wonder what that says about the ethics and values of the company…
ClearTrip really sets the bar when it comes to usability. A consumer focused design is something terribly missing from Indian Web Space.
Keep it up!
I think Cleartrip has set benchmarks for online experience (and not just ‘online travel’). A lot of Indian companies need to learn from Cleartrip on this front.
I have visited http://www.comparesasta.com today after reading their article here and their UI is very neat and tidy.
The best thing is that we can compare the Itineraries, so we know for sure that we are buying the best option available.
Good Luck CompareSasta
Cleartrip is not just about a pretty interface. If anyone has ever used some of the other so-called travel websites out there, you would realise that they might as well be selling soap! They have done no thinking whatsoever about a trip-planning process (whether its business or leisure), right from search through to selection and final purchase.
What Cleartrip is best at is ‘user experience’. The entire process from start to finish is simple, efficient and quick. Whether it is the search listing that makes it easy to compare and select or the pre-filled forms at the point of purchase – everything is designed to simplify what was just 5 years ago a fairly complex transaction.
And they’ve also ensured that they stay on top of their technology and sectoral developments. Being the first third-party site (and by miles!) to launch railway bookings is quite a coupe. They were out with the service even as announcements were still being made in major newspapers that the railways was allowing online agents to accept bookings.
Lastly – to the guys who feel Cleartrip is more expensive. Have you actually compared the fare difference. It is usually between 50 – 100 rupees. Hardly a ‘higher’ price to pay for time saved, convenience added and a ‘no-mistakes’ interface. Those who have ever woefully mixed up traveller name with credit card holder and realised only after their ticket is issued will know exactly what I mean!
If you would pay 50 bucks more to buy a DVD player from an up-market large format electronics store instead of going into the by-lanes of small markets and purchasing from counter-stores, why not pay a little bit extra for a site that genuinely adds value to your overall travel booking experience?
Trolls really suck, don’t they, Hrush?
In case you want to make railway bookings and have forgotten the name of railway website,
you can make use of this link.http://www.railwaybooking.org
Hrush it seems some of the API policies of Indian railways have been framed keeping in mind providers like cleartrip & all….why does railways not allow comparision of rail fares with air fares..????…..”OTAs would not be allowed to advertise any Air/Land/ Hotel/Package/ tourism related
product, other than IRCTC Tourism products on any of the Rail E-ticketing pages. This
also applies on the e-ticket print out.
The partner OTAs would not be allowed to club rail tickets with any other products or
services which pose direct or indirect competition to IRCTC’s tourism products,
without permission of IRCTC.”….???? why such junk policies?