New launches: MetroMela expands, ClearTrip goes offline, tolmolbol adds jazz
ClearTrip has opened its first one-stop travel solutions shop at Hyderabad Airport. The counter offers travel solutions ranging from domestic airline booking, domestic and international hotel booking, holiday packages and car rental services.
Close to 40% of bookings are done at the last minute and this initiative will give ClearTrip a huge advantage over their competitors (now they are available at PoP, i.e. point of purchase’)
What do you say?
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MetroMela , the local listing service has expanded to 7 cities : Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Vizag, Cochin and Mysore.
Few interesting stats from their press release:
According to Indicus Analytics’ report of 2006, 62 million households earn income of Rs. 3 lakh per annum in the country. They spend one-third of their disposable income on categories that MetroMela is targeting. Besides, India has active Internet users of about 30 million [JuxtConsult 2007, I-Cube Survey – IAMI]. Around 32 per cent of these users use the Internet to search for information.
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Tolmolbol (read the interview with founders here and here) has added couple of new features:
- Maps of businesses and service providers in major cities:
- Movie reviews
- Business listing photos:
- Classified Feeds:
Whats your opinion on these new releases? Do you see ClearTrip’s “offline” move a big threat to players like iXiGo?
tags: cleartrip, metromela, tolmolbol
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
About ClearTrip launching one-stop travel shop – isnt it adding to their cost base? Besides, by opening these at the airports, they are only targeting last minute business travelers who most likely already have travel depts in their companies taking care of the bookings. I cant imagine a family trooping to the airport with bags making a last-minute dash to that family vacation. Most people would typically go to a local travel shop to make last minute bookings and not to an airport that is typically located far away.
I would rather, Cleartrip garners all local travel agents on its online platform and give the user the choice to buy either from CT.com or from a local travel agent online and have the option of picking up the tix from them. It would make sense to stay focussed on driving efficiencies in the online portal which is where the cost savings are. Think Amazon.com.
Unmesh – I dont think only last munite biz travelers are the ones who make their arrangement plans in the last minute.
Apart from the biz traveler (which is actually a big target segment), even “aam junta” plans trips @ the last minute. Infact, I suggest you visit airport ticket counter and see the action for ~5 hours – I am sure you will find lotsa ppl buying tickets at the last moment.
More than all this, ClearTrip will get huge branding by setting up the offline channel.
And by the way, even Amazon had to setup their offline stores to increase sales.
Amazon moving offline may have been more to take the battle to the brick-n-mortar incumbents and even then it did so through alliances. By putting up kiosks, ClearTrip may lead its customers to take their grievances there to settle disputes, refunds, etc. Could prove risky.
Could the “lotsa people buying tickets at the airport counters at the last moment” be just the set of people missing flights due to delays, cancellations, etc?
Even for last minute ticket buyers, why wouldnt they go directly to the airline ticket counter to buy a ticket instead of going to the Cleartrip counter?
Basically, this move by ClearTrip is not one that other players cant replicate easily – they would be wise to wait and watch, though.
@Unmesh – Interesting thoughts.
“Even for last minute ticket buyers, why wouldnt they go directly to the airline ticket counter to buy a ticket instead of going to the Cleartrip counter?” – Because they dont want to go thru’ 10 diff. counters to find out the cheapest price..
they still need an aggregator there and that’s what CT is trying to achieve..
I agree other players will wait and watch to understand the viability of the move..
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