Indian railways has launched online hotel booking service powered by Cleartrip (they are the exclusive provider of hotel content, availability and pricing to the Indian Railways)
This is quite a big win for ClearTrip as Indian Railways is one of the most successful e-commerce site in India and the partnership itself will give Cleartrip a huge user base.
In the month of November 2008, IndianRailways website successfully booked Rs 3.7Billion ($74.2mn) worth of e-transaction and even if a small % of that does hotel booking, you know the number Cleartrip is targeting!
Recommended Read: IndiaRailways API for ticket Booking | Cleartrip stats
Update: We earlier mentioned Rs. 371mn which infact, is 3.7bn (thanks Ritesh for pointing this)
This surely is a case of carteling and must be taken up with authorities as a laced policy against competition …. I am a makemytrip.com user and I want to compare air fare with rail fare for some of my trips…..how can railway allow only cleartrip and not other OTA’s for even availablity when competition is a must and be made between all modes of travel ??? air rail & road…..???? you can clearly see this is the railways clause forcing technology/OTA’s against competition/comparison with other travel products “……..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.” … and they intend to partner with only those who do not show comparison between providers and show best and most economical way of commuting…. why should this be allowed??? any traveler has the choice to choose between the travel products and this must be done in open & competitive way…. why should anyone seek permission to bring in competition in the market….I think this should be taken up with Central Vigilance & the government at the highest authority.
Ashish, you seem to have miscalculated the decimal places. IRCTC has done Rs. 3.71 B in November, which comes to $74m.
Thanks Ritesh for pointing that out (have updated)
neha–no reason to jump to conclusions. There are many other companies planning to launch rail booking services:
http://in.biz.yahoo.com/081029/203/6yxdl.html
Cleartrip happens to be the only OTA that has actually launched the facility.
With respect to comparing multiple modes of transport with a single search–we would love to be able to do this, but are not permitted to by the clause you’ve quoted. If the clause is removed, we will offer this and much, much more.
Tx. Hrush for replying … I appreciate your views on allowing competition with railways. Those guys need some lessons from people, for sure.
Required detailed report.
Great idea this, it’s all so pretty. I should just give up and take lessons from you
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