MakeMyTrip reports impressive quarterly growth in December. Group co-founder and CEO Rajesh Mago, in an interview with Akshara Srivastava in New Delhi, spoke about the boom in the country’s travel industry and the company’s new plans. Highlights of the conversation:
You recorded excellent results in the third quarter. To what do you give credit for this growth?
I believe this is an improvement that is happening after the pandemic. As the sector has gradually improved, demand has also increased. Supply related problems in the industry are also gradually being resolved.
What are the factors that are driving the sector’s recovery?
The industry is currently growing at double digit rates and I believe that is a very strong growth rate. Supply is improving on all fronts. Income is increasing and people’s behavior in terms of spending is changing. These are the drivers of growth.
Government participation on capital expenditure is also increasing, which is important for the development of the sector. A variety of road infrastructure developments and capacity additions at existing airports have helped improve the passenger experience, thereby growing the region.
Talking about your revenue source, what is the share of hotel bookings and air traffic in it?
In the year 2020-11, air bookings contributed 90 percent to our business while packages and hotels contributed 5 percent to our business. Currently, about 45 percent of our revenue comes from hotel bookings while air travel contributes about 38-39 percent. About 12-13 percent of revenues come from ground transport (largely redBus).
What new avenues are you exploring to generate revenue?
‘Homestay’ is a new category which looks extremely promising and I expect it to grow at an annual rate of 30-40 per cent in the next three-four years. We have 100,000 rooms including villas and hostels now on our platform.
The growing road transport has created a growth potential which we plan to cover with ‘Sawari’ (inter-city cab service in which MMT has recently invested). We have also focused on accelerating our corporate business with MyBiz for small and medium enterprises.
Also, Quest2Travel is being promoted for larger enterprises. In the travel segment, 30 percent of the business is done through corporations, which gives us a lot of scope.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had mentioned tourism in her interim budget speech. What are the prospects for spiritual tourism?
I believe that there is definitely a lot of potential in this area. Spiritual tourism is not limited to traveling merely for darshan but people now want to experience it as well. Therefore, they visit religious places. In some places, infrastructure-related improvements are also boosting development.
First Published – February 22, 2024 | 11:03 PM IST
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