| Tourism is one of the Indian economy's top | | | | sales representative from a travel company, |
| earners, with prospects continuing to look | | | | they opt to help themselves and cut out the |
| brighter with each passing year. India has | | | | clutter. |
| the world's fastest-growing tourist economy, | | | | |
| with the industry growing at an explosive 13% | | | | Imagine the plight of the person seeking to |
| annually over the past four years. The travel | | | | book a vanilla Mumbai-Delhi flight and go |
| industry at large - outbound, inbound and | | | | over what seems to be an unending list of |
| domestic alike, have been flourishing, thanks | | | | options with a travel agent - trying to make |
| to the conjoined efforts of State and Central | | | | a mental note or scribble away choice of |
| government tourism bodies, airlines, hotels | | | | airline, time of flight, price variation, |
| and other verticals with travel agents and | | | | routes, etc - draw comparisons, figure out |
| tour operators. | | | | different permutations and combinations and |
| | | | when he's finally decided, the availability |
| Alongside the tourism boom, India's Internet | | | | of the flight he zeroed in on in all |
| population is also growing rapidly. The | | | | probability is gone! Compare this to the |
| Internet and Mobile Association of India | | | | convenience of logging on to Cleartrip, |
| announced that one out of every 10 urban | | | | deriving all the information on one page and |
| Indians now have access to the Internet, with | | | | make a booking in record time. Search, book, |
| the user base having doubled since 2004. | | | | go! |
| India clocked 50 million Internet users this | | | | |
| March. The online travel industry itself is | | | | Cleatrip has capitalized on technology to |
| growing just as quickly and is expected to | | | | make the process of finding the right air |
| reach the $2 billion mark by the end of 2007, | | | | ticket or hotel room in an easy to understand |
| and the recent mushrooming of travel portals | | | | and use format. With the advent of new and |
| is a confirmation of the phenomenon. This | | | | low cost air carriers and the forecasted |
| radical trend has sparked off the online | | | | increase in hotel capacity, customers need an |
| versus offline debate - as to which of these | | | | intuitive way to navigate the many choices |
| present the better and smarter way to do it. | | | | available to them. Nothing exemplifies this |
| | | | more than the unique user experience, which |
| With time being a rare commodity these days, | | | | allows customers to mix and match flights on |
| plastic money at their disposal, and the | | | | the same page, destination content on the |
| world at their fingertips, consumers know | | | | website's blog, mobile search for airfares, |
| what they want and more importantly how to go | | | | the airfare search by month, and the most |
| about it, smartly. They want quick answers | | | | recent Flexi Dates Flight Search on |
| and the fact of the matter is that it doesn't | | | | cleartrip.com- where a lot of the innovations |
| happen faster than the Internet. Based on the | | | | in creating new value added services come |
| strength of this burgeoning trend Cleartrip, | | | | from studying customer searching/booking |
| one of India's leading travel portals and | | | | patterns and also by apprehending customer |
| within barely a year of launch, has | | | | feedback. Recognition of the fact that |
| effectively leveraged its legacy of expertise | | | | customers use both broadband and dial-up, |
| in travel and technology to design and deploy | | | | Cleartrip has created a user interface that |
| a simple solution that delivers travel | | | | allows customers to access their search |
| products as per customer's travel needs. | | | | results in the fastest time possible to make |
| | | | travel simple for customers and service |
| While the common belief is that consumer's | | | | providers alike. |
| book online to save costs - though this is | | | | |
| partially correct, is not always the case. | | | | From sole dependence on travel agents for |
| The most important contributing factor from a | | | | every aspect of their trip, to planning their |
| consumer's standpoint in this regard is that | | | | trip based on online resources, to booking |
| of personal power. Booking their travel | | | | their travel online, consumers have come a |
| online gives consumers a greater sense of | | | | long way, and the added benefit of |
| control and a lack of dependence. Instead of | | | | convenience, time management and lower costs |
| placing their trust in a travel agent and | | | | have become the deciding factors that online |
| hoping it'll all turn out well or having a | | | | travel booking is here to stay. |
| long drawn telephonic conversation with a | | | | |