Yatra looking to double revenues

NEW DELHI: The slowdown in the global travel industry notwithstanding, online travel booking portal Yatra.com is looking at 100% growth this year. The company, which claims a 35% market share in this space, expects to post $250 million in revenues in calendar 2008.

Dhruv Shringi, chief executive officer, Yatra, said, “We generally get $25 million as revenue on a monthly basis… With oil prices stabilising, we expect business to pick up in three to four months. We expect to post $250 million by the year end.”

Yatra posted $117 million revenue in 2007. The travel firm gets almost 88% of its revenue from air bookings with a margin of 5%. For travel bookings like hotels and vacation packages, the margin varies from 10% to 15%.

Yatra competes with other online travel portals like Makemytrip, Travelguru, Cleartrip, Arzoo and Ezeego1.

Industry reports peg the total travel industry in India at about $20 billion, of which about $2 billion is from online airline bookings. Makemytrip gets about 73% revenue from airline bookings.

“Historically, July-August is seasonally lower business for us, and with recent air fare hikes, it has made an impact on the business. However, going forward, with more focus on non-air business, we expect the topline to grow 100% year-on-year,” Shringi said.

To a question, he conceded that it would be a “natural progression” for the firm to go public, but did not give a timeline.
vivek_s@dnaindia.net