Le Travenues Technology, which operates under the brand name Ixigo, aims to become the largest hotel online travel aggregator (OTA) in the budget-to-mid-market category over the next four to five years.
Aloke Bajpai, chairman and group chief executive officer, said during the second-quarter earnings call on Monday that while the company was targeting a growth rate of over 100 per cent in the coming four quarters, its longer-term goal was to take pole position in the emerging growth segment. "...if I were to give you a longer-term guidance, four to five years, we want to be the largest hotel OTA in the budget to mid-market hotel category on a room night basis,” he told analysts.
Bajpai added that the total addressable market for hotels was well established in India, and it was the largest profitability pool globally for OTAs. In India, the opportunity was more compelling since travellers needed greater reliability from offerings in the segment, where online penetration continued to be low.
"About 60 per cent of hotel room nights in India sell below Rs 2,000 a night, and independent hotels account for 73 per cent of rooms as per the recent VIDEC Industry report. Out of the 70,000 hotels in India that we sell, we are now tied up directly with over 12,000 hotels across about 1,100 towns, up from 10,000 hotels last quarter. Our thesis on hotels fits our customer base closely. 94 per cent of our transactions involve travel to or from Tier 2 and 3 cities, and more than 9 in 10 trips we sell are by train or bus," he added.
He also cited data from VIDEC, which estimated that India's hotel market was worth about Rs 1.57 trillion in FY26 and was projected to reach Rs 1.94 trillion by FY28. Of this, lodging represented 30 per cent of total travel spending. "Hotel bookings through OTAs are projected to grow around 19 per cent annually from Rs 40,200 crore to Rs 57,000 crore over that period. Hotels is already the second-largest OTA category, around three times the size of the OTA rail market," Bajpai said.
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He added that the company's core business profitability gave it the capacity to keep funding the opportunity.
Ixigo, in which Dutch technology investor Prosus holds over 15 per cent, reported an all-time high profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 63.42 crore, aided by a partial stake sale in Freshbus.
Gross transaction value (GTV) grew by 22 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 5,304 crore, and revenue from operations stood at Rs 321 crore, up 13 per cent YoY.
Addressing near-term macroeconomic hurdles, Bajpai pointed out that the air travel sector continued to face pressure from limited capacity and a 30 per cent YoY increase in airfares on several routes.
“Flights faced a tougher external environment with high fares and limited capacity affecting bookings growth, and the overall market was down nearly 6 per cent in volume terms in the quarter. Despite that, the team pulled off 7 per cent segment growth which in itself is an achievement,” said Bajpai.
“Festive demand is a shade lower than what one would have expected this time of the year. We are not saying there's any major negative bump but one would have seen a higher bump up if the fares were more amenable for the consumer,” he added, commenting on the outlook for the festive quarter ahead.
The management also revealed that ConfirmTkt had become the highest-rated travel app in the world, with a 4.9 rating on the Google Play Store and over 100 million downloads.