Indian online travel portal, Yatra.com has ventured into a new territory – cab marketplace. With an aim to evolve as the one-stop destination for travel needs, the company hopes to expand its consumer base and lend to ‘ease of travel’ in equal measure.
PRESIDENT, YATRA.COM
Diversification and innovation have become pivotal for new age online companies in their bid for retention and acquisition of new consumer base. With plethora of new entrants in the fray, vying for a market consolidation, established players are in a process of constant evolvement in their engagement strategies. Reflecting a similar desire, to remain in the forefront of technological innovation, Yatra.com, one of India’s leading online travel portals has launched a cab marketplace with various cab aggregators to tap the cab segment in important Indian cities. The move is aimed at providing cabs to consumers across 450 cities in India. This tie-up with multiple cab service providers will allow Yatra customers to book their local and inter-city transport on the company’s android mobile app itself. The company believes that with the launch of this feature, it has taken another step forward in providing its customers with comprehensive travel solutions and a seamless travel experience.
Yatra’s cab marketplace is currently offering hourly intra-city and outstation rides where bookings can be made up to 2 hours in advance. The facility of availing hourly cab rides allows customers to pay directly at the end of their travel, and for outstation cab bookings, and are expected to be charged a 25% advance payment. Travellers can choose one-way, round trip and multi-city trips for outstation cab bookings. With a number of large range of cars – hatchbacks, sedans, SUV/MUVs and vans to choose from, the newly rolled facility has targeted multiple segment of travellers in one go. While the feature is only available on the Android app, the iOS launch will follow shortly as well.
Speaking exclusively to TF, Sharat Dhall, President, Yatra.com noted that the development had taken them a step closer to becoming a one-stop travel solution for discerning customers. “Cab booking is a new line of business for Yatra and this is in line with our goal of being the one-stop-shop for all the travel requirements of customers,” he said. Adding that they were excited about this initiative and looked forward to bringing more partners on board to provide travellers with more options and more competitive prices, he said that the company was planning on expanding the service from Yatra Android app the iOS app, shortly. “This feature allows travellers to book local as well as outstation cabs very easily thus making road travel completely hassle free,” he elaborated.
Manish Amin, co-founder and CIO of Yatra said that the company had built technology to simultaneously showcase the offerings of multiple cab aggregators, allowing the traveller the freedom to choose from a variety of service and price options. “At launch, we have aggregators offering both intra-city hourly cabs and inter-city taxi services. Going forward we will be also tying up with intra-city point to point aggregators, as well as self drive and car pooling options. This new technology feature will help Yatra take the next step in servicing our customers and providing them with solutions to all their travel requirements,” he added.
