A pioneer in the Online Travel Agency (OTA) space in India, MakeMyTrip has focused on innovations to keep ahead. Mohit Gupta, Chief Business and Marketing Officer, MakeMyTrip.com talks to us about the brand’s new campaign, overcoming challenges in the OTA space and plans going ahead
By Simran Sabherwal
Q] What was the insight behind your latest campaign to promote your app? What’s your marketing mix?
When life throws lemons at you, use your phone to make some lemonade. We all get stuck in unexpected and awkward moments in life. And it’s our phone that comes as an immediate saviour - be it calling your best friend at 3 am, googling for information or even checking-in for your flight. As a behaviour - we now look for our phones when we need a quick fix. We create a bridge between our online and offline creative processes by ensuring a commonality in brand tonality and consistency of visual cues across all media formats and speak the same language across all touchpoints.
We invest heavily in consumer understanding studies and have carefully chosen TV channels which cater to viewing patterns of our TG. In addition to TV, we will be adding a surround effect to the campaign by extending the campaign theme to our on-site communication and direct marketing mailers to our CRM base.
Q] The online travel agency (OTA) is very competitive, what’s keeps you ahead?
MakeMyTrip is India’s leading Travel Company and the largest eCommerce business. Our comprehensive offerings, convenience of online transactions and great-value prices revolutionized the way Indians purchased travel services. With innovative products and services, we are the dominant market-leader with 47% market-share (as per an independent study conducted by PhocusWright in 2013). Today, MakeMyTrip is a one-stop-travel-shop that offers the broadest selection of travel products and services in India. We are focused on catering to emerging consumer needs across screens - web and mobile and a key priority is building products that simplify travel for our customers. We enjoy the reputation of being technology-forward and innovative – and delighting customers through service and value-based offerings.
Q] What are the challenges in engaging with consumers online and offline?
Internet penetration and robustness of network are key concern areas for the growth of eCommerce in Cat B towns. People find the best airfares online and secure online payment options with data-privacy is virtually guaranteed compared to offline credit card payments. Yet, there are customers apprehensive about online payments. We conducted a survey last year to understand the consumer behaviour pattern of Indian travelers and payment/ data security emerged as the top concern-area for a majority when booking a hotel online. We offer secure, convenient and safe payment options but travelers need to be educated on how to determine that their online transaction is conducted in a safe and secure ecosystem.
Travel companies need to think of ways to add to the post-sales experience while booking online. With mobile internet eclipsing broadband growth and penetration, it’s important to provide secure and convenient booking options on the mobile platform. We are committed to providing comprehensive solutions and reaching out to customers on a platform and medium of their choice. So, we developed a hybrid business model that involved operating both online and offline. In 2007, we established our first retail store and now have an offline presence through 59 stores across 37 cities in India.
Q] How do you use data and analytics to increase sales and get repeat users?
Businesses have only recently begun to understand how big data helps glean insights into customer behaviour, improve supply-chain efficiency and positively impact other areas of business performance. For a travel company, big data helps engage better with customers and deliver service efficiently and intelligently. Analytics helps enhance efficiency at the business-end and experience at the customer-end by developing new approaches to customer management, revenue management and internal operations.
At MakeMyTrip, the process is easier for earlier shoppers and those in our database. For repeat visitors, we re-target them with offers we ascertain will be relevant to them basis previous browsing history. For existing shoppers, the personalization is much more in-depth and comprehensive. Customers in our Loyalty Program receive customized offers on special occasions. Even for non-members, we attempt to provide a personalized experience by identifying their device-type and serving offers and creative communication adapted to the same.
Q] How do you overcome this challenge of travellers who cross shop from site to site?
Every product line allows us to offer incremental value to consumers in a different way. In addition to price competitiveness, customer value creation is delivered through value additions, bundled product discounts, free upgrades and complementary services at the Hotel. Site-hopping is a well-known dynamic of the travel purchase process but MakeMyTrip as a market leader offers differentiators for driving off-takes and repeat purchases. We offer a complete suite of travel-related services including flights, hotels, holidays, cruises, car-rentals, bus-bookings and train reservations and are the only OTA to provide even land-transport solutions.
We want to be the go-to portal for travellers looking for value-based offerings, backed by superior customer service. We lead the category with innovations in technology and user interface - our tool ‘Inspire’ helps users research and explore holiday destinations basis a variety of parameters such as interest areas, flight intersections and traveller budget. Routeplanner makes travel planning faster and easier and integrates availability of services like flights, buses, trains and cabs to display all possible connectivity options between any two places in India.
Q] What percentage of bookings comes from mobile versus other devices? What are your expectations from the app?
Mobile is the perfect channel to provide real value to the customer and create higher engagement by enabling an easy travel-booking experience. We have a mobile-first approach but all services complement our core value proposition of value-based travel-related services. Mobile provides a smoother user experience, increased personalization and allows faster access to relevant information. To date we have seen more than 3.2 million downloads of MakeMyTrip apps, which have full booking capabilities for flights, hotels and bus ticketing across all major platforms. Mobile accounts for more than 29% of our monthly unique visitors and 14% of online transactions. For domestic flights, mobile bookings account for roughly 13% of total online transactions while standalone hotel bookings from mobile represent 25% of our total online domestic hotel transactions. Mobile is an important strategic priority for the business. We upgraded our app experience on both Android and iOS platforms through native apps which provides smoother user experience, increases personalization and allows faster access to relevant information.
Q] Looking ahead what are the other areas and value added services you are likely to make your presence felt?
We are focused on the outbound opportunity in India and other emerging markets such as South-East Asia, UAE. We aim to be the preferred OTA for all travellers looking to explore India and South-East Asia. We have strong partnerships with suppliers in India and the South-East Asia region through our acquisitions of DMCs in Singapore and Thailand and with Easytobook.com’s acquisition, we have expanded our presence beyond South-East Asia.
We are looking to grow segments such as Pilgrimage and Luxury and adding new destinations like Lakshadweep, Arunachal Pradesh and Odisha. We have introduced new overseas destinations like Cambodia, Vietnam and Jordan. The other destinations expected to grow this year are Turkey, Bali, Greece and China. Travelers are now keen to explore and experience beyond the usual destinations. To serve these travelers needs, we have introduced new international destinations at affordable prices and launched a range of Nextplorer Holidays. Each of the destinations showcased in this range has a distinct and unique experience to offer to travelers.
Q] What is the breakup of your businesses, in terms of revenue and margins?
The Hotels & Packages (H&P) business is growing steadily and we have invested efforts to increase its share in our overall revenue pie. In its fiscal 2015 first quarter results (Q1, 2015), transactions for Hotel & Packages improved by over 100% YoY. Further Revenue less service costs for H&P increased 70% YoY in Q1 15 and its contribution increased to nearly 50% in 1Q15 versus 41.7% in 1Q14. This is a huge win for us and moving our efforts in a positive direction. We have been able to accelerate the growth in Hotel and holiday packages business by enhancing customer-experience and deepening our domestic and international suppliers’ relationship.
About The Brand
Launched in India in 2005, MakeMyTrip was the first travel portal in the country. The website attracted over 8.3 million unique visitors per month in fiscal year 2014 according to comScore. MakeMyTrip also has an offline presence through 60 stores across India. In August 2010, the company had a successful IPO on NASDAQ, the first Indian travel company to list overseas. The MakeMyTrip Group achieved sales exceeding Rs 7,600 crore in the financial year ending March 2014 and has been ranked among the 10 ‘Best Companies to Work for in India’ for four years in a row (2010-2013). MakeMyTrip Group (MMYT) acquired majority stake in Luxury Tours and Travel Pvt Ltd, a Singapore-based agency in 2011. In 2012, it acquired Thailand-based Hotel Travel Group and ITC Group. In February 2014, MakeMyTrip completed the acquisition of Easytobook.com.
Facts
Creative agency: FCBUlka Advertising, Delhi
Media agency: MediaCom
Social and digital media marketing agency: In house
PR agency: Genesis Burson Marsteller
MARKETING TIP
Ensure commonality in brand tonality and consistency of visual cues across all media formats.
CMO File
Mohit Gupta, Chief Business & Marketing Officer, MakeMyTrip.com joined the company in 2008 and is a member of its strategic think-tank. He is responsible for driving marketing initiatives for all segments of MakeMyTrip’s hybrid business model and is also in charge of developing and growing Holidays, Hotel & Mobile offerings, the key business focus areas. His focus is on expanding the company’s foot-print through traditional channels such as retail and affiliate, as well as configuring new products through alliances and innovation to enhance access to popular destinations and open new destinations for Indian travellers. Gupta has earlier worked with PepsiCo International and Voltas Ltd. He holds a B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from Sardar Patel University, Gujarat and an MBA (PGDM) degree from IIM- Calcutta.
Feedback: simran.sabherwal@exchange4media.com
