India’s largest online travel company MakeMyTrip is sharpening its focus on overseas markets.
Earlier this week, the Gurugram-based company entered into an agreement with the American travel platform TripAdvisor to enable Indian travelers to book 250,000 local tours and activities across 100 global destinations.
Taking a leaf out of the playbook of Ctrip, China’s largest online travel group, which is also MakeMyTrip’s biggest shareholder, the Indian firm is now starting to cash in on the fast-growing outbound traveler market from India.
Over the last 20 years, Ctrip gained global prominence riding on the growth of Chinese outbound travelers. From a mere 10.5 million overseas trips in 2001, the outbound visits by Chinese travelers grew to 149.7 million, a whopping increase of 1326%. China’s outbound tourism market is set to surpass USD 270 billion by 2025.
The Indian outbound travel market is projected to cross USD 42 billion over the next five years. Empowered by growing disposable income, rising internet and smartphone adoption, and better air connectivity to foreign countries, the Indian middle class is increasingly aspiring to travel abroad, particularly to Southeast Asian countries, which have emerged as affordable destinations over the years.
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