yatra.com ties up with Hughes

New Delhi, May 27 (UNI) In a move to enlarge its customer base, travel solutions portal Yatra Online Pvt Ltd (yatra.com) has tied up with Hughes, a global leader in providing broadband satellite networks and services.

Through this alliance, Yatra's travel related services including air tickets and hotels/packages will be made available via select HughesNet Fusion centres in India.

In the first phase, customers will be able to avail the services through 28 Hughes' centres across the country by paying cash.

Other modes of payments like credit/debit cards and ITZ cash cards will also be accepted. With this tie up, customers will have the ease to book from over 1,500 hotels and resorts across 140 cities in India, and all domestic airlines with instant confirmations.

''The alliance is a symbiotic relationship where HugheNet Fusion Centres will act as extended retail points to offer atra.com's travel services with an integrated offline cash acceptance model of Hughes,'' yatra.com founder Dhruv Shringi said.

Mr Shringi said Hughes expertise and its pan-India reach will help Yatra extend its services to make traveling smart and simple for mass customers in smaller cities and non-metros.

''HughesNet Fusion network of centres will help yatra.com to at once build capacity and extend reach to more customers. With our network expansion plans this year we hope to be the largest value added partner for yatra.com,'' Mr Vaibhav Magow, Director (Marketing), Hughes said.

Online travel market is expected to grow from 796 million dollars in 2006 to two billion dollars by 2008. Online hotel sales account for six per cent of total sales and are expected to increase to 10 per cent by 2008.

UNI