MakeMyTrip.com to strengthen non-travel biz

New Delhi, May 4 (UNI) With travel planning entering the web domain, country's leading online travel portal MakeMyTrip.com is strengthening its non-travel vertical to rake in more revenues.

MakeMyTrip is targeting car rentals, rail tours, domestic and international travel holiday packages as a new business vertical.

''We are consciously growing our non-air business. Air tickets is our bread and butter, but we are very keen to sell other things like hotel bookings, travel packages and international holidays,'' Makemytrip CEO Deep Kalra said.

The company had gross bookings of over Rs 1,000 crore for the fiscal ended March 2008, of which 73 per cent was airline booking.

''People are now more comfortable with booking travel packages online and want to plan in advance rather than solely depending on travel agents to book their hotels,'' The Indian travel industry is pegged at about 20 billion dollars, of which two billion dollars come from online airline bookings.

Mr Kalra said India is the fastest-growing travel market in the world and it is expected to grow at the compounded rate of nine per cent over the next 10 years.

Many players like Yatra, Travelguru, Cleartrip, Arzoo and Ezeego1 have understood the potential of the sector and offer attractive packages to domestic and international travellers.

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