MakeMyTrip Plans To Capture The Homestay Market To Take On Airbnb

Gurugram and New York-headquartered online travel aggregator MakeMyTrip (MMT) plans to bet big on the growing homestay market in India and plans to add more private properties, 10K villas and apartments in the next year.

In a Mint report, one of the company executives said MMT is aggressively planning to boost its presence in the homestay market on par with US-based Airbnb as well as other Indian travel aggregators and startups like Cleartrip, Vista Room, MiStay and SaffronStays.

Vipul Prakash, chief operating officer at MakeMyTrip, said homestays has been growing steadily in India and the company will be focusing on leisure destinations such as Goa, Coorg and Manali apart from metros such as Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad.

Currently, the company claims to have 1.7 Lakh properties listed on its platform, which includes 20K-25K homestays that account for anywhere between 5% to 7% of total revenue. MMT is targetting double that in the next year.

Meanwhile, Airbnb recently announced that India has the potential to become one of its top three markets, thanks to the focus on promoting local culture and traditions, focussing on growth regions and on skilling of the workforce. According to the company, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advice to Airbnb cofounder Brian Chesky about boosting tourism in Northeast India has worked in its favour.

Airbnb claims to have over 54K listings in India across 100 cities. In India, the company says it has seen 70% growth, which is higher than its average global growth of 60%.

Moreover, Airbnb said it had hosted over 3 Mn customers travelling to India or going out of India. Its investments in one of India’s popular hospitality startups OYO has also helped the company to diversify the options for travellers.

India is expected to be ranked among the top five business travel market globally by 2030, according to an IBEF report. Also, business travel spending in the country is expected to triple until 2030 from $30 Bn in 2015. India’s international tourist travels are expected to reach $30 Mn by 2028. Moreover, medical tourism is also expected to reach $9 Bn by 2020.

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