Gurgaon-based, travel search marketplace, ixigo, has announced the launch of in-app booking service ixibook.
Through ixibook, travellers can make bookings for flights and hotels within its app, without being redirected to a third-party app or website. ixigo has collaborated with travel portal ClearTrip and branded budget-hotel marketplace OYO Rooms as its launch partners for flights and hotels respectively.
Launched in 2007 by Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, ixigo, is a travel search marketplace that connects over 70 Mn travellers with content & deals from over 25,000 online & offline travel & hospitality businesses. ixigo aggregates and compares real-time travel information, prices & availability for flights, trains, buses, cabs, hotels, packages & destinations.
Ritesh Agarwal, CEO, OYO Rooms said, “ixigo possesses deep insights into traveller-behaviour and a rich content focus. Through this collaboration, their audience will find value in our offerings and we will be able to expand our reach to engage leisure travel enthusiasts.”
The portal expects to move over 30% of the flight and hotel bookings to ixibook within the next few months. It also plans are to add more partners to ixibook later this year.
The idea behind the product is not only to enable direct in-app booking but also to save traveller’s time by shortening the conversion funnel. Post-booking customer support is handled directly by the respective partner. Currently on android, ixibook’s iOS and web platforms will be launched in a few weeks.
ixigo’s investors include SAIF Partners and Micromax, among others. Prior to this, in January 2016, online travel platform Goibibo was ranked No.1 for hotel booking in a recent report by Morgan Stanley. Other players in this segment include, MakeMytrip, Yatra, etc.
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