After making its foray in the bus ticketing and hyperlocal business, Alibaba backed mcommerce platform Paytm is eyeing the hotel booking segment.
The company has tied up with online travel portals like Goibibo, Ezeego1 and TSI-Yatra for the new service.
According to Paytm’s founder and CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, “Travel has emerged as an important category, as the penetration of online booking is still very low in this vertical. The opportunity for the hotels category is immense, especially because the transaction penetration is still low in Tier II and III cities as far as travel is concerned.”
The company expects a revenue of over $77 Mn (INR 500 Cr) from this service over next six months.
Just last month, online travel platform Goibibo launched its budget accommodation marketplace by the name GoStays with 862 properties translating to 10,000 rooms a day. Also, Yatra has been strengthening its budget accommodation segment with the launch of Homestays and TG Rooms and TG Stays categories.
Vijay added that tying up with Goibibo, Ezeego and TSI Yatra, is the phase 1 of the plan where Paytm customers will be able to make domestic hotel bookings. In this phase Paytm will offer an inventory of about 20,000 hotels to users, which can go up to 35,000.
Whereas, in the second phase of plan, Paytm plans to tie up with platforms like Expedia and Booking.com for international hotel bookings.
Paytm is making its commerce platform a one stop solution for all the mcommerce activities. The company primarily announced the launch of bus ticket marketplace indicating that it will soon start signing up with hotels and travel agents on the platform. Besides, it had tied up with various institutions and colleges for cashless payments.
Paytm’s foray into different verticals is making it a one stop destination for various ecommerce activities. The company is at par with its competitors like Flipkart and Snapdeal, who have not made such niche forays.
With these new launches Paytm is disrupting the smartphone and internet usage in the country while elaborating its gamut of services to tap most of tier II and III cities.
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