India’s Second Online travel portal Yatra.com acquires Travelguru.com
India’s Second Online travel portal Yatra.com has acquired Travelguru.com. Travelguru.com has hotel and holidays booking website from the US based travel agency Travelocity.com LP. Starting July 1, Travelguru will operate as a 100% subsidiary of Yatra.com. The acquisition of this competitor has definitely made Yatra’s position stronger in the Indian online travel segment.
Talking about the Travelguru.com, Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and chief executive officer at Yatra.com stated that this acquisition will significantly strengthen the company’s domestic hotels and holidays business.
“It is a cash acquisition of 100% stake of Travelguru. We acquired it because it has a good supplier relation with 6000 to 7000 hotels and it has a strong brand presence. Yatra and Travelguru together have become the largest domestic hotel agent,” Shringi told Livemint.
The acquisition of Travelguru.com is expected to increase Yatra’s customer base by a million to six million. Yatra has access to Travelguru’s hotel distribution network which seems to be the largest one in India so far totalling to more than 6500 hotels in India and 72,000 worldwide.
Yatra.com fourth acquisition in the last 18 months. In October 2010, the company acquired Delhi-based Travel Services International for an undisclosed sum. Last August, it snapped Bangalore-based hotels aggregation site Magic Rooms Solutions India (P) Ltd. Early this year, Yatra acquired Buzzintown, a Bangalore –based company that provides information on deals and events.
Yatra has received funding from Intel Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Reliance Capital and Valiant Capital Management. It had previously raised a total of Rs 150 crore from Norwest Venture Partners, Reliance Capital, Network 18 and Intel Capital.
