Make My Trip Marketing Case
Make My Trip Marketing Case
CASE
describes a real-life situation
faced, a decision or action
Makemytrip.com (A)
taken by an individual
manager or by an Sanjay Kumar Kar
organization at the strategic,
functional or operational level
I am amazed to see the way in which the Indian online travel market
is taking off. The market for buying travel online is ripe and shift
from offline to online booking is getting accelerated. We intend to
seize this opportunity by launching our site well before the competi-
tion — this would enable us to take a sizable lead.
Deep Kalra, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
O
n June 5, 2005, three months before the launch of the Indian operations of
Makemytrip.com (MMT), Deep Kalra, founder and Chief Executive
Officer, held a meeting with the key members of the company at the Delhi
office to review the launch plan of MMT India. The core team comprised Keyur
Joshi (co-founder and COO), Sachin Bhatia (co-founder and Chief Marketing Of-
ficer), Amit Saberwal (Vice President – Business Development), Venkatesh Bharadwaj
(Head – Technology), Sanjeev Bhasin (Head – Operations), and Gayatri Buddha (As-
sistant Vice President – Marketing). The objective of the meeting was to evaluate
and fine-tune various components of the launch plan.
Makemytrip.com
MMT was launched in the US in 2000 to cater to the niche US-to-India travel market.
The company survived the dotcom bust and the 9/11 tragedy and was able to break-
even in 2002. The website emerged as the foremost online travel service provider in
the US-to-India market. By 2004, it had garnered 3.5 per cent share of this NRI mar-
ket (Rs. 4,500 crore/US$ 1 billion) which was dominated by ethnic agents who were
either consolidators (wholesalers) or sub-agents. With over 100,000 customers and
130,000 registered users in the US, Makemytrip had a renewal rate of 30 per cent.
NRIs could book tickets to India online or could call travel consultants who were
KEY WORDS
available 24x7 on the US toll-free 1800-India-10. The company had offices in New
Travel and Tourism Market York and Sydney. According to Kalra, the factors which worked well for the com-
pany were an all-pervasive entrepreneurial spirit along with cohesive culture and
Online Travel Services homegrown HR practices. Employees were given opportunity to be owners of the
(OTS)
company by holding stocks.
Positioning Strategy
In 2004, big online travel agents like Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity commanded
Media Selection
the lion’s share of the US $52.1 billion (Rs. 2,292.4 billion) domestic and international
Viral Campaign market, which was estimated to touch US $62.3 billion (Rs. 2,741.2 billion). The online
1 http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/17/travelocity-orbitz-tripadvisor-
in_mr_bow0217_inl.html [accessed on 17th October 2006] 2 Email communication from Gayatri Buddha.
major target customer identified by MMT was the metro motorable trips from all large cities in India with in-
male in the age group of 24-44 years, married with a teractive maps.
monthly household income of over Rs. 30,000 in fami- • Weekend breaks: Would offer great opportunity with
lies which were Internet-savvy with usage beyond e- thousands of options for short stay holidays at all
mail, transacted on the Internet before, deal hunters, and price points.
early adopters (those were inclined to try new things). • B2B services. Local agents around the world would
In India, most of the consumers were deal hunters and be able to access the above products through its
therefore MMT realized that offering the best possible extranet, IndiaAhoy.com.
price to the consumer would certainly help not only lure
but also retain customers. For that purpose, MMT had MMT planned to enrich its wide variety of products with
planned the unbeatable proposition of giving consum- unbeatable offerings like money-back guarantee (MBG),
ers the lowest possible price in the market. Visa-Kingfisher offer, lowest airfare guarantee, and In-
dia’s lowest prices. MMT wanted to be a ‘one-stop-shop’
Product Offerings to cater to all travel requirements when planning a trip.
The money-back guarantee would mean 20 per cent cash
MMT planned to provide a comprehensive basket of back on hotels and holidays bookings if MMT failed to
products and services, starting with outbound and do- deliver the promise. For example, if MMT promised that
mestic travel services for leisure and small-business trav- the hotel room would be sea-facing, it would be genu-
ellers. The idea was to provide ‘complete travel solution’ inely sea-facing. If that did not happen, MMT would
with convenience as a key driver. This was not avail- offer 20 per cent cash back to the customer.16 Through
able in the market and was expected to be unique offer- the Visa-Kingfisher offer, MMT was planning to pro-
ing in the travel industry. The following products/ vide 20 per cent cash back to all the customers who
services were planned to be offered: would use their Visa credit card to book any ticket on
• Air tickets: Customers would get the opportunity to Kingfisher Airlines through MMT. As Gayatri Buddha
search, compare, and book tickets on any airline, in- explained, “This was the first time in India that the cash
cluding LCCs and full service airlines. back was to be offered on air tickets on a large scale.”
• Hotel reservations: Customers would have the op- MMT was also in the process of getting into several part-
tion of real-time booking of rooms in over 1,500 ho- nerships with media channels such as the National Geo-
tels at discounted tariffs. graphic and banks like HSBC and ICICI to reach out to
• Car/Taxi bookings: Customers would be provided a wider and new audience all the time.
opportunity to book car at special prices for airport According to MMT’s internal revenue estimation, con-
transfers and other trips. tribution of air tickets would be 85 per cent and hotels
• Holiday packages: Facility to buy holiday packages and holidays would contribute 15 per cent. Again, do-
within India or foreign holidays at great prices.
• Road-trips: Myriad options would be available for 16 E-mail communication from Gayatri Buddha.
Exhibit 4a: Projected Internet Sales by Sector: Internet Transaction Value in India, 2005-2010
(Rs. million)
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Internet 23,173.0 35,501.0 53,287.0 78,918.0 114,746.8 159,612.7
- Direct suppliers 21,597.2 32,660.9 48,491.1 70,237.0 98,682.2 134,074.7
- Intermediaries 1,575.8 2,840.1 4,795.8 8,681.0 16,064.5 25,538.0
Others 1,080,301.2 1,239,225.1 1,421,031.7 1,632,244.8 1,871,420.6 2,148,976.8
Total 1,103,474.2 1,274,726.1 1,474,318.7 1,711,162.8 1,986,167.4 2,308,589.6
Source: http://www.gmid.euromonitor.com/Reports.aspx [accessed in October 2007]
Exhibit 4b: Travel Accommodation: Internet Sales by Direct Suppliers and Intermediaries: Internet Transaction
Value in India, 2000-2005
(Rs. million)
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005*
Internet 890.2 1259.6 2300 3939.8 4696.3 6034.7
- Direct suppliers 761.7 1056.5 1712.6 2711 3123 3590.7
- Intermediaries 128.5 203.1 587.4 1228.9 1573.3 2444.1
Others 104401 116034.7 124847 142406.4 162138.4 189666.9
Total 105291.1 117294.3 127147 146346.2 166834.7 195701.6
*Estimated
Source: http://www.gmid.euromonitor.com/Reports.aspx [accessed in October 2007]
Source: MMT
Source: MMT
Source: MMT
Source: MMT
Celibrity Advertisement
MMT hired the biggest celebrity in India and hidden behind MMT would pay back the different if any one finds a lower
the biggest offer from MMT. airfare than MMT.
India’s hottest model hired by MMT Model is partially hidden by the MMT’s offer
Two kids were disappointed as they would not see the hottest MMT would offer lower air fare in India
model
Source: MMT
Sanjay Kumar Kar is an Assistant Professor in Marketing and has written many cases and contributed articles and book chap-
Assistant Dean (Academic Affairs) at the Department of Man- ters in journals and books of national and international repute.
agement, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology, Rae His areas of interest include retailing, strategic marketing, and
Bareli. He received his Ph.D from the Utkal University, natural gas business.
Bhubaneswar and worked with institutions like the Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; School of Petroleum e-mail: [email protected]
Management, Gandhinagar; and IMAGE, Bhubaneswar. He