Published: 15 Oct 2007

But so far OTAs have marched on aggressively.

For example, VIA considers its progress a phenomenal one, not only in terms of business volumes but also in terms of the expansion of the travel agents network family.

"In just a short span of 12 months we have 4800 travel agents in across 386 cities, in 28 states of India who has made the right informed choice to be a part of our network," Vinay Gupta, CEO, Via shared with EyeforTravel.com's Ritesh Gupta.

"We have broken even in the first year of inception and right now we are on the super highway to profits. CEOs can make statements but only the market place will decide whose statement is true and who had predicted wrong. I am sure with the global OTAs entering in the Indian travel market place, they would have done enough research before entry. OTA are here to stay, being bought is another question which only time will answer," he added.

According to Gupta, despite limitations like language barrier, m-commerce being at concept stage, direct debits not being popular etc, the success of OTAs, airlines and IRCTC (Railways) and the growing numbers definitely show that e-commerce is an increasing trend.

He also spoke about few other issues in an interview. Excerpts:

It is being felt that India is in the unique position of jumping "technology generations" and avoid the pains that some of the western countries faced in migrating technologies. How do you think this is evident in the manner in which OTA businesses have progressed on the whole?

Technology leap forging has to be supported by educating the end users of the new technology, if not the whole exercise is futile.

OTAs in India which have predominantly focused on domestic air bookings. How do you see the battle going forward as traditional offline consolidators particularly air consolidators enter the online space?

Well the play is going to be more interesting because the offline consolidators understand product better and OTA's technology better. We will have to wait and watch who gets the combo right

How do you think OTAs on the whole can grow by associating themselves with the hotel industry? What are the main challenges to expand revenues from hotel bookings, which currently accounts for a miniscule share of online travel business?

Selling hotel rooms has definitely more money than a domestic airline business, however since the brick and motor shops have traditionally handled this, it is a slow but a definite change that is taking place. With the advent of 3D room view, maps of the hotel location, competitive rate comparison with the click of the mouse, today's techno savvy traveler are booking hotels online and this is set to grow at a tremendous pace.

Talking of consumer's profile, is Indian consumer too trapped in browse online and buy offline behaviour?

Since the online bookings is in the nascent stage in India, this is true only about 8% of the hits are converted online while the balance 92 percent prefers to book either with their local travel agent or directly with the airlines. Joint promotions and apt marketing strategies will slowly change this behavior, also the dispersion of plastic cards and the augmentation of internet access across India will favor online booking.

With the expansion of disposable income - as compared to the historical trend of "One Big Vacation" a year; people are now taking two-three breaks a year. Is it only restricted to certain demographics or cities?

In my opinion this two or three short breaks is very highly prevalent, specifically in the metros. However in the recent past we've seen the II tier cities also fast adopting this practice.

Are OTAs actually managing real time reservations and payment online via their sites, without a consumer phone call or behind the scenes human-generated email or call to the supplier? What about security of transactions?

We are the only online travel company who has advanced technology to support instant real time ticketing of all domestic airlines in India across the web, mobile applications and Kiosk. For holidays and other products, since we are still working on them, our experience is limited. In fact we gave the travel world the Global Firsts in Mobile air booking and Kiosk booking. We are the only 3D secure platform for credit card transactions for travel business in India

Last year, during EFT inaugural conf. in India, it was shared that joint Online and Offline model is imperative to succeed in India – as it solves the BTQ issues and takes care of customer apprehensions paying larger volumes online. In this context, do OTA's really have pure online booking and payment model or usage of call center/ alternative payment options is indispensable in India?

Plain vanilla tours are being sold online, booked more by the mature traveler. Once they pay online, the money is accounted for and a huge volume of tourist does not necessarily like the same. Therefore it is imperative that specifically in outbound tours operations a judicious combination of online and offline is crucial.