Exclusive | Aiming to make Ixigo the 'go to' destination: Saurabh Srivastava

Imagine the headache that you will have to go through if you are planning a vacation. To get the best deal you will be spending hours together surfing different travel websites looking for best hotel deals, airfares, surface transport options and so on. But what if there is somebody who aggregates everything for you and presents the information on a single platform? How relieved will you feel?

Giving this valuable service, aimed at making the lives of travelers easy and simple is Ixigo.com. Its vision is to simplify the life of travelers through innovative travel products for Internet and mobile. Founded in 2007, Ixigo has in a short span of six years become a leading travel planning and search website. For the travelers, the website searches, aggregates and curates travel information across hundreds of travel sites and allow travelers to access relevant information on tourist destinations, places to visit, things to do, modes of transport, driving directions, hotels, restaurants, weather and more. It has launched many path breaking apps as well and plan to do many more apps in the coming days.

Speaking to Adgully, Saurabh Srivastava, VP Marketing & Product Strategy at Ixigo says, “the travel industry in India has been on the upswing for almost two decades now as more Indians have been able to break their shackles and take up travelling for fun, leisure and discovery and not just business or event led personal trips. This coupled with disruptive growth in infrastructure, increased ability of the consumer to spend and governments focus on creating tourism related awareness and campaigns, has fuelled both domestic and international travel.”

The online travel industry has grown particularly well and has grabbed a lion’s share of ecommerce transactions both in India and outside. Despite being a part of this industry, Ixigo is different and has positioned itself as not just an e-commerce site or a regular online travel agent, but a friend one would call for advice when you are planning a trip. It is therefore a travel horizontal in the true sense which not only gives the user unbiased and credible information in the form of smart content but also enable booking hotels, flights etc and thus closing the loop.

Says Srivastava, “in India there is no other place where a user can find this great amalgamation of rich content with Meta search capabilities; Ixigo in that sense is a unique product and we hence do not have any direct competition. On one hand you have online travel operators offering deals and on the other hand you have niche travel agents for personalised trips. Ixigo straddles this spectrum and provides curated and deep content on more than 50,000 places to visit in India, along with expert tips, reviews and ratings from the users.”

Over the course of its existence, the company has introduced several innovations in its domain. Ixigo was the first to launch Meta search engine in India in 2007. This was innovative and highly relevant for consumers as it addressed the conspicuous pain point of not being able to figure out the best mode of transport or hotel in one click. A user before Ixigo made its mark in India, had to traditionally atleast visit 4-5 sites if not more to find out the best suited travel or stay option and was still unsure if they got the best deal. Another innovation is Trip planner - Semantic search in travel in 2012. Again something that was unique and innovative and helped user type their travel query in natural language. The engine understands that and throws up the most relevant results to the travel query. Eg: Delhi to Mumbai flight next weekend or weekend getaways from Bangalore or resorts in Goa or opening and closing timings of Taj Mahal. Ixigo also launched mobile apps and web products for the travellers on the go, to handhold them and help them with the most updated and useful information about any place/PoI (Point of Interest). These include Indian rails & trains, On the way, ingoa and myPNR etc. Avers Srivastava, “Our strength is the ability to think from a consumer’s perspective and then with high speed and agility introduce innovative and useful travel products in the market with a vision to simplify the lives of travellers.”

Ixigo cater to every and anyone who loves to travel. It believes that people love to travel but it is the fear of unknown that acts as shackles. “Ixigo is aimed at making travelling a stress-free and delightful experience and hence unlocking these shackles,” adds Srivastava. The travel industry has evolved at a very fast pace over the last 4-5 years, thanks to Internet which has made to consumers becoming more research oriented and the access to information at fingertips.  On key trends that will drive this industry forward, Srivastava says, “increased usage of mobile appls, impact of social media, the ability to profile and engage the new age traveler online will hold the key to success. Besides niche and theme based travel experiences are emerging. eg: backpackers, luxury travel, offbeat, unique experiences.”

On the business plans going forward, Srivastava says, “We aim to make Ixigo the ‘go to’ destination for all travellers. Where and whenever one thinks of  travel one should think of Ixigo. Our aim is to be able to be a travel friend that you can depend on for all you travel needs and queries. To fulfil this constant endeavor is to identify all possible pain points of travellers and create unique and innovative solutions to those problems whether on web or as mobile apps.”