Deep Kalra, co-founder and group executive chairman, MakeMyTrip was interviewed by Yeoh Siew Hoon, founder, WiT during the WiT Virtual Summit on June 24. Here are the key takeaways:
Tentative recovery – expect mis-steps in opening up
“Flights have been allowed to open to 33% capacity soon but the reality is after an initial flurry, where people were trying to get back to home base or bring loved ones back, it has settled down more at about 20%. So it’s still very tentative. And the reason is very simple that, you know, the virus is still growing pretty rapidly.”
“ … hotels have been allowed to open from June 8, for purposes other than medical quarantine. So we do have now about 25% of hotel inventory, which is now open … opening slowly. We might have a couple of missteps in our journey to open up.”
India has “a lot to lose” – rapid testing is going to be the way
“Our domestic market is huge. Though 15 million Indians travel overseas every year, the size of the domestic market is almost $50 billion. And travel and tourism contributes about 10% of GDP.
“I think it’s fair to say that we need to have a proxy for safe travel, and particularly for international travel. I think rapid testing is going to be the way.”
How long will it take? Less about time, more about cure/vaccine – “we will spring back with a vengeance”
“Actually, it’s less about predicting the time. I think it all depends on finding a cure/vaccine. We’re going to spring back with a vengeance and not just us … around the world, leisure travel is going to come back and I call it revenge travel, I think it’s going to be revenge shopping – simply because everyone has realised just how fragile our liberty is, and how overnight your freedom can be taken away and people are going to be attacking that bucket list of travel with ferocity so I think we are going to come back in a massive way.”
Product acceleration – self-serve post-sales will be taken to another level
“I realised very early on that self serve has to be taken to another level, particularly post sales. When lockdown was announced within 24 hours, people were changing plans overnight. And they needed help and call volumes went through the roof. At that point of time, we wished we could have done more with ourselves. So products, some of them were limited because the airlines themselves were changing schedules at a very rapid pace. And they couldn’t actually update the API’s all the time. And some of it was just because I don’t think the sophistication was there.
“So the first thing we did was to put a lot of focus to be ready for something like this where people don’t have to physically pick that phone … we’re going to take self serve to the same level as sales. The thinking is going to be more around that if people call up post buying something, then that’s a defect and you got to look at that as a defect to your product.”
Richer in product features and design
“We’re definitely going to be much richer on feature, product design, when things open up. The new features are around contactless check in … we’re working closely with airlines and airports to see how we can cooperate and build something which is cutting edge for them. For our intercity bus business (Red Bus) … we’re looking at very interesting things where you can actually book seats together if you’re together but the default is actually social distance to leave a seat.”
What product is needed to create better travel?
“I’m more about, how can we make it safer? How can we give you alerts up front? How can we give you all the tips that you need in different places … are there help lines that you can very quickly one tap person get information that you need?
“Maybe that’s going to be the need of the hour. Like not all restaurants are open. So suddenly the restaurant guide is not that relevant but you need to know the ones that are open and that are safe when you’re travelling.”
Decoupling of the world and what it means for travel
“These new travel bubbles are a reality … it’s a reality where people feel more comfortable receiving guests from where they are satisfied with their level of testing. So it’s not just a passport or visa alone, you have to be satisfied. Thailand’s talking about premium, inbound travel and for Thailand, tourism is huge. There’s already pushback from the budget hotels saying, hey, you can’t make this just exclusive. This is travel for everyone.
“I think you’ve got to allow entry. And I go back to testing. I think a lot of work should be done on testing in parallel, as we try to find a cure. So testing is not about finding the cure. Testing is already out there. You just have to make it faster, more accurate and more freely available and probably cheaper. And if you do that it’s going to get baked into the cost and people are going to say, okay, we can travel.”
Have a watch. Mother India, As She Awakens: Deep Kalra, Co-founder & Group Executive Chairman, MakeMyTrip (WiT Virtual Summit, June 24, 2020)