In early September, Phocuswright published its India Total Market Report, which provides a comprehensive view of India’s travel market, including detailed market sizing and projections, distribution trends, analysis of major travel segments and key developments. Below, PhocusWire speaks with Rajesh Magow, co-founder and Group CEO of India’s leading online travel company, MakeMyTrip.
—————————————————-
Q: What have been the biggest changes to your role since taking over as MakeMyTrip Group CEO from CEO of the India business in 2020?
Frankly speaking, no real change in true sense of the role when I see it using the co-founder lens. Technically, some added responsibility, but as a co-founder one ends up taking a joint ownership of the business performance overall in any case.
Q: How far along is MakeMyTrip on its super app ambitions?
We have come a long way in setting up one-stop shop for Indian travelers. Staying true to our vision to make MakeMyTrip the first port of call for every Indian traveler, we today offer every single use case of travel: all modes of transport for intercity travel, airport cab transfers, all types of accommodations, bundled products, ancillary products like meals, insurance, forex and innovative travel fintech products like Book Now Pay Later, instant consumer loans and more on our platform.
Q: What are your strategic priorities within and outside India over the next 12 months?
Coming out of pandemic, the immediate priority is to get the business back on track to pre-pandemic levels and then grow from there at an accelerated pace to make up for the lost time. We made investments in key areas like strengthening our corporate business offering for both SMEs and large enterprises; built the MyPartner platform (a B2BC initiative!); strengthened our homestay offerings; launched RedRail, the lightest rail booking app, and Ryde, an intercity cab offering under Redbus; built affiliate offering to power other platforms like Amazon Pay, leading banks portals, etc., for new customer acquisition. All these initiatives are going to help us grow faster in the coming years.
Q: MakeMyTrip reported strong recovery during the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, which you attributed to an increase in demand. How concerned are you about threats such as inflation or a recession impacting business?
Yes, we were happy to report strong business recovery in Q1 of Fiscal 2023 as well as the last few profitable quarters at an adjusted EBIT level. The recovery momentum was a result of pent-up demand post-pandemic. Today, while COVID restrictions and people concerns are largely over, we are witnessing inflationary pressures in the market, albeit lower than the rest of the world due to increase in crude oil prices. Oil prices have come down a bit in the recent past and we hope that this trend will continue and help reduce inflationary pressures.
Q: You also reported “continued opportunity for growth” in your homestays segment. How do you plan to capitalize on that opportunity?
We are excited about the homestay opportunity which is fast emerging as a mainstream segment in the travel and tourism ecosystem in India. We have been investing behind strengthening our homestay offering for the last couple of years now.
Q: What have been the biggest changes to your role since taking over as MakeMyTrip Group CEO from CEO of the India business in 2020?
Frankly speaking, no real change in true sense of the role when I see it using the co-founder lens. Technically, some added responsibility, but as a co-founder one ends up taking a joint ownership of the business performance overall in any case.
Q: How far along is MakeMyTrip on its super app ambitions?
We have come a long way in setting up one-stop shop for Indian travelers. Staying true to our vision to make MakeMyTrip the first port of call for every Indian traveler, we today offer every single use case of travel: all modes of transport for intercity travel, airport cab transfers, all types of accommodations, bundled products, ancillary products like meals, insurance, forex and innovative travel fintech products like Book Now Pay Later, instant consumer loans and more on our platform.
Q: What are your strategic priorities within and outside India over the next 12 months?
Coming out of pandemic, the immediate priority is to get the business back on track to pre-pandemic levels and then grow from there at an accelerated pace to make up for the lost time. We made investments in key areas like strengthening our corporate business offering for both SMEs and large enterprises; built the MyPartner platform (a B2BC initiative!); strengthened our homestay offerings; launched RedRail, the lightest rail booking app, and Ryde, an intercity cab offering under Redbus; built affiliate offering to power other platforms like Amazon Pay, leading banks portals, etc., for new customer acquisition. All these initiatives are going to help us grow faster in the coming years.
Q: MakeMyTrip reported strong recovery during the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, which you attributed to an increase in demand. How concerned are you about threats such as inflation or a recession impacting business?
Yes, we were happy to report strong business recovery in Q1 of Fiscal 2023 as well as the last few profitable quarters at an adjusted EBIT level. The recovery momentum was a result of pent-up demand post-pandemic. Today, while COVID restrictions and people concerns are largely over, we are witnessing inflationary pressures in the market, albeit lower than the rest of the world due to increase in crude oil prices. Oil prices have come down a bit in the recent past and we hope that this trend will continue and help reduce inflationary pressures.
“As a co-founder one ends up taking a joint ownership of the business performance overall in any case.” Rajesh Magow, MakeMyTrip Pic courtesy of Phocuswire
Q: You also reported “continued opportunity for growth” in your homestays segment. How do you plan to capitalize on that opportunity?
We are excited about the homestay opportunity which is fast emerging as a mainstream segment in the travel and tourism ecosystem in India. We have been investing behind strengthening our homestay offering for the last couple of years now.
We are already serving more than 44,000 SME entities on our MYBiz platform and about 200 large enterprises on our Enterprise solution.
MyPartner too has strong business potential with more than 31,000 travel agents serving the needs of their customers. Our attempt here is to expand our reach to customers through the traditional agents for long-tail retail demand.
Q: If you weren’t in travel, what career would you have pursued?
Frankly speaking, never had a chance to think about this given MakeMyTrip’s journey has been very absorbing and I believe the best is yet to come! Outside of travel, I have a keen interest in following pretty much all sports and play a couple of them to keep myself fit.
Q: What advice would you give to young people entering the travel technology space today?
Venturing into any tech-led business offers a very exciting opportunity, and travel is no different. I would say, venture into it thinking that it could be a long haul and stay relentlessly focused on providing innovative solutions to solve consumer or business problems.
Rajesh Magow is co-founder and Group CEO of India’s MakeMyTrip. He has played a key role in multiple landmark events of the online travel company, including its NASDAQ listing in 2010 and merger with Ibibo group.
Magow has served as director on the board of Flipkart and has also served as the CFO and acting CEO for the India operations of eBookers.com, now part of Travelport.