ixigo’s journey to becoming a travel-tech powerhouse reached a major milestone with its successful IPO, a testament to the company’s approach and deep understanding of India’s travel landscape. At the helm of ixigo’s innovation is Aloke Bajpai, Chairman, Managing Director, and Group CEO, who has navigated the company into its next phase of growth alongside co-founder, director & group Co-CEO, Rajnish Kumar.
Bajpai recently stopped by the WiT Studio to discuss ixigo’s trajectory post-IPO and capturing a massive untapped market in India.
Watch full interview here:
Bajpai believes India is on the brink of a travel boom, fueled by a growing middle class and increasing discretionary income. “India is at a very unique inflection point right now,” he shared. “When per capita income crosses $3,000 to $4,000, discretionary income flows into categories like travel in a much bigger way. We’re seeing this play out as the middle class undergoes mass premiumisation.”
This trend has been pivotal for ixigo’s strategy, which has focused heavily on rail travel – a sector often overlooked by global online travel agencies (OTAs). Bajpai highlighted, “Most OTAs globally were built with a flight-plus-hotel approach, but for us, the story centered around rail and bus. Only 4% of Indians actually fly, so we’ve tailored our solutions to uniquely Indian challenges.”
India’s vast and diverse travel ecosystem presents hurdles that require distinctly Indian solutions. Bajpai explained ixigo’s “Jugaad train” feature, designed to address the scarcity of train tickets. “Finding a train ticket is a pain because most trains get waitlisted. We started identifying combinations between various stations and fare classes to uncover available inventory,” he said. “It’s a typical Indian solution to a deeply Indian problem.”
Similarly, ixigo has integrated features to ease the traveller’s experience at airports, such as locating boarding gates and baggage belts. Religious travel and bus travel, which remain largely offline, also represent untapped opportunities. “Only 19-20% of bus demand is online, leaving significant room for growth,” Bajpai noted.
With over 80 million monthly active users, ixigo leverages its massive data pool to enhance personalisation. Bajpai explained how their data-driven models optimise pricing for services like ticket flexibility and price locks. “We use crowd-sourced data to predict train timings and personalise deals. Our goal is to make the user experience – whether voice-driven or UI-driven – much more personalised,” he said.
The company’s technological edge also extends to trip planning, an area rife with challenges. While earlier attempts faced hurdles, ixigo’s new AI-driven trip planner shows promise. “Our vision is to solve trip planning, improving customer experience with AI and large language models,” Bajpai shared.
While deeply rooted in India, ixigo is expanding its international footprint. The company has seen impressive growth in outbound travel bookings, with international flight bookings increasing by 71% year-on-year in the June quarter. Bajpai admitted, “We didn’t expect this kind of growth to continue post-COVID, but the numbers have exceeded our expectations.”
Reflecting on ixigo’s public transition, he remarked, “We’ve always operated with high governance standards, so the shift to a public company was seamless. Our focus remains on building the best customer experience—everything else flows from that.” As ixigo charts its path forward, Bajpai draws inspiration from trailblazers outside the travel industry, such as Apple and Elon Musk’s ventures. “The speed and scale at which they execute are mind-boggling,” he said, underscoring the ambitious vision driving ixigo’s growth.