India Travel Site Yatra Online (NASDAQ:YTRA) Bringing Innovation to Huge Market

April 4, 2018

Dhruv Shringi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yatra Online, Inc. Mr. Shringi leads the company’s business initiatives and led the company to its successful listing on the Nasdaq under the ticker YTRA, making it only the second Indian e-commerce company to be listed on this global stock exchange. Since its successful launch in January 2006, Mr. Shringi has led Yatra Online, Inc. to grow from a three-member organization to a 3,200-people-strong organization, making it the leading travel brand in the country. In 2011, Mr. Shringi was listed by Fortune magazine in the top 40 CEOs in India.  In this exclusive interview with Dhruv Shringi in the Wall Street Transcript, the CEO details his business and how it will grow.

“Today we serve about 700 large corporate customers who work with Yatra for their travel needs. We have about 83,000 domestic hotels that are listed on our platform. This is the largest inventory of domestic hotels available on a single platform anywhere in India amongst all players both online and offline. On the air side, we work with all the domestic and international airlines that are operating out of India. There are six major domestic airline carriers in India and numerous airlines that serve India’s international travel needs.”

Mr. Shringi goes on to explain his competitive strategy:  “We have got two sets of competitors. On the consumer direct side, there is another Nasdaq-listed entity in the form of MakeMyTrip (NASDAQ:MMYT) that is a key competitor. Whereas, on the corporate side, our competitors are companies like American Express (NYSE:AXP) and Carlson Wagonlit and a couple of homegrown players as well. Depending on the nature of the consumer, the competitor set varies.”

Some of the unique content the company develops is based on their evaluation of hotel properties in India:

“Access to the property and what kind of hygiene level the property has are common knowledge needs as well as if it safe for female staff and generally what the area it is in is like. There are numerous features about the properties including the usual features such as WiFi and dining options that we would share with customers in order to help them make choose the right hotel for their needs.”

To get the full detail on Dhruv Shringi’s strategy for Yatra Online, read the entire interview in the Wall Street Transcript.