ixigo, India’s leading travel search marketplace has announced the launch of “ixibook”, which will allow travellers to make bookings for flights and hotels within its app without being redirected to a third-party app or website. ixigo has collaborated with Cleartrip, a leading online travel agency, and OYO Rooms, India’s largest branded hotel network, as its launch partners for flights and hotels respectively.
On the launch, Aloke Bajpai, ixigo Co-founder & CEO said – “This is a first of its kind innovation in the Indian travel market, and we have chosen to work with the industry’s best for our initial launch. With ixibook, we will deliver a much smoother customer experience for ixigoers and enhance conversions for our partners by allowing users to book with them natively within our app. We expect to move over 30% of our flight and hotel bookings to ixibook within the next few months, as well as add more partners to ixibook later this year.”
Commenting on the launch, Stuart Crighton, CEO, Cleartrip said – “We’re excited to partner with ixigo on this first-of-its-kind paradigm where an online travel agency and meta-search collaborate closely to create a better user experience, something that we both value immensely.” Ritesh Agarwal, CEO, OYO Rooms added – “ixigo possesses deep insights into traveller-behaviour and a rich content focus. Through this collaboration, their audience will find value in our offerings and we will be able to expand our reach to engage leisure travel enthusiasts.”
Currently available on ixigo’s android app, ixibook allows a user to book a flight or hotel in just one tap. The idea behind the product is not only to enable direct in-app booking but also to save a traveller’s time by shortening the conversion funnel. ixibook also stores traveller information, thereby considerably reducing booking time for all subsequent transactions. Post-booking customer support is handled directly by the respective partner. ixibook will also be launching on iOS and web platforms in the coming weeks.
