Disha Shah Ghosh - Mumbai Launches Hindi as it’s 46th language
Online booking platform, Booking.com has seen an uptick in demand for alternate accommodation options in India, alongside 11-12℅ growth in listing of such properties on its platform, globally.
Santosh Kumar, Country Head – Indian Sub-continent & Indonesia, Booking.com, said, “Accommodation in general is a fairly complex distribution channel, globally, including in India. While airlines are distributed via the GDS, accommodation is a big puzzle because there are millions of options available. Today we have roughly 29 million listings, and that supply has gone up, and almost 7 million bookings are coming from the alternate accommodation space, which is only growing. For an important market like India, it is key that we provide our domestic customers the breadth of choice and availability of supply in that space.”
Kumar spoke about flexibility of booking and the design personalisation of their website and app are their key selling points.
Booking.com has been in India almost for a decade, and has grown it’s presence in India with a push of regionalisation. This year, Hindi has been launched as Booking.com’s 46th launguage. “It is important we talk to our audience in their language, and the travel trade is using Hindi on the extranet for bookings. We have opened a Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, and it’s workforce will go up to 500 in the coming months”
Building brand awareness is their area of focus in India, and partnership with ICC is important.
Leisure continues to be a big draw for Booking.com, and Indians continue to be confident for travel, especially for leisure as per Booking.com’s Travel Confidence Index. “There is recessionary pressure, but people are trying to book in advance to take advantage of deals.”
Kumar said that China has finally opened up for travel, however flight capacity is no where close to pre-Covid levels, and that only further shifts the perspective to India from an APAC view point. Terming India as their priority market, he said the importance of India is evident from the presence of international destinations, airlines, attractions and experiences here to tap the market.
