MakeMyTrip takes significant stake in HolidayIQ
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Indian online travel agency, MakeMyTrip, has acquired a significant stake in HolidayIQ, the travel planning and review site.
On Wednesday, the companies confirmed a deal worth approximately INR950 million (US$14.9m), which will see MakeMyTrip hold a 28% stake in Holiday IQ. The two companies said they now plan to “jointly scale-up HolidayIQ”, with a key focus on mobile platforms.
“HolidayIQ operates in a very exciting space in the Indian online travel market. Their pace and appetite for innovation matches ours, and we see great synergy in our focus on hotels and mobile. The opportunity to drive scale jointly is fairly significant,” said Deep Kalra, founder & group CEO of MakeMyTrip.
Hari Nair, founder & CEO of HolidayIQ, added that the investment would allow it to advance the development of its mobile channels.
“Mobile is creating new unprecedented opportunities for growth and innovation. This capital gives us additional resources to expand quickly and strategically and accelerate pace of product innovation. We look forward to working closely with MakeMyTrip in getting a much larger number of Indian travellers to participate in the creation of Indian traveller opinion,” Nair stated.
As well as mobile, the companies said the new funds would be used to strengthen MakeMyTrip’s content, and enhance the company’s ability to generate hotel and holiday reviews. Currently, the TripAdvisor-style site has more than a million reviews from Indian travellers, but HolidayIQ said it expects this to increase “multi-fold over the next two years”.
“This tie-up will power our hotel-growth strategy, and also provide immense value to Indian travellers in the form of user generated and curated trip-planning content. We also expect to rapidly scale our reviews and recommendation engine as an outcome of this investment,” commented Rajesh Magow, MakeMyTrip’s co-founder and CEO for India.
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