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“I’m not losing sleep over competition either now or in the past. I think we should lose sleep over our own business strategy and execution roadmap”, asserted MakeMyTrip Co-Founder and Group CEO Rajesh Magow during the company’s Q4FY25 earnings call. Magow was responding to a query about the benign nature of competition and evolution of airline direct and hotel direct services in India.
Concerning competition, Magow claimed that the digital or online aspect remained underpenetrated, except for domestic flights. He also called competition from existing traditional players in the travel and tourism market a part of the industry. “In the packages segment, there are regional and pan-India tour operators. In the air market segment for international flights, there are consolidators. There are traditional travel agents, global and local OTAs (online travel agencies), along with direct bookings”, explained Magow.
Coming to direct bookings, MakeMyTrip claimed that since the pie of the travel and tourism industry is large, it doesn’t view partners as competition. Officials also noted that having different players increases the customer touchpoints to gain the maximum amount of demand. Magow’s sentiment echoes his stance on competition from the ‘supplier direct’ segment as stated in the company’s earnings call for the previous two quarters.
On AI integration
Speaking of competition, analysts queried company executives about the potential competitive threats from agentic AI services deployed by other travel players. Officials noted that while MakeMyTrip has focused on GenAI for the past few quarters, the success of these developments hinges on two factors. Firstly, the company should invest in modifying the existing large language models (LLMs), and substantiating them with its own travel data instead of relying solely on public internet data. Secondly, speed and agility should be prioritised. Overall, Magow noted that while MakeMyTrip is observing the AI space for potential competition, they are not insecure of any new entrants and expect AI adoption to be a long transformational journey.
Further, the company emphasised that it is leveraging AI without compromising on customer experience. While MakeMyTrip aims to improve customer experience during cross-selling (moving customers from one service to another) and other services, it also referenced its long-standing journey with self-service automation (which debuted during the COVID-19 pandemic) as a precursor to its engagement with GenAI.
Currently, MakeMyTrip includes GenAI services like its trip planning chatbot Myra.AI, and a suite of features like review summaries on efficient decision-making, search responses to natural language trip queries, smart collections based on user preferences, and AI-driven booking support, among others.
On plans to introduce experiences
While the company has segued into the tours and experiences vertical over the last few quarters, its predominant focus remains on tapping international destinations. This service will also scale gradually to expose it to 100% of the platform’s traffic while ramping up domestic experiences. Company officials believe that this vertical will boost growth in international travel, which lagged after the COVID-19 pandemic, but has recovered now.
These responses addressed a query about MakeMyTrip’s potential plans to venture into experiences as a service, similar to Airbnb’s recent launch, comprising offerings across categories like chefs, photography, spa treatments, hair & makeup, catering, etc.
On potential acquisitions
Coming to potential growth opportunities, officials stressed that the company would continue scaling up “organically”. MakeMyTrip would focus on direct supply and leverage the ample international traffic on its platform to launch new services. This came in response to a query on the company’s outlook towards future acquisition of brands to expand its experiences category.
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While the overall perspective remains focused on ‘organic growth’, MakeMyTrip would also analyse niche segments to determine any potential product expansion capabilities for ancillary services. Officials referenced the company’s acquisition of expense management platform Happay from CRED as an example of this. For context, the platform’s ancillary services comprise travel insurance and credit alongside forex and visa services for international travellers.
Executives also denied eyeing any inorganic growth prospects in terms of media and travel content. Instead, the company would continue to leverage available tools like digital campaigns, and come up with video content through GenAI tools.
On marketing expenses
MakeMyTrip also contended that its marketing expenses would remain below the 5% mark, while it furthers invests in two primary categories. Firstly, the platform has initiated investments in ancillary travel services instead of a sole focus on its core business segments like hotel bookings and bus ticketing. Secondly, the company also focuses on geographic expansion and financing alternative accommodation spaces, explained MakeMyTrip’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Mohit Kabra.
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