Flipkart launches hotel booking service ahead of festive season

Flipkart Hotels is expected to benefit from Cleartrip’s deep understanding of travel customers and sectors.

Walmart-owned e-commerce company Flipkart has entered the hotel-booking segment ahead of the festive season, more than a year after it acquired online travel aggregator Cleartrip in a bid to diversify its presence across digital commerce segments.

The company said that the new hotel-booking feature, Flipkart Hotels, on its platform will provide customers with the opportunity to book hotel rooms across 3 lakh domestic and international hotels.

The feature will come with add-on benefits such as flexible travel and booking-related policies, easy EMI options to make travel affordable, and budget-friendly options, among others.

“Backed by Cleartrip’s API, Flipkart Hotels will benefit from Cleartrip’s deep understanding of travel customers and sectors. Available on the Flipkart app, this new offering provides a hassle-free booking experience, and timely communication through popular messaging apps,” said the company.

The platform will further enable users to avail third-party offers on the Flipkart platform. The company has also set up a dedicated customer care centre to support customers with user-related queries arising from the hotel booking service.

“2022 has been a great year for the hospitality industry so far with a notable surge in demand both in the domestic and international accommodation market. New travel trends like exploring lesser-known destinations, workations, long stays, and vacation rentals are becoming mainstream,” said the company.

“These developments are giving a boost to the travel industry. Given the 70 percent growth in the last quarter compared to a CAGR of 60 percent over the last two years, the next festive quarter is expected to be even better for the overall travel industry,” the company added.

However, growth in festive season sales on e-commerce platforms is expected to be muted this year due to inflation. Year-on-year growth is anticipated to be 15-20 percent compared with 25-50 percent over the past few years, they said.

Sales of smartphones and electronic appliances are expected to remain flat, although fashion, cosmetics and home decor are expected to log steady growth.

Additionally, the resumption of offline shopping as COVID-19 eases may eat into the growth of online sales, they said.

“With the comeback made by offline, e-commerce sales are now really a function of two things – how the macros play out and the depth of discounts. Again, a large retailer in tier 3-4 markets is suffering a slump in demand whereas a high-end urban retailer is seeing an uptick that has been consistent over the past few quarters,” a management consultant told Moneycontrol earlier this week.