As a part of our #Outlook14 series, we asked heads of four online travel companies – ixigo, Olacabs, HolidayIQ, Cleartrip and Thrillophilia about their focus areas for 2014, and the challenges that the online travel ecosystem needs to address. MediaNama: Which according to you were the top developments and roadblocks with respect to the online travel segment in 2013? Why? Aloke Bajpai, CEO, ixigo - The growth of travel planning, research and information related queries on search engines has been almost twice as fast as transactional queries. - OTA market matures, but continues growing with online air bookings now growing at a slower pace, and focus shifting to hotels and packages to drive revenue growth and profitability. - OTAs also experimented with features that helped in trip planning prior to booking and hand-holding prior to booking. - All online travel companies have started taking mobile a lot more seriously in 2013, as evidenced by the launch of mobile apps, and growth in mobile transactions. Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO, Olacabs - With most people accessing Internet through their mobile phones today, travel as a category presents a big opportunity to companies like ours to offer great travel experience to our customers. - In the cab rental space, the scale that aggregators have achieved this year is a big development. - Also, the fact that aggregators have been able to prove that they can offer great quality without owning the cabs is a great endorsement for their credentials. Subramanya Sharma, Chief…
