(Updated below) Online Ticketing meta search Ixigo is powering NDTVtravels.com, the travel portal from NDTV Convergence. What's interesting is that Ixigo is aggregating only the airlines - and on the Online Travel Agents like MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip, Yatra, TravelGuru etc. In fact, NDTV is now positioning the Travel portal as an alternative to OTAs. According to the release - "NDTV’s flight search, powered by iXiGO.com, will enable users to search lowest air fares in real-time across all airlines and airports in India, and book them directly on airline websites, effectively by-passing travel agencies and saving on booking fees charged by travel portals. " Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't meta searches like Ixigo and Zoomtra once also aggregate OTAs? What happened? Aggregation of fares from across OTAs would have allowed users to compare one OTA with another, or with rates from Airline sites - and simply choose the one with the lowest price. That wouldn't have gone down well with the OTAs. We've contacted Ixigo for details on why they aren't scraping OTA sites, and on the deal with NDTV Travels. More as we have it. Meanwhile, Meta Search engines like Ixigo and Zoomtra also have to contend with Kayak, among the most successful meta search engines in the world, having launched an India site. Update: Aloke Bajpai, CEO of Ixigo responds to our questions regarding OTA relationships, and the monetization of the deal with NDTV Travels: On NDTV Travels And Monetization "As mentioned on our site, we do monetize…
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