Online travel portal Yatra on Thursday launched a self-booking platform for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) as part of which the companies would get corporate deals with minimum or no cancellation and rescheduling charges. SMEs can now manage their company and employee profiles, travel policy compliance, and approval workflow, using this platform. Yatra co-founder and CEO, Dhruv Shringi said the platform will "empower SMEs to control their travel needs, while at the same time making easier for their employees to make bookings." A press note from the company mentions that the service will allow the user to search through a range of flight and hotel options as per the company travel policy and follow the in-built trip approval process to seek their supervisor's approval. Moreover, as part of this offering, SMEs shall get curated hotel options, corporate deals and nil to economical cancellation and rescheduling charges. The SMEs shall also have access to real-time Management Information System (MIS) reports to enable them to monitor their travel expenses. Competing for SME clients Note that MakeMyTrip, announced in August last year the launch of a new service known as “MyBusiness”, which like Yatra's service, looked at the growing small and medium-sized enterprises’ corporate travel business. The company had highlighted that the main objective of MyBusiness is to make the payment process smoother while reducing any chances of corporate card abuses. This would be facilitated by dedicated corporate help desks available at the company’s service 24×7. Yatra's finances and competition The online travel…
