redBus forays into hotel booking space, ibibo group strengthening presence in travel segment
After cementing its position in bus ticketing space, bus ticketing portal redBus has forayed into hotel listing. At present, the platform lists about 2,100 hotels across four major cities, including Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore.
Besides these four major cities, it also lists hotels across sub-verticals like hill stations, pilgrimage centres, beaches, wildlife resorts, honeymoon destinations among others.
In an interaction with YourStory, Ashish Kashyap, CEO of ibibob group, said, “Hotel supply is being aggregated by inGoibibo.com. This is exactly the way redBus' BOGDS platform is the key bus inventory supplier of Goibibo.”
Earlier in March this year, redBus acquired online bus tracking and analytics platform YourBus for an undisclosed amount. With its foray into the hotel space, redBus is eyeing to become a horizontal player in the travel space, and ibibo group’s presence in this segment will help the former in a smooth integration.
Within hours, redBus reported booking of hotels without any outbound communication. “The hypothesis further got proven as we received hotel bookings within the first hour of going live without any communication,” added Ashish.
The move will offer convenience to bus travellers who usually book hotels via other platforms. Besides air ticketing, Goibibo has been offering hotel bookings for quite some time and that makes redBus debut easier into the hotel booking space.
From an ibibo group’s point of view this is a very powerful equation. From a demand side, Goibibo and redBus have very low overlapping transacting audience. Goibibo.com reaches out to a metro-centric audience, while redBus.in has deep penetration beyond metros. “From a supply point of view, inGoibibo is the core system which is used by both Goibibo and redBus. At the end of the day, this drives liquidity for hotel owners,” added Ashish.
redBus will shortly launch hotels on redBus app too. “We will continue to build and develop our two distinct consumer brands and apps. I personally have strong belief in multiple consumer brand propositions in the travel space. We would do the same on the mobile too,” said Ashish.