Corporate travel an untapped market: Cleartrip founder

Constant travel for work is a given for any corporate honcho. And while there are many ventures catering to various needs in the travel space, corporate travel remains relatively untapped.

According to Stuart Crighton, founder and CEO, Cleartrip, in an interview done last year, corporate travel as it functions today, is going to see a fundamental change. "You suddenly see the corporate and leisure world start to get a little bit grey," he said in an interview with ET Panache some time ago. "That could be as simple as people going on corporate travel and then adding on a weekend leisure trip, where they are joined by their family or spouse. So, there is a buying behaviour that's starting to change."

The ability of smartphones to integrate corporate tools like single point reservation, which disseminates information of the whereabouts of teams, is also a factor, feels Crighton.

But who is going to drive this change? Crighton believes that the corporate travel space has a lot of potential that's not tapped yet. And startups, therefore, have the opportunity to disrupt the space.

"Look at a market like North America and the innovations that Concur (it provides travel and expense management solutions) is bringing through its own products into the corporate space, it's far ahead in terms of consumer behaviour, usage by corporates and travelers," he says. "You haven't seen the level of innovation in the corporate space as you have seen in the leisure space, right now."

Crighton says that aggregated information from OTA (Over the Air) players could prove to be relevant and useful to corporate customers as well.