Cleartrip.com to start international booking

NEW DELHI: Online travel portal 'cleartrip.com' will start international booking within a month as it expects to achieve a growth target of 300 per cent in the next fiscal.

"We will offer international bookings on the site from the next month," a company official said.

The portal, launched in July 2005, has an average booking of Rs 7,000 per customer. "In the last fiscal, we dealt with three lakh customers and now we expect to increase this number considerably," cleartrip.com CEO Sandeep Murthy said.

To expand its business, the company has started bookings through retail outlets, travel agents and mobile phones across the country.

As part of this initiative, it has tied-up with retail outlets of Future Group and Big Bazaar. Pantaloon and Big Bazaar has offered spaces to cleartrip in 31 and 66 outlets respectively. It is going to add three more locations within a month, he said.

The portal offers combo bookings of air travel and hotels through its site. "In this segment, we expect our revenue to grow 30 per cent," Murthy added.

Currently, the company offers booking facilities for about 1,500 hotels through direct and indirect relations. It has tie-ups with 10 hotels of four- and five-star category.

In the last fiscal, the company invested eight million dollar for its business expansion plans. Murthy said, "The company has raised 11.7 million dollar" but did not comment on how the capital was raised.