Rajesh Magow, co-founder and CEO of MakeMyTrip, explains the primary infrastructure bottlenecks preventing inbound foreign tourists from booking activities in India.
Insight
Rajesh Magow: Deep transaction businesses cannot be easily replicated by AI
“You know, I'll tell you the reason why I don't think that replication is so easy. In a deep transaction business versus a, you know, generic search business. Think about Google, for example. So Google historically has always been perceived as potential competi…”
Opinion
Magow: India's tourism product is below average against global benchmarks
“My product is, is below average right now, you know, world benchmark, like some of the places would be world class. But if I look at it, pan India, I, it is average.”
Insight
Rajesh Magow: Non-hoteliers are better equipped to build out-of-the-box hospitality concepts
“I just wanted to build on this, that it is better built by non-oteliers. So sometimes, if you have to do out-of-box thing, you don't have to get the same person from the industry.”
Assertion Partly supported
Magow: IRCTC commands 80 percent of Indian online rail bookings
“And if you break that into then IRCTC versus all the other OTAs, including Make My Trip Go, Ibibo, Redbus, others, Zig Ziggo, and the others, all of us put together will be 15, 20%. 80% is IRCTC.”
Disclosure
Magow: MakeMyTrip uses train bookings strictly for user acquisition
“So I'll tell you the, you know, all of us, what we are trying to do, you know, okay, maybe I can speak for myself, is more the customer acquisition. This is a new customer acquisition channel for us. Because the economics don't really work, right?”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Magow: 50% of Ayodhya visitors also visited Varanasi on the same trip
“Actually, 50% of that population went to Varanasi also. In the, on the same trip.”