TravTalk India Online Magazine
Acquisitions are not just about combining companies for EaseMyTrip, but it’s about crafting a new chapter of growth, innovation, merging cultures, and collective success. Rikant Pittie, COO & Co-Founder, EaseMyTrip, claims that strategic planning is the only way to make acquisitions successful.
Hazel Jain
With a vision to blaze a trail in the B2B space, EaseMyTrip.com recently acquired a 51 per cent stake in three travel companies: Guideline Travels Holidays India, Dook Travels and Tripshope Travel Technologies. This big development enables the company to look beyond its own capabilities and ensure benefits to its customers and partners, says Rikant Pittie, COO & Co-Founder, EaseMyTrip.
Sharing his key takeaways from the acquisition, Pittie says, “Having a mindset toward profitability is of paramount importance. Hence, assessing if the business is a debt-free, asset-light-cost-effective business model runs a long way and cannot be ruled out. Tech-based companies are the future, it is best to look out for such companies that have a solid tech foundation.” He adds that businesses that are built on customer and employee-centricity always win. “An acquisition isn’t just about combining companies; it’s about crafting a new chapter of growth, innovation, merging cultures, and collective success. And strategic planning is the only way to make acquisitions successful,” Pittie says, adding, “Companies that are in there for the long haul, are able to provide a definite solution, have a good value proposition that ensures scalability and sustainability of the business are a good catch.”
Echoing similar sentiments on the bottom line, Pradeep Saboo, Chairman & Managing Director, Guideline Travels, says, “With their help, we will grow the company further. There will be no interference from them; it will be business as usual for us and our partners. We are huge consolidators for cruises for over two decades in India and we are going to grow this segment. We will also focus on our own group tour products, which we will roll out to all our B2B partners pan India. We have created some unique products that touch each corner of the country.” With a bigger platform, he will have a bigger team to service B2B partners.
“Such a huge acquisition in the travel industry has happened after a long time. Now is the right time for consolidation and synergising of the industry to meet a common goal. Since EMT is an online travel platform and pro-technology, we will also follow on these footsteps,” Saboo adds.
Adil Sathu, Founder & CEO, Tripshope, one of the biggest consolidators in J&K with a huge network of travel agents in the region, says, “We have more than 4,000 travel agents from Kashmir in our network. We largely get domestic tourists from around the country, but some international tourists as well. With this acquisition, we can think of expanding to other parts of India and get more B2B partners into our fold. We also have a marketplace where agents can stock their inventory that can be bought by other agents.”
Sharing his perspective about the acquisition, Sandeep Kumar Gupta, Director, Dook Travels, says, “We are big in the CIS countries, and we have now expanded our footprint in the Middle East. We are expanding our source markets as well. Demand for countries like Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Kazakhstan has gone up because of good air connectivity and easy visa processing for Indians. We can grow faster with this acquisition.”
