Online travel booking became a sensation with the advent of smartphones and digitization. In the same segment where Cleartrip and MakeMyTrip were already predominantly present, Goibibo disrupted the travel segment by providing seamless travel experience in 2007. Goibibo was founded by Ashish Kashyap, Deepak Tuli, Sanjay Bhasin, Vikalp Sahni, and Uma Shankar. Goibibo made travel booking flexible and easier with just a click.
Goibibo - Company Highlights
- Company Name-Goibibo
- Headquarters-Gurugram, Haryana
- Industry-Travel, Tourism
- Founder-Ashish Kashyap, Deepak Tuli, Sanjay Bhasin, Vikalp Sahni, and Uma Shankar
- Founded-2007
- Website-goibibo.com
Goibibo - About and How it Works
Goibibo, as we know is an online booking portal whose core differentiator is providing seamless and trusted user experience in terms of quickest search and flawless booking experience, faster payments, settlement or refund processes.
At Goibibo, the customers enjoy a supremely standardized stay experience at certified hotel properties which are brought to them by Gostay. Overtime, Goibibo rapidly became the number one choice for digital and millennial India. How? By introducing and incorporating the travel industry’s first virtual travel booking currency, named GoCash, and travel social network, GoCash+ Rewards! This portal is better known for offering various deals and incentives to its customers. For example, INR 2000 cashback if booked via Goibibo coupons or a 60% discount on domestic air-tickets with coupons.
Ibibo Group is the parent organization of Goibibo which is known to be backed by Naspers. The USP of Goibibo is great packages at minimal fares. Apparently, Goibibo has the largest consumer base amongst all other market players because of its affordable ticket prices. Also, Goibibo is the most sought-after booking engine and has been consistently ranked at number one for its mobile application.
Goibibo has two supreme product features namely:
Anywhere to Anywhere flight bookings - This feature in Goibibo's product kit helps in curating the best fare options for the consumers owing to the international destinations to and from anywhere in the world.
Flight Advice - This one is essentially a search engine that helps users in finding results relating to their personal choice. This includes parameters such as price options, preferred destination routes and the duration of a flight.
Goibibo - Founders and Team
Ashish Kashyap
The Goibibo founders are Ashish Kashyap, Deepak Tuli, Sanjay Bhasin, Vikalp Sahni, and Uma Shankar.
Ashish Kashyap - Prior to co-founding Goibibo, Ashish was the ‘Country Head’ for Google India. And before working with Google, he founded his first e-commerce and online travel business at Indiatimes.com and successfully pulled them into a profitable position.
Deepak Tuli - Deepak Tuli is one of the co-founders of Goibibo.com. He has over 10 years experience in the e-commerce sector. Deepak has gained professional expertise in Mobile Platforms like Android, IOS, Windows, HTML5 with advanced training in Digital Marketing, Product Management, P&L management, and CRM. This won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but Deepak has built multiple online businesses and business units in the country. Before launching his current venture, Goibibo, this Naspers Harvard Program graduate was a part of the Yatra.com launch team.
Sanjay Bhasin- Sanjay Bhasin has been creatively instrumental in launching a number of successful ventures across the media industry. He took a degree in economics but was not satisfied with it so he went on to pursue a Management degree to learn practical theories and tools applications for business. He has been a media person throughout his career.
Vikalp Sahni - With a B.Tech from the National Institute of Technology, Vikalp is currently the director of Engineering at Goibibo.com. Prior to this, he was working as a software engineer at IBM.
Uma Shankar - Shankar has extensive experience in Product Interface Standards and Online Application Style Guides. He handles UX design at Goibibo.com. He works closely with project managers, to create flow mockups for User Experience and prototypes for proposed designs in continuous interaction and feedback from the client. Shankar, with a graduate degree from Madras University, has deeply worked with engineers and product managers on details of interfaces to achieve maximum usability.
Goibibo - The Idea and Launch
The idea for Goibibo was germinated when the founders looked at the problems that were predominant in the online travel industry. And that’s how they entered the search and social segment and ended up starting the flight business. “As a consumer, we felt there was a problem while booking flights.” Added Ashish Kashyap.
“It’s all about focusing on a problem. If you see that there is a problem, however small it is, and try to solve it — there itself is an opportunity.” Said Ashish Kashyap.
Back then in 2007, while the whole country was talking about the fintech and e-commerce space, these brilliant entrepreneurial minds were trying to focus on more specific problems of the consumers running though all these segments to create an efficient and flawless product/ solution. And that is the reason Goibibo was launched in 2007.
Goibibo - Startup Story
You’d be surprised to know this but Ibibo was initially a social networking service. This was back in 2007. Later, in 2009, it transformed into an e-commerce and travel organization. According to some reports, Goibibo grew up to 200% in its first year of inception.
“We had started Goibibo as an experiment with only a $50k seed capital but over the years we have built a successful OTA business,” said Ashish Kashyap.
Then came 2011, when the platform grew about 180% and in the same year, Goibibo became the first OTA to launch instant refunds in the sector and in the country. The growth years had just started for Goibibo and in 2012, its team size grew to 25 members. Also, it is in this year that the venture successfully added new features like online rescheduling and international flights to its existing product mix. 2012 was turning to be a great year in its history and that’s also when it launched the bus booking facility to aid travel in all forms for its users. This was followed by Goibibo acquiring RedBus for an estimated amount of INR 600 crores.
In the later years, Goibibo didn't stop and clap at their achievements. It further went on adding new and upgraded features to its versatile product mix. Following this, it launched hotel bookings, which contributes significant revenues for Goibibo according to the current structure.
“We started off like every other company by investing in Google search ads to ensure customers start transacting. We were fortunate enough to have been solving the right problem for our customers, as within 2 months we were able to reach the 1000 customer mark.” Added Ashish Kashyap.
Soon enough, by launching amazing features like GoCash, anywhere anytime flights accompanied by great technology, Goibibo became an end-to-end solution provider rather than being just the middlemen. The focus then shifted on building products that would create superior value at both the ends of the spectrum. The demand side which are the consumers who are buying flights and the supply side which are the hoteliers and bus operators who are catering to these customers. The team has been, and further leveraging the network effects between customers, bus operators and the business entity on a one-to-one basis to grow the business.
Goibibo - Merger with MakeMyTrip
In 2016, two of the big names in the online travel sector announced an association. It came as a shock to everyone but together both the ventures went to bring the best to the consumers. This merger solved a lot of loopholes like:
Flight bookings were tremendously slow and a tedious process and would you believe that it took almost a minute for a page to load? Hence this merger focused on building the key differentiation of being the fastest flight booking site in the country.
The merger also focused on all the small changes which make big differences to the customer. Together, both the ventures focused on achieving optimum reliability, offering the best product mix with the right price and the right selection.
One other creative hack that the merger brought in was the creation of an algorithm that offered flights that are cheaper were of a comparatively longer duration. Hence if the customers are looking for a better price, they were given an additional option. These series of innovative hacks in regards to the price and selection modules helped Goibibo build a strong differentiator against others in the game.
Goibibo - Competitors
As we have accomplished that Goibibo entered the market when there were already predominant players in the market. Hence it would come as a surprise that Goibibo faces stiff competition from several rival companies. To counter that, it adopted a competitive pricing policy to attract and retain its customer base.
The top competitors for Goibibo are:
- ClearTrip
- Yatra.com
- EaseMyTrip
Also, MakeMyTrip also was a massive competition for Goibibo before the merger.
Goibibo - Funding and Investors
The Ibibo Group has raised a total of $250 million in just one funding round where the investors were Naspers. This particularly was a Venture round raised on Feb 24, 2016.
Goibibo - Growth
Established a network of several offices located across Indian cities like Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Chennai.
Tie-ups with 400 airlines
Access to 52,000 Routes
More than 50% of the bookings are done through the mobile application
1.5 million users on its Facebook page
The applications have been downloaded more than 10 million times
Annual turnover stands at more than $65 million
Goibibo - Awards and Recognition
For both the years 2014 and 2015, Goibibo was awarded the Best Website in the category of Online Travel and Leisure
In 2015, it backed the award for India's No.1 Brand in the category of Online Travel and Leisure
Again in 2015, Best Tech Travel Aggregators Brand was awarded to Goibibo
In 2016, it backed the Silver category of Travel and Holidays by Businessworld Golden Cart
Also, it’s acquired subsidiary, Redbus has won many awards like Brand Excellence Award in the e-commerce sector, Most Trusted Brand (Online Travel Category) and 13th Most Trusted Internet Brand.
Goibibo - FAQs
Is Goibibo owned by MakeMyTrip?
It is a subsidiary of MakeMyTrip (MMT) Limited, which owns a 100% stake in Ibibo Group.
Is Goibibo an Indian Company?
Yes, it is India's leading online travel booking platform.
Who is the CEO of Goibibo?
Sanjay Bhasin is the Chief Executive Officer at Goibibo.com
Which is the parent organization of Goibibo?
MakeMyTrip, an online travel services provider which includes flight tickets, domestic and international holiday packages, hotel reservations, rail, and bus tickets.
