Rcom Joins Hands With Yatra.com For Bookings

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Reliance Communications and Yatra.com has launched a mobile service to provide hotel & air ticket bookings in a convenient manner over all Reliance Mobile Handsets. This service offered by Yatra Online (Pvt) Ltd. (Yatra.com), a leading online Travel Company can be accessed using Reliance Mobile World (R World), the multimedia application suite of Reliance Communications. This is the first time that such a facility is being offered by a travel portal, on the mobile.

Over the Reliance Mobile phone the service allows users to enter request for hotels and air travel bookings via a user-friendly interface of Reliance Mobile World. The customers just need to provide basic information like date of travel, number of air tickets required to make the bookings on mobile. Yatra executives will call customers providing them with numerous choices from a database of over 1500 hotels and resorts as well as options for flights. The added convenience is that Yatra will offer this on 'Cash-on-Delivery' basis in 15 cities in the country. Bookings can also be done on the mobiles and pay by credit/ debit cards for completing the bookings.

This application is the latest initiative that Reliance Mobile World now offers in the area of Mobile Commerce ( M- Commerce). Reliance Mobile World hosts a suite of M- Commerce applications through which customers can book railway tickets, movie tickets, airline tickets, purchase lottery tickets and even pay electricity and mobile bills anytime, anywhere without the need to look for PCs or internet connections.

Commenting on the tie-up with Yatra, Krishna Durbha, Business & Marketing Head – Value Added Services, Reliance Communications, said, "Mobiles today have simplified many services and made them accessible to millions of Indians. Booking hotels, railway, and air tickets is now only a few clicks away, for millions of Reliance subscribers. This association will bring convenience to the users across the country. Yatra has been offering attractive choices in air fares and hotel bookings. They can now make all their travel plans from Reliance Mobile phones and enjoy the cost and comfort benefits."

Speaking on the launch of this innovative service Dhruv Shringi, Co-founder and Director, Yatra.com, said, "In its continued endeavor to offering cheapest and best air and hotel booking deals, Yatra.com has tied up with Reliance Communications. This tie-up will not only make services provided by Yatra accessible to millions of Reliance mobile phone users in Tier I, Tier II, Tier III cities, but also take us to the next level of technology innovation. Our aim is to make travel easier and get closer to our customers."

Mr. Harshal Shah, on Board of Directors of Yatra Online and CEO of Reliance Technology Ventures Pvt. Ltd. said, "Since we invested into Yatra, it has been our constant endeavor to leverage all new technology medium including Mobile Internet to offer value added services to Yatra's customers. The tie-up between Reliance Communications and Yatra.com, which has been independently won, has further reinforced that."

Online hotel sales account for 6% of total sales and expected to increase to 10% by 2008. Currently, Yatra books around 4,500 tickets every day including 250 room nights. With this tie-up Yatra spreads it wings to millions of Reliance mobile users.

Yatra.com has recently been nominated for World Travel Awards 2007, the most prestigious awards program in the global travel industry and has endorsed Yatra's position as a leading player in the online travel space.

Yatra.com was launched in August 2006 and within a short span of time it has seen a 40 fold increase in revenue with an employee base touching 400. Currently, Yatra is posting average revenue of $9.5 million a month with a volume of 4,500 tickets and 250 rooms a day. The company projects a turnover of $120 million by the end of 2007 and expects to break in 2008.