A clutch of shoestring online travel agencies isn't just racking up hits; it's raking in profits, too.

By Bharat Ahluwalia

Finding Bara Bazaar Marg in west Delhi's not exactly upmarket, Old Rajinder Nagar takes a while. Reaching the offices of Services International, even longer. Up through a narrow stairway, on top of two chemist shops and on the third floor is where you'll find two of India's savviest netpreneurs: Pramod Singla and Vinay Maheshwari.

The location of their office included, the duo is everything you expect netpreneurs not to be. No fancy IIT, IIM degrees, no million-dollar funding from a VC-in fact, investment in five years is Rs 1 crore-and, they are not even net savvy. Yet, by most accounts, they run India's most successful B2C travel portals, Indiatravelinfo.com and India-travel.com. ''We generated Rs 5 crore of business from our websites last year,'' says Maheshwari. ''This year, it'll double.''

This is one internet venture which has recovered its capital cost and is profitable. The start-up's p2p, however, was totally serendipitous. While Maheshwari and Singla learnt of the Internet back in 1995, they were clueless about the new technology. Neither did they-at that point-have a business plan. But they knew what search engines and domain names could do; better still, they already owned a brick-n-mortar travel agency. So, they began registering domain names, either suffixing or prefixing words like travel, tours and hotels to India and its states. The net result: when anyone plans a holiday to India online, she invariably gets directed to one of Services International's 45 websites. It could be india-travel.com, indiatravelinfo.com, agra-hotels.com... ''We receive 100 enquiries daily, mostly for holidays to India,'' says Singla. These are serviced by their 12-year-old agency, Services International. ''The net allows low-cost marketing to a large audience,'' says Maheshwari. ''Since we don't have to rely on tie-ups with travel agents abroad to direct business to us, we can quote lower prices and yet get better margins.'' Competition beware: they own over 100 domain names.

Competition for Services International comes from another unlikely source. Promoted by Sound Travel, another offline travel agent, travelmartindia.com, has made investments of Rs 1 crore in two years, and last fiscal, racked up Rs 5 crore in billings.

Happy dotcom stories? Yes, they exist. In fact, the world of travel websites abounds with such stories. Etravelindia.com, a website managing the travel needs of corporates, claims to be empanelled by 60-companies and runs up Rs 4.5-crore of monthly billings. Makemytrip.com has Rs 6-crore of billings in seven months of operation.

Success isn't surprising, considering that travel lends itself well to e-commerce. For one, there's no fabric to feel, no trouser to try on or television picture clarity to physically check. ''Instead, travel websites offer loads of information at one place,'' says Deep Kalra, CEO, makemytrip.com. ''You needn't hassle people repeatedly for information.'' Plus, since hotel rooms and airline seats are perishables, the net allows travel agents to market these offerings instantly.

Another point of note in the online travel business is that every website has a different business model and targets a different customer. Makemytrip.com's marketing offices in the US, UK and Australia, target NRIs. ''Big travel agents abroad don't have good deals on tickets to India,'' says Kalra. ''We are India focussed and, thus, get better deals.'' The net allows focussed marketing to NRIs, through mailers and India-specific websites. In fact, 75 per cent of the website's revenue comes from tickets to India.

Then, there's etravelindia.com, which felt that the net lent itself more to corporate travel, since retail consumers wouldn't easily transact business online. The website claims that its strength is its technology solution, which allows clients to cut costs by 5-15 per cent. ''Our technology also helps clients track travel costs better than they did on their own,'' says CEO Sanjeev Agarwal. Clients include Techspan, Patni Computers, Credit Lyonnais and Monsanto.

With Rs 10-lakh of gross billings every month and another Rs 1 lakh from advertisements, outlooktraveller.com presents another different business model. ''The website is driven by content,'' says coo, Mahesh Peri. The editorial team visits vacation spots and writes about them, maintaining its journalistic independence. Tour operators then string together packages, which are advertised on the website, which takes a 10 per cent commission on each package sold.

There's even an Application Service Provider among these dotcoms. Ashish Anand's indiangypsy.com, works as an ASP for the travel trade, offering CRM, accounting and other back-office tools to hotels and travel agents. In four months of operations, it has tied up with 300 hotels and five travel agents, garnering revenues-not gross billings, where revenues can vary from 5-15 per cent-of Rs 10 lakh.

Varied business models apart, investments range from indiangypsy.com's Rs 40-lakh to traveljini.com, which has billings of Rs 4.5 crore after investments of... well, we'll save them the blushes. Of all the websites BT surveyed, traveljini.com had the highest investment by far.

But one thing's common: they are all looking to increase scale, yet keep costs low. The lessons learnt from the dotcom bubble and the healthy revenue streams of these websites, may well see most achieve their goal. But the real challenge will come when giants like Sita Travels (read Kuoni), TCI, and Thomas Cook wake up to the world wide web. But that's another story.

-Additional reporting by Aparna Ramalingam
  

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