Cleartrip (previously known as Cleartrip Travel Services Private Limited) is a global online

travel company A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism-related services to the general public on behalf of accommodation or travel suppliers to offer different kinds of travelling packages for each destinatio ...

, headquartered in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. The company operates an online travel aggregator website for booking

flights Flight is the process by which an object moves without direct support from a surface. Flight may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Flight'' (1929 film), an American adventure film * ''Flight'' (2009 film), a South Korean d ...

train tickets A train ticket is a ticket issued by a railway operator that enables the bearer to travel on the operator's network or a partner's network. Tickets can authorize the bearer to travel a set itinerary at a specific time (common for long-distance ...

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

reservations, and activities in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

countries. It holds offices across

UAE The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

and

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

History

Cleartrip was founded in 2006 as a hotels and air aggregator by Stuart Crighton, Hrush Bhatt, and Matthew Spacie. Seeing the fragmentation that existed in the Indian travel and hospitality sector, the founders decided to enter the online travel space. Cleartrip also operates Cleartrip for

Business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

, an online

corporate A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and re ...

travel management tool; Agent Box, a travel tool for travel agents; and Cleartrip Mobile, a travel booking app for mobile devices. In 2012, it launched new services such as Quickeys, a hotel booking application and other journey planning services. In April 2012, Cleartrip launched

iOS app The App Store is an app store platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS Software Devel ...

with a split-screen search feature to enable round-trip search results. Its app also came with geo-location feature to choose the airport for departure from the current location. The search platform of the app also allows users to swap the from and to cities with a tap. The app also runs on both

IOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and Android. In January 2013, Cleartrip brought air, rail and bus tickets to Apple's Passbook. The same year the company undertook a massive UI redesign project, Tuxedo where every field in the website was thought through in terms of placement, display, action. In 2014, Cleartrip Mobile was recognized as part of Apple's Best of 2014 Trends of the year and also featured as the ‘Editor's Pick. In 2015, Cleartrip became the first Indian online travel agency to feature on

Apple Watch Apple Watch is a line of smartwatches produced by Apple Inc. It incorporates fitness tracking, health-oriented capabilities, and wireless telecommunication, and integrates with iOS and other Apple products and services. The Apple Watch was rel ...

and by the end of 2015, its app traffic had overtaken web traffic and accounted for 59 per cent of its total traffic. By May 2016 nearly 75% of Cleartrip's traffic was coming via mobile. In April 2018, Cleartrip launched an Arabic version of its website to target the growing Arabic community in the GCC region. In May 2018, Cleartrip launched an app for

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

's Alexa voice assistant that enables Alexa users to voice search air travel options. With gross booking value of $1.4 billion and revenues worth of $110 million, Cleartrip has annual growth of over 40% in

MENA MENA, an acronym in the English language, refers to a grouping of countries situated in and around the Middle East and North Africa. It is also known as WANA, SWANA, or NAWA, which alternatively refers to the Middle East as Western Asia (or a ...

, driven by the increasing shift from offline to online. In 2018, Cleartrip was named as one among the only two companies that followed the GDPR and allowed users to delete personal information associated with their accounts. In June 2020, Cleartrip announced the launch of TravelSafe – an initiative that allowed customers to get information of the latest travel restrictions on account of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Since the acquisition of Cleartrip by

Flipkart Flipkart Private Limited is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bengaluru, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories ...

, the company has participated in the Flipkart Big Billion Day event in October 2021. It has signed up

Anil Kapoor Anil Kapoor (born 24 December 1956) is an Indian actor and producer who works primarily in Hindi films, besides television and international films and television. In a career spanning over 40 years as an actor and since 2005 as a producer, Kapo ...

as its brand ambassador. The company has announced its plan to expand its workforce by 50% by March 2022. In October 2021, Cleartrip appointed former

Myntra Myntra is a major Indian fashion e-commerce company headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. The company was founded in 2007-2008 to sell personalized gift items. In May 2014, Myntra.com was acquired by Flipkart. In May 2022, Myntra launch ...

executive Ayyappan R as its new

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Partnership

In 2017, Google announced partnership with Cleartrip for its flight search application,

Google Flights Google Flights is an online flight booking search service which facilitates the purchase of airline tickets through third-party suppliers. It was launched by Google in 2011 following a buyout. It is now part of Google Travel. History In April 2 ...

. In May 2018, Cleartrip had extended its partnership with Klook and Musement, global activity platforms to amplify its integrated travel services in 48 European and 18 Southeast Asian countries. In June 2018, Cleartrip announced its partnership with

Kerala Tourism Development Corporation The Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC) is a public sector undertaking that conducts and regulates the tourism activities in the Indian state of Kerala. The KTDC is headquartered at Thiruvananthapuram and has offices across all the d ...

to become an online seller of KTDC's exclusive set of activities. In 2019, e-commerce company

forayed into the flight booking space by partnering with Cleartrip. In November 2019, Cleartrip entered into a partnership with

PAYBACK Payback may refer to: * Revenge, a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance Payback may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Payback, a member of the fictional comics superhero team Shadow ...

India for a loyalty program. In 2021, Cleartrip expanded its partnership with Sabre as a strategy to streamline its GDS relationships and to make Sabre its GDS partner.

Shareholding

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs ...

Ram Shriram Kavitark Ram Shriram (born 1956/57) is an Indian-American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is a founding board member and one of the first investors in Google. He was earlier employed by Amazon, working for Jeff Bezos. Shriram cam ...

and

DAG Ventures DAG Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. DAG Ventures works with startups in providing early stage and growth stage funding. Since its founding in 2004, by Tom Goodrich and John Cadeddu, the firm has backed ...

were some of the early investors in Cleartrip. In April 2021, Cleartrip was acquired in an undisclosed deal by

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

owned

. In October 2021, the Adani group picked up a minority stake in Cleartrip for an undisclosed amount.

Geographic Expansion

In May 2010, Cleartrip launched its first overseas venture in the

. In May 2012, it expanded its operations to the Persian Gulf nations of

Oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of t ...

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

, and

. On June 21, 2018, Cleartrip announced the acquisition of

-based online travel aggregator Flyin.

References

External links

* {{Travel ticket search engines Online travel agencies Indian travel websites Travel ticket search engines Indian companies established in 2006 Transport companies established in 2006 Internet properties established in 2006 Travel and holiday companies of India Online retailers of India Companies based in Mumbai 2006 establishments in Maharashtra