EaseMyTrip has got the board’s nod to enter into the general insurance business. What is the reason for a travel aggregator to enter this business? How do you plan to run the operations because these are very different in nature?
Lokendra Saini: I think it is very early to comment too much. However, insurance as a product goes hand in hand with travel as there are a lot of things travellers would like to get insurances for. When people are travelling, they would like to have their life insured, they would like to have their journeys insured and also they would like to have their fulfillment insured.From the operation standpoint, yes, it is going to add to the operational layer to manage all of these. But, as a travel company we always have to be extremely customer centric, so we should never be short to address and answer the customer queries, which also includes even today the insurance products that we are borrowing through a third party insurance company. Thus, it will not be a completely different environment for us, we are already doing it. Yes, some more additional resources are required. We also see a significant revenue getting added to the business as well.
You mentioned adding a revenue stream in this business. Do you have a number to share?
Lokendra Saini: Again, it will be too early because the product has to first go into an early adoption, a large adoption and then revenue on each utility on that product can be forecast. Our revenue usually is calculated when you know you have X number of customers and the percentage out of those who will pick your insurance products. Then you have to know the offset amount with respect to claims. However, the new insurance business is definitely going to add significant revenue to the overall business.
By when are you planning to roll out the insurance products? Lokendra Saini: We are expecting maybe a second or an early third quarter rollout.Do you plan to sell the general insurance products separately or do you want to bundle it inside your travel deals?
Lokendra Saini: Right now, at this point in time, we would like to add more and more convenience to the EaseMyTrip traveller community through insurance product injection into the whole scheme of things. We are not looking for anything beyond that as of now. Once we cross that stage where we are absolutely sure that our insurance services are adding huge value and convenience to our end users, we may then look at scaling up and expanding it to other horizons as well.
Will you also get into life insurance business?
Lokendra Saini: We have no plans of that as of now. But as things progress and go ahead, if it is needed and if we see a business value in it, we would like to pick that up.
We know that many stakeholders from the travel industry have said that they want the government to roll back the 20% TCS on overseas travel as this may be detrimental for the business. What is EaseMyTrip’s take on it and how do you see the business getting impacted?
Lokendra Saini: Obviously a 20% kind of a value is extremely high compared to from where we were previously at 5%. We are assuming that there is definitely going to be a dip in the number of bookings or high-value bookings that were happening as compared to the projections we have set. However, we also feel that there could be multiple ways how this can also be looked at. From a positive standpoint, at the time of filing your tax returns, you can always file for this additional TCS and get it back after a year or so.
In terms of the dip in the number of bookings, there is no change whatsoever. Bookings are happening as usual and we do not see this impacting for another month or so, because the most impact that we are going to see is only during the July-onwards period when the bookings for the winter season is going to begin.
So, what are the alternatives?
Lokendra Saini: We have a few suggestions, which are people below a certain income level can be relieved of this TCS, or up to a certain value of travel can be waived off. We are proposing such steps, but we are yet to hear anything in confirmation back from the government. We are looking forward to seeing some ways how this can be absorbed where it does not impact the customers directly and if at all it is to be levied, can it be levied beyond a certain high-value transactions meant for HNI customers.
How has the travel demand looked this summer season and how will you compare this with 2022, because 2022 was about so-called revenge travel after the lifting of pandemic restrictions?
Lokendra Saini: Travel has been at its all-time high compared to any previous years in India. 2022 is significantly way behind and the reason is obviously that travel has become a mainstream for people who were still hesitant earlier and that hesitation has been totally wiped off now. People are travelling in bulk this year. We are absolutely confident this year we are going to cross all numbers across all different categories of travel.
There is a very positive sign of people travelling in huge volumes and to multiple places.
