iXiGO, India’s first travel search engine launched today. This is not a travel website per se but a travel search and planning engine which allows you to do real time searches across various Indian travel websites. In fact iXiGO defines itself as an infomediary- an information engine and not an intermediary (like travel websites). iXiGo was one of the 30 startups which were chosen to present at the first edition of Proto in Jan earlier this year. It is founded by a bunch of former Amadeus employees who were working together in Europe. Aloke Bajpai is the founder-CEO and he has a German co-founder, Jens Schuetter. Their team strength is 8 and they are currently self funded.
So how is iXiGO different from the mainstream travel websites? You can search for air fares on various airlines but you cannot book the tickets directly. On selecting a particular option, you are redirected to the respective airlines site or travel website (like makemytrip, yatra etc). iXiGO has entered into direct revenue sharing agreements with the airlines, who see their relationship as being symbiotic. With the travel websites (referred to as OTA, online travel agencies), iXiGO is getting the info/data by scraping the websites, RSS feeds etc. While they don’t stand to lose any revenues due to iXiGO’s intervention, they might consider iXiGO parasatic (instead of symbiotic), which can take them further away from their customers. This is of course based on the assumption that a ZERO SUM game is being played out. It is entirely possible that the services being offered by websites like iXiGO might actually expand the pie rather than split it. In terms of its core functionality, you could think of a Rediff air fare search as being the closest to what iXiGO is offering.
iXiGO’s webapp is quite well designed and easy to use, with much of the UI smartly ajaxified. The site has been launched with air fares but future plans include doing hotel reservation search, car rentals etc. They plan to extend the search capabilities to the mobile as well. Given their focus on Web2.0, they also have plans to build a community around travel planning, search, information sharing, route planning, travelogues etc.
iXiGO was launched at a lively get-together at the hip & upmarket Turquoise Cottage, one of Delhi’s trendiest night-spots. Here’s a bunch of snaps (via slideshare) that I took impromptu at the event. The dimly lit ambience of the venue and the inadequacies of my Nokia N70’s 2 megapixel camera have jointly ensured that the image quality is not great. Still, its worth a quick walkthrough
Check you mobissimo.in as well. Same as ixigo.
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Yahoo farechase was launched sometime back; but I guess without any advertising.
They also look quite similar to Ixigo. The functionality seems to be quite similar to Ixigo – lot of cool ajax and the business model also seems to be the same; except for the fact that they don’t seem to have tied up with OTAs like MakeMyTrip, Yatra, ClearTrip, etc.
However, the UI Of Ixigo is way neater than Yahoo’s. But I really wonder what is going to happen in the travel space in India. Its getting more and more crowded; but the end-user experience is also getting better and better. Its going to be an interesting watch.
-Deepak
Yahoo’s farechase URL is
http://in.farechase.yahoo.com/
-Deepak
Man, real cool stuff. Looking for flights bookings and comparison would have been never so easy. Did not get much chance to see it but would do it soon. And your camera is pretty good.lolz
their UI is a complete rip off of cleartrip.com!
iXiGO is a step in the right direction for the travel space in India. They seem to be very user-experience focused, and it seems like they have very good speed.
By the way – cleartrip.com is a ripoff of kayak.com and ixigo has a very new kind of UI that I have never seen before.
ixigo is not offering any thing new .this service is provided by yatra.com already.the user interfac at yata is much better .
i failed to find out any core competence(if any) of ixigo
Interesting.
Now, when will it show my site 🙁
http://www.meriyatra.in
Don’t see any core competency here, a pure commodity website, may turn profits but don’t expect anything big here.
i have never seen a travel portal in India that gives results so fast. they also show prices with all taxes included and accurate – it’s a disruptive portal ! I love it 🙂
the easiest thing about iXiGO is that i can bookmark my search and also look on travel portal prices. i think is is more valuable for end customer than yatra, makemytrip etc. also, it is nice to see that a team has gone so far with an idea without any VC funding – sign of true entrepreneurs
iXiGO is not the first of its kind on the travel domain for the Indian skies. is the first of its kind. This retrieves results from various domestic portals in one go.
i think only time will tell which is the best indian portal for searching airlines. i tried all the ones mentioned above, and i find that the approach of ixigo, zoomtra etc. is much nicer than yatra, cleartrip and the rest. i feel that as user, i need more unbiased search options and convenience too. ixigo – i agree that speed is ulitmate but i wish they had some kind of fare alert and hotels.
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! fscnjabtjfpa
Dear readers,
iXiGO is proud to announce the launch of its “anywhere to anywhere” cheapest search.
Try this- Do a Delhi-Madurai or Bangalore-Ranchi search on your favourite travel portal. Now, do it on iXiGO. Compare prices, # of options, speed, accuracy (tax-inclusive).
Let us know your feedback.
Regards,
http://www.iXiGO.com
Congratulations! TolMol.com has now competition in iXigo.com. Indian consumers gonna have fun with all these cool solutions
Nice article. Actually I read a cool review of all travel sites in India and a great comparative analysis – see it at http://trak.in/Tags/Business/2007/08/26/indian-travel-airfare-ticket-search-startup/ – very cool stuff.
iXiGO rocks by the way.
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i want to my database(hotel list) included in ixigo search engine.
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