Google partners Cleartrip to expand reach in India

Google has partnered with travel portal Cleartrip to expand the reach of Google Flights in India, reports The Economic Times. This is Google’s fourth partnership after Vistara, Jet Airways, and travel portal Via.com.

Google Flights allow users to search, compare and book flights via the search engine on desktops, mobiles, and tablets.

Balu Ramachand, head of air distribution at Cleartrip told ET that this partnership would allow their flight prices to be accessible on the Google platform. “For Google…this partnership with Cleartrip is important as it helps expand our offering and provides consumers with another way to conveniently plan and book their travel,” said Vikas Agnihotri, industry director, Google India.

Notably, Google Flights is the open-ended flight searches through which the user may select the destination and the application calculates every price for every day in the year, and display it like a graph or a table.

"One advantage with Google Flights is that it allows the listed supplier to retain ownership of the customer. This means the supplier charges insurance tariffs, etc. and, more importantly, retains intelligence and data such as travel and booking patterns of the customer. This doesn't happen in case of booking through an OTA (online travel agency)," an executive whose company has partnered with Google said.

With online air travel market in India projected to grow to $30 billion by 2020, Google Flights-Cleartrip partnership comes at an opportune moment for both the entities.