Yatra launches AI-powered expense management solution for small and medium-sized businesses

Online travel agency Yatra is working to increase its company share and strengthen its services with a view to expanding its overall market, CEO Dhruv Shringi said on Friday.

The company expects to sign 83 new corporate customers in fiscal 2024, with annual billings reaching INR 5.4 billion ($64.7 million).

The company has enhanced its services and launched a new expense management solution for SMEs and large enterprises. Yatra said the generative AI-powered solution aims to enable accurate and comprehensive expense tracking, reduce errors and save time. The company said the solution is aimed at helping businesses manage their travel and non-travel expenses while providing seamless integration of travel bookings and expense tracking.

“Expense management is a large scale, high margin space and our product capabilities make it a good fit for the Indian market as well as international markets,” Shringi said during an earnings call on Friday.

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Yatra has also launched a new guesthouse booking platform for its corporate clients, which consolidates guesthouses that Yatra has contracted with each corporate in a single view, along with real-time inventory. “By offering guesthouses, we are giving our clients the option to optimize their accommodation costs,” the CEO said.

Focus for 2024-25

Yatra said it will continue to grow its corporate business while also focusing on expanding its hotel business for both residential and corporate clients. The company also said it has hired a team to expand its hotels in the corporate travel division.

“We are aggressively marketing the hotel to our current corporate clients and should see a significant improvement in hotel growth in the second half of the year,” Shringi said.

He said efforts are also underway to strengthen and modernize the company's hotel platform.

The company recorded bookings of INR 8.74 billion ($105 million) for its hotels and packages segment in FY24, up from INR 8.15 billion ($98 million) in the previous fiscal year. However, hotel room nights booked declined to 1.7 million in FY23-24 from about 1.8 million in FY22-23.

Yatra 2024 Revenue: Key Points

• The company recorded 12% annual growth in total bookings.
• Yatra has revamped its domestic booking flow to better upsell and cross-sell complementary products. The new booking flow includes multiple fare options, premium seat selection, and travel insurance at the time of booking.
• The airline's domestic air traffic grew 24 percent year-on-year. Yatra said this is double the industry average growth and that the company continues to gain market share in this segment.
• In the fourth quarter, the company signed 25 new corporate clients, and its corporate business has recovered to pre-COVID levels.

Photo credit: The company recorded 12% annual growth in gross bookings.