Cleartrip 2026: Entering India's $20B Holiday Package Market
Flipkart-backed Cleartrip enters India's $20 billion holiday package market, bundling flights, hotels, and activities with AI itinerary planning.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- Cleartrip launches holiday packages targeting India's $20 billion travel sector.
- Bundles flights, hotels, activities, and transfers into fully customizable itineraries.
- Aims to capture market share from a sector where over 90% remains offline and fragmented.
- Plans to roll out lower-priced fixed-departure packages at 30% to 40% discounts.
Cleartrip, the online travel platform owned by Flipkart, has officially expanded into the Indian holiday package market. The new offering bundles flights, accommodations, activities, and ground transfers into cohesive travel itineraries that users can fully customize to their preferences.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
Gaurav Patwari, Chief Business Officer for Air at Cleartrip, shared with Skift that India's total travel booking market ranges between 75,000 million and 80,000 million dollars, with holidays and packages accounting for approximately 20,000 million dollars. He noted that more than 90% of this specific holiday market remains highly fragmented among small operators, with online penetration lagging even further behind.
Historically, planning a vacation in India presented travelers with rigid choices between inflexible packages or spending hours building an itinerary from scratch. Company leadership believes there is a better approach by combining expert-built frameworks with traveler control and continuous human support.
"Holiday planning in India has always been an either-or: either you get a rigid package or you spend hours building it yourself."
Gaurav Patwari
The platform initiates the booking process with an expert-curated baseline that travelers can modify by swapping hotels, flights, transfers, and activities. An integrated artificial intelligence system resolves scheduling conflicts, while human travel experts remain accessible before and during the trip. Furthermore, a price beat guarantee undercuts competing quotes by 5 percent.
Cleartrip's entry into holiday packages illustrates how major online travel agencies leverage broader e-commerce ecosystems—such as Flipkart—to penetrate fast-growing demand in smaller Indian cities. Because packaged tours yield higher profit margins compared to standalone air ticket sales, expanding into curated travel represents a strategic move to capture greater revenue value in the South Asian market.
Looking ahead, Cleartrip intends to introduce cheaper fixed-departure smart itineraries priced 30 to 40 percent below customized versions. The company projects securing a mid- to high-single-digit share of its total business volume from holiday packages within the next 12 to 15 months.
Source: Skift
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