Paytm Expands Platform to Include Hotel Bookings

Digital payments company Paytm has expanded its platform to allow customers to make hotel bookings and expects revenue of Rs. 500 crores from the service over the next six months.

The Alibaba-backed company has partnered with players like Goibibo, Ezeego1 and TSI-Yatra for the new service. "Travel has emerged as a very important category for us as the penetration of online booking is still very low in this vertical. The opportunity for the hotels category is immense, especially because the transaction penetration is still low in Tier II and III cities as far as travel concerned," Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma told PTI.

With the launch of this segment, Paytm will drive usage from these areas, causing a huge disruption in the travel space, he added.

"We expect this segment to contribute Rs. 500 crores to the revenue over the next six months," he said. Currently, the eCommerce platform also allows users to book bus tickets.

"In the first phase we have partnered online travel portals like Goibibo, Ezeego1, TSI Yatra, Via for domestic hotel booking," he said.

In phase 2, the plan is to offer international hotels by tying up with leading platforms like Expedia and Booking.com, Sharma added.

In the first phase, Paytm will offer an inventory of about 20,000 hotels to users and the number is expected to go up to 35,000 in a short time after launch.

Disclosure: Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma's One97 is an investor in Gadgets 360.