Chapter 1

Introduction

Make My Trip Limited is an Indian online travel company founded in

2000. Headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, the company provides online travel services

including flight tickets, domestic and international holiday packages, hotel reservations,

and rail and bus tickets. As of 31 March 2018, they have 14 company-owned travel stores

in 14 cities, over 30 franchisee-owned travel stores in 28 cities, and counters in four

major airports in India. Make My Trip has offices in New York, Singapore, Kuala

Lumpur, Phuket, Bangkok, and Dubai.

Make My Trip was founded by Deep Kalra, an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad. It was

launched in the US market in the year 2000 to cater to the overseas Indian community for

their US to India travel needs. Make My Trip started Indian operations in September

2005, offering online flight tickets to Indian travellers. The company also started to focus

on non-air businesses like holiday packages and hotel bookings. On 17 August 2010,

Make My Trip Limited was listed on the NASDAQ after its initial public offering.

In 2011, the company created several travel related apps for mobile devices. Make My

Trip also made three acquisitions—Luxury Tours and Travel Private Limited

(Singapore), ITC Group Hotel Travel Group, and ETB Group—to enter new markets in

south East Asia and Europe. In September 2014, Make My Trip instituted a $15 million

innovation fund to support travel start-ups.

Page 1
Make My Trip acquired My Gola, a travel planning website, in April 2015. The

acquisition was done through the innovation fund and all employees of My Gola were

absorbed into the Make My Trip team.

In July 2015, Make My Trip invested in the travel information and hotel review portal

Holiday IQ and picked up approximately thirty percent stake in the company. In the same

month, it invested $5 million in Bona Vita Technologies, a start-up which plans to utilize

the funds to build innovative products in the travel industry.

In January 2016, the Chinese travel booking company Ctrip agreed to invest $180 million

to Make My Trip.

Merger with Ibibo

In 2016, Make My Trip and Ibibo Group, India's largest travel booking portals, merged

through a stock transaction. Through this transaction, Make My Trip acquired its rival,

Ibibo Group, in one of the biggest acquisition in India’s online travel space. Post-merger,

Make My Trip shareholders own a sixty percent stake and Ibibo Group shareholders get a

forty percent stake. Naspers and Tencent, who jointly owned Ibibo Group, became the

single largest shareholder in Make My Trip.

Product and services

Make My Trip offers flight tickets, rail and bus tickets, cab service, and hotel booking

services on its portal. In 2012, Make My Trip launched travel mobile applications for

Windows Phone, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry devices. Make My Trip route planner

provides all the basic required information on more than one million routes in India.

Page 2
Values

Make My Trip is a combination of several values such as:-

 Customer Centered Approach: They are focusing on their customer both

externally and internally.

 Integrity: Make My Trip is maintaining a consistency between their words and

action. They are maintaining.

 Innovation: Make My Trip is combining innovation in business as well as in

technology to provide best products and services to their customers.

 Teamwork: Make My Trip believes in teamwork for achieving goals of providing

best service to their customers.

 Accountability: Make My Trip feels the responsibility and accountability which

they promise to their customers and stakeholders.

 Passion for Winning: Make My Trip believes in “can do” attitude and believes

that nothing is impossible.

Page 3
Awards

Year Name of the award

2007 Best Online Travel Agent
2009 Superbrand
2009 Best Service Provider Company (tour operators category)
2010 Most Preferred Travel and Holiday Website
2011 Best Online Travel Service Firm
2011 Best Domestic Tour Operator
2012 Retailer of the Year
2012 Best Online Tour Company
2012 Leisure and Travel E-Retailer Award
2012 Best Travel Innovator
2012 Industry Architecture Shift
2012 Best Mobile Strategy and Best Mobile Solution
2013, 2009 Best Travel Portal
2013, 2012 Best travel Facilitator (Indian)
2013, 2012 Best travel Facilitator (Indian)
2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 Best travel Portal
2014, 2013 E-tailer of the Year
2014, 2013 Best Travel Portal India

Customer Value Preposition

Make My Trip core preposition to customer is best deals at customer’s convenience.

Make My Trip is a reliable, efficient and uses latest technology for its business. Make My

Trip believes that it’s not the cheaper air tickets which will bring customers to them.

Make My Trip believes in creating an experience for the customer. The advantage that a

Page 4
customer gets while visiting MakeMyTrip.com is that it lists all available options

available in a glance thus saving his valuable time.

Booking is also very flexible through Make My Trip which allows customers to make

amendments and cancellation at any moment. Make My Trip also provides various

payments facility ranging from net banking, debit cards to credit cards of almost every

bank. In case of any refund money is automatically transferred back to same account

through e-transaction.

Besides all these advantages Make My Trip also provides many value added services to

customers such as various discounts and offers on various booking.

Corporate Social Responsibility at Make My Trip

It has an active club that is committed towards Making A Difference (MAD) in the lives

of the under-privileged. The club comprises of the Trippers and is chaired by the CEO,

Mr. Deep Kalra. The focus of this initiative is towards volunteering work for the various

NGOs. Make My Trip encourages its employees to take a day off from work to contribute

towards the social service. The “Giving Back” program involves working for causes

related to children – Education and Health and Environment. Make My Trip is actively

involved with the following:

 Udayan Care

 Million Trees Gurgaon

 Parivar Society

 Genesis Foundation

Page 5
  Give India Payroll Giving Program

 Goonj

Make My Trip is also the first online travel company to have launched a Carbon

Footprint green initiative. This initiative allows air travellers to book tickets on the

website to offset their carbon footprint for the journey by contributing towards an

afforestation programme run under the aegis of GiveIndia by Seva Mandir in Rajasthan.

The CEO and Founder, Deep Kalra is the co-founder of “I am Gurgaon”, an NGO that

focuses on improving the quality of life in Gurgaon through environmental and civic

initiatives.

Major Competitors

 Yatra.com: A major competitor of Make My Trip is yatra.com started in 2006 in

India. Their marketing strategy was to target market through TV and online.

Yatra.com has over 1 million registered users with a sale of over 1,100 Crores.

Yatra.com has got 10 offline offices in 10 major cities of India. Yatra.com is been

declared as the “Best Online Travel Agency” of the year 2008 at the Galileo

Express Travel Awards and was also in “Top 100 start ups in Asia” awarded by

Red Herring. Yatra.com has a market share of 30%.

 Cleartrip.com: Another major competitor of Make My Trip is cleartrip.com

started in year 2006 by Hrush Bhatt. It has unique feature travel feature for both

air and trains i.e. the air and train calendar which displays fares between

destinations for upto 3-6 months ahead.

Competitive Advantage

Page 6
A strong competitive advantage of Make My Trip is to think beyond customer

satisfaction and to create an unforgettable experience for the customer. Make My Trip

has customer testimonial which provide a very strong feedback about their customer care

executives. All other online travel agencies provide a basic service of booking but it’s the

experience the customer feels gives Make My Trip a competitive environment.

Another competitive that Make My Trip possess is the technology which they implement

in their products. They are making continuous upgrades in their processes to enhance

their customer experience. Being advance in technology provides them an extra edge

over other competitors in Online Travel Agency market.

Make My Trip is not only focusing on their customers to create an experience but also on

their suppliers. Make My Trip is focusing on providing the best and most suitable

environment to their suppliers to showcase their products.

Future Growth

Make My Trip is focusing on domestic travel tickets as the growth rate is over 100%

from last three years. On a larger scale Make My Trip is expecting a higher growth in the

outbound travel segment. Now more Indians want to go overseas for holidays and

vacations. Make My Trip is thinking of converting domestic travelers into international

holidayers by offering them holiday packages at an affordable price. Make My Trip is

Page 7
currently planning to raise upto $100 million through an initial public offer on US stock

exchange NASDAQ. Make My Trip is intending to expand its operations by selling its

share and also investing in strategic assets.

4 P Analysis

Product

 International and Domestic air tickets

 Hotel Packages to different destination within India and international

 Hotel booking in different destination both within India and International

destination

 Railway ticket

 Private and taxi rentals

Price

 Showing the best price offers the customers can get in different

 Airlines/ Railways/ Buses/ Cars

 Agents are not allowed to take extra commission.

Place

Page 8
  Internet marketing / e-business

 Dedicated 24X7 customer care support and they gave offices in 20 cities across

India and 2 International offices in New York and San Francisco

Promotion

 Promotion in all social sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Newspapers,

Magazines

 Best deal of the month

 Sales promotion: festival discounts, round trip tickets discounts

 Special offers to different holiday destination

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

 Make My Trip is one of the earliest market entrants.

 Presence in International business scenario.

 Secured and trusted channel for facilitating payments.

 Attractive brand name and convenient website navigation.

Page 9
  It offers services like International and Domestic Air tickets, holiday packages

and hotels, Domestic bus and rail tickets, Private car and taxi rentals, B2B and

affiliate services.

 Loyalty programs with several leading banks and debit/credit card companies.

 High marketing ability.

 Size and choices in each segment.

Weaknesses

 General reluctance in customers to use internet for financial transactions like

booking tickets online.

 Absence of offline centers for point of sales.

 Initiatives are imitable by other portals.

 Inability to convert the volume of search into sales

 Unable to bridge air and non-air travellers for customized solutions.

Opportunities

 Customers currently using traditional methods of bookings.

 Offer better travel packages in line with customer expectation.

Page 10
  Untapped sections of international tourism market.

 More margins in non-air travels.

 Leverage on market leader position to capture increasing trends of online

bookings.

 Consumer is ready to transact more if trust is built and assurance is given by peer

consumers.

 Social networking and mobile internet are increasing trends that can be tapped.

Threats

 Possible lack of co-ordination with tourism entities.

 Present competitors having substantial market share.

 Newly emerging online booking portals with better offerings.

 Competitors are increasing focus on non-air travels.

 Airlines getting together to form independent sites.

 Service charges causing consumers to use Make My Trip only for best deals.

 Competitors are setting up more offline centers.

 Tour operators going online.

Page 11
Objectives of the study

The main objective of the research is to study the customer satisfaction with Make My

Trip to fulfill the goal of knowing the utility of brands and products of company,

connection with various services provided by the other international country.

 The level of satisfaction of the customers.

 The facilities provided to their customers.

 To study about the overall performance of the brand.

 To identify the various aspect of the advertising.

Chapter 2

Theoretical Framework and Research Methodology

Research methodology is a way to scientifically solve the research problem. It may be

understood as a science of study how research is done scientifically. In it we study the

various steps that are generally adopted by a researcher in studying his research problem

along with the logic behind them. It is necessary for the researcher to know not only the

research methods / techniques but also the methodology. It defines what the activity of

research is, how to proceed, how to measure progress, and what constitutes success.

Page 12
It helps to understand not only the products of scientific inquiry but the process itself. It

aims to describe and analyze methods, throw light on their limitations and resources,

clarify their presuppositions and consequences, relating their potentialities the twilight

zone at the ‘frontier of knowledge’.

Consumer Behavior

In today’s challenging and competitive world of fast changing technology, consumer

tastes are also characterized by fast changes. So, to survive in the market the firms have

to be in touch with the changing consumer preferences. Marketers have to understand

consumer behavior and factors influencing in the buying behavior of the customers in

order to be successful in this dynamic and competitive environment.

Consumer behavior is the behavior that the consumer display while searching for

evaluating, purchasing and disposing of products and services that they expect will

satisfy their needs. Consumer behaviors are the study of how consumer makes their

decisions to spend their resources on consumption related item i.e. time, efforts and

money. Study of consumer behavior proves the marketers an insight regarding the

consumer preferences and helps them in effective market segmentation and targeting. The

importance of consumer behavior lies in the fact that behavior can be understood and

influenced to ensure a positive purchase decision. So around understanding of consumer

behavior is necessary for long run success of any marketing program. That’s why the

marketing manager’s interest lies exactly in understanding consumer behavior to ensure

that his marketing strategy results in purchase of product.

Determinants of Consumer Behavior

Page 13
The study of consumer behavior is quite complex, because of many variables involved

and their tendency to interest with and influences each other. The main determinants of

consumer behavior are:-

1. External Variables

2. Individual determinants of Consumer Behavior

1. External Variables : The external environment is made up of various influences

such as:

 Culture

 Sub culture

 Social class

 Family

 Reference groups

 Personal factors such as age and lie cycle, education, occupation, life

style, personality, etc.

These all are major determinants of consumer behavior.

2. Individual Determinants of Consumer Behavior : The individual determinants

of consumer behavior are:

 Personality and Self Concept

 Motivation and involvement

 Learning

 Memory

 Attitude

Page 14
Marketing Strategy

At 40% growth rate every year, online travel agency is India is a rapidly growing space.

Make My Trip marketing strategy is focusing on making Make My Trip an elite brand

rather than product. To attain this target they are focusing on all four P’s of marketing i.e.

Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Their product i.e. online tickets are greatly accepted by customers and their value added

services is providing customer satisfaction. As far as Price goes they are providing online

tickets to their customers at an affordable price. Make My Trip is using e-market as the

place for their business which is accessible to customers from anywhere. Although

internet penetration in India is only 7%, Make My Trip is taking it as a challenge or

opportunity for their business. As far as promotion goes Make My Trip is communicating

and making people aware about their products and services through electronic banners on

websites, television commercials and also through their offline retails stores. Online

advertisements are meant to drive transactions while offline transaction i.e. through

television is helping Make My Trip to emerge as a brand. The reason Make My Trip

going for offline marketing because building a brand online is very difficult. A person

when online, he is busy surfing information and checking mails. User rarely puts his eye

on the online advertisements.

Market Place

Make My Trip started its business from India-USA travel market in year 2000. Following

its success in US Make My Trip started its operation in India in 2005 and within 5 years

it captured almost 50% of all online sales of travel market in India. Although Make My

Page 15
Trip operates purely on internet initially but in 2008 they decided to open their offline

retails stores in India to promote their holiday packages and to create a brand value.

Currently there are 20 offline stores running in major cities of India.

Market Share

Make My Trip and GoIbibo have emerged as market leaders in the online travel category,

capturing 31% market share, respectively, as on July 2017, as per a research report by

KalaGato. Homegrown ticket booking platform IRCTC followed in the third spot with 22.9%

market share on the back of app installations. Cleartrip and Yatra were fourth and fifth,

respectively, with 9.6% and 7.3% market share. Make My Trip acquired GoIbibo in an all-

stock deal, which was cleared in January. Traditionally, Make My Trip has been a strong player

in the flight booking space and GoIbibo has been leading the hotel-booking space. With both

joining forces, the merged entity gets a sizeable chunk of the market at 58%.

The acquisition, valued at about $2 billion, marked one of the largest deals in the travel market.

The combined entity is large enough to dominate the $30-billion travel market in India. The

founder and CEO of GoIbibo Ashish Kashyap resigned as the president of Make My Trip,

marking the first top-level exit at the combined entity. IRCTC, online services portal of Indian

Railways, garnered 22.9% market share ahead of players like Cleartrip and Yatra. Given the

scale and the user base of IRCTC, it has an edge over other travel portals and its reach in Tier II

and Tier III towns gives it larger traction from such areas.

Research Design

Page 16
The formidable problem that follows task of defining the research problem is the preparation of

the research project, popularly known as the ‘research design’.

“The research design is the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a

manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose with economy in procedure.”

The study used a Descriptive Research Design for the purpose of getting an insight over the

issue. Descriptive research design includes survey and fact finding inquiries of different kinds.

The major purpose of descriptive research is description of state of affairs as it exists at present.

Method of data collection:-

 Primary data

 Secondary data

Primary data

Questionnaire method was adopted for collecting information from the people of New Delhi

about their opinion and survey was done in order to find out the overall performance of Make

My Trip and the level of satisfaction of the customers.

Secondary data

Page 17
Secondary data was collected through Make My Trip profile, through websites on the internet,

and newspaper.

Sample Design

A sample design is a definite plan for obtaining a sample from a given population. It refers to

the technique or the procedure the researcher would adopt in selection items for the sample.

The study used a simple random sampling. A simple random sample is a subset of a

statistical population in which each member of the subset has an equal probability of

being chosen. A simple random sample is meant to be an unbiased representation of a

group.

Universe

In this research the universe is New Delhi. The Universe is a complete, or the

theoretically specified aggregation of study elements. It is usually the ideal population to

which research results are to be generalized.

Sample Size

Sample size is the number of observations taken from a population through which

statistical inferences for the whole population are made. The sample size chosen in this

study was 63 people.

Page 18
 Chapter 3

Data Presentation and Analysis

1. What is your age?

Opinion Percentage
10 – 20 30.8%
20 – 30 69.2%
30 – 40 0%
40 above 0%

INTERPRETATION

 30.8% people belong to 10 – 20 age groups.

 69.2% people belong to 20 – 30 age groups.

 0% people belong to 30 – 40 age groups.

 0% people belong to 40 above age group.

2. What is your gender?

Opinion Percentage

Page 19
 Female 23.1%
Male 69.2%
Prefer not to say 7.7%

INTERPRETATION

 23.1% were female.

 69.2% were male

 7.7% people preferred not to say.

3. What is your occupation?

Opinion Percentage
School student 7.7%
College student 61.5%

Page 20
 Job 30.8%
Other 0%

INTERPRETATION

 7.7% people were school students.

 61.5% people were college students.

 30.8% people were employees.

 0% people were of other category.

4. Have you ever used any online travel booking portal?

Opinion Percentage
Yes 46.2%
No 53.8%

Page 21
 INTERPRETATION

 46.2% people have used online travel booking portal.

 53.8% people have not used any online travel booking portal.

5. If yes, which of the following online booking portal do you use?

Opinion Percentage
Make My Trip 100%
Yatra 0%
Cleartrip 0%
Go Ibibo 0%

Page 22
INTERPRETATION

 100% people use Make My Trip as an online booking portal.

 0% people use Yatra as an online booking portal.

 0% people use Cleartrip as an online booking portal.

 0% people use Go Ibibo as an online booking portal.

6. How do you come to know about the brand?

Opinion Percentage
TV commercial 33.3%
Print media 0%
Internet 50%
References 16.7%

Page 23
 INTERPRETATION

 33.3% people saw TV commercial about the brand.

 0% people saw advertisement from print media.

 50% people come to know about the brand over the internet.

 16.7% people know about the brand because of the references.

7. From the following for what purpose do you use online travel booking portal?

Opinion Percentage
Family tour plan 36.4%
Business tour plan 9.1%
Airline ticket booking 27.3%
Hotel reservation 0%
Other 27.3%

Page 24
 INTERPRETATION

 36.4% people uses online booking portal for family tour plan.

 9.1% people uses online booking portal for business tour plan.

 27.3% people uses online booking portal for airline ticket booking.

 0% people uses online booking portal for hotel reservation.

 27.3% people uses online booking portal for other purposes.

8. Are you satisfied with Make My Trip?

Opinion Percentage
Yes 72.7%
No 18.2%
Uses other brand 9.1%

Page 25
 INTERPRETATION

 72.7% people are satisfied with Make My Trip.

 18.2% people are not satisfied with Make My Trip.

 9.1% people use other brand over Make My Trip.

9. How frequently you make travel plans?

Opinion Percentage
Weekly 27.3%
Monthly 18.2%
Quarterly 9.1%
Half-yearly 18.2%

Page 26
 Yearly 27.3%

INTERPRETATION

 27.3% people make travel plans weekly.

 18.2% people make travel plans monthly.

 9.1% people make travel plans quarterly

 18.2% people make travel plans half-yearly.

 27.3% people make travel plans yearly.

10. How will you rate Make My Trip compared to other online travel booking

portals?

Opinion Percentage
Better 54.5%
Same 45.5%
Worst 0%

Page 27
 INTERPRETATION

 54.5% people find Make My Trip better than other online travel booking

portals.

 45.5% people find Make My Trip same as other online travel booking portals.

 0% people thinks Make My Trip is worse than other online travel booking

portals.

11. How likely would you rate the services of Make My Trip?

Page 28
INTERPRETATION

 25% people would give 3 ratings to Make My Trip.

 50% people would give 4 ratings to Make My Trip.

 25% people would give 5 ratings to Make My Trip.

Chapter 4

Page 29
Findings from the project

 Customers are satisfied with the various travel offers of Make My Trip, because it

produces offers for middle class people.

 Internet is an important source for effective sales promotion.

 Customers are using Make My Trip packages for travel features.

 Most of the customers find Make My Trip better than other online booking portals.

 Make My Trip is customers’ first choice.

 Most customers like to plan a family tour.

 College students access Make My Trip more.

 Weekly and Yearly customers make travelling plans.

Limitations of the project

 The study is limited to the area.

 The sample size of only 63 was taken from a large population for the purpose of study,

so there can be different results of the sample from total population.

 As the data was collected through the questionnaire, I faced the limitation that

respondents were unwilling to provide information.

 Consumer was reluctant to go into details because of their busy schedules.

Suggestions for Make My Trip

Page 30
 The advertisement interior design should change to make customer attractive.

 The number of dealers should be increased.

 Events, campaigns and other demonstrations should be done frequently.

 The promotional strategy should help in changing consumer’s mind and attracting them

towards the products.

 Make My Trip should work on its hotel reservations as customers are not relaying on

the company for that.

Page 31
Bibliography

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MakeMyTrip

 https://www.prismetric.com/demystify-marketing-strategies-makemytrip-way

 https://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/services/17325-makemytrip.html

 https://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/models-and-market-analysis-applied-to-

makemytrip-marketing-essay.php

Page 32
 Appendices

Questionnaire

1. Your age.

a) 10 – 20 c) 20 – 30

b) 30 – 40 d) 40 above

2. What is your gender?

a) Male c) Female

b) Prefer not to say

3. What is your occupation?

a) School student c) College student

b) Job d) Other

4. Have you ever used any online travel booking portal?

a) Yes b) No

5. If yes, which of the following online booking portal do you use?

a) Make My Trip c) Yatra

b) GoIbibo d)Cleartrip

6. How do you come to know about the brand?

Page 33
 a) TV Commercials c) Print media

b) Internet d) References

7. From the following for what purpose do you use online travel booking portal?

a) Family tour plan d) Business tour plan

b) Airplane ticket booking e) Hotel reservation

c) Other

8. Are you satisfied with Make My Trip?

a) Yes c) No

b) Uses other brand

9. How frequently you make travel plans?

a) Weekly d) Monthly

b) Quarterly e) Half-yearly

c) Yearly

10. How will you rate Make My Trip compared to other online travel booking

portals?

a) Better c) Same

b) Worst

Page 34
11. How likely would you rate the services of Make My Trip?

a) 0 d) 1

b) 2 e) 3

c) 4 f) 5

Page 35