Paytm steps on the gas in hotel, travel space – Times of India

BENGALURU: On the back of raising $1.4 billion from SoftBank, Paytm is making aggressive moves to challenge existing players in verticals like movie ticketing, travel and hotels with the help of deep discounts.

The payments firm has also transferred a senior executive Nitin Misra, who was head of products for its core payments business, to lead the hotels and packages segment. Misra, a former Airtel official, is in active discussions with stakeholders in the online hotel business, including internet-based startups in the hospitality space, multiple people aware of the development said. These businesses are being allocated bigger budgets, which will be largely used for discounting and marketing to garner shares from players like MakeMyTrip, BookMyShow, Oyo Rooms and others. Paytm has been using cashbacks and discounting to get a footprint into the travel and movie ticketing sector.

TOI reported earlier that Paytm was in talks with events ticketing platform Insider.in for a majority stake, a move aimed at countering BookMyShow's event business. Paytm wants to generate about $1 billion from these businesses and adding the online hotels business would improve its chances.

A Paytm spokesperson confirmed the new role of Misra in the company. "After two years as head of payment products, Nitin is now looking forward to setting up the hotels and packages vertical in Paytm," the spokesperson said. Sources aware of the company's plans pointed out Paytm wants to aggressively penetrate these new businesses as it would also mean higher volumes of transactions on the platform. While incumbents like MakeMyTrip and BookMyShow have been investing in discounts, their quantum too has increased as Paytm is trying to disrupt the market with freebies. To be sure, MMT spent almost 50% additional funds for marketing and sales promotions in the quarter ending March 2017 at $78.8 million compared to $53 million a year ago. MMT also recently raised $330 million to take on the likes of Paytm and Oyo Rooms.

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Paytm steps on the gas in hotel, travel space - Times of India