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Behind this move is the need to upgrade from being seen as plain-vanilla e-commerce sites selling cheap air tickets to tour companies that are just a call away,nay,a click away. Today the challenge for travel portals is to sell not just cheaper air tickets,but high-margin products such as hotels and holiday packages and to change their image in the minds of Indian customers who think travel websites are mere air-ticket booking agents. Portals agree that even today 70 of their customers come online to get the cheapest available air ticket option. Clearly,our focus is on selling hotels and holidays now. As of now majority of our bookings is for tickets. Going forward we want hotel and air tickets sales ratio to be 50:50, says Pratik Mazumdar,chief marketing officer of travel portal Yatra.com.

According to internet analytics company comScore,travel websites now attract more than a third of Indias total internet population,as more consumers are turning to the web to fulfil their travel planning and booking needs. Travel research agency PhocusWright in its report Asia Pacific Online Travel Overview says websites of hotels,airlines and railways led by Indian railways IRCTC and low cost carrier sites accounted for 3.8 billion of the total online travel market while travel portals did a business of 2.1 billion in 2011. Makemytrip is the frontrunner with gross bookings of 947.6 million adjusted to calendar year followed by Yatra which claims gross bookings of over 500 million for fiscal 2011.

Even the countrys top travel site,the government-run Indian Railway Catering and Travel Corporation IRCTC is not untouched by the trend. Even though we sell 4,00,000 train tickets per day,we book only 20,000 room nights in a year. We need to push our packages and we are doing that by offering discounts and cash-back offers, said Sunil Kumar,joint general manager,portals,IRCTC.

The advertising campaigns of several leading travel portals reflect this new-found urgency. Cleartrips print ad has a billboard sign shouting Hotels at you. The homepage of its website has The Hotel Promise displayed which offers 30 discount on hotels and assures travellers of lowest priced yet good quality rooms. US-based travel website Expedia which entered the Indian market in 2008 plays its card of being a global website,while targeting those who are looking at booking hotels online. Its recent advertising campaign8211;Expedia8211;One Word for travel,created by Lowe Lintas,shows a Frenchman flirting with an Indian girl in a boat in the backwaters of Kerala. The girl finds a connect when the Frenchman mentions he had booked his hotel room on Expedia. When the girl exclaims that even she booked her stay on Expedia,the flirtatious traveller is quick to mention,See,we have so much in common,we must catch up for coffee.

Airline veteran Samyukth Shridharan,who has worked with Air Deccan and SpiceJet,and now heads Cleartrip,points out that it is about expanding the market and not merely fighting for market share,and thats where the marketing dollars should be spent.

The portals are certainly heeding that advice. After its joint venture with low cost carrier AirAsia took off last year,Expedia this year has planned an investment of R 55-60 crore for its brand campaign,more than twice the investment made last year. Yatra,which is backed by investors such as Norwest Venture Partners,Reliance Venture Asset Management,Intel Capital and Network 18,too has earmarked a marketing budget of R 50-60 crore for this fiscal. Makemytrip,which made its debut on Nasdaq last year,is one of the biggest online spenders on advertising,it says. It spends around 60-70 of its marketing budget on online marketing and advertising.

But the OTA story this season goes beyond marketing moolah. Its not one of the best summer travel seasons that the industry is facing. Consumer sentiment is low,airlines continue to reel under debt and the rupee has touched an all-time low playing havoc with overseas travel plans of most Indians. And then things got murkier for travel portals with airlines accusing them of displaying opaque airfares in the garb of cheap tickets,on their websites. Amidst all this travel sites are putting their best foot forward with glossy front page ads,TV commercials,travel apps,discounts and deals,all to acquire and retain customers and to build their brands.

Around 55 of the marketing spends of travel portals is clustered around four months April-May and November-December to target the holiday season. Its a fair bit mix of ad campaigns and technology initiatives for portals. Expedia is re-inventing its website for Web 3.0 and has launched apps for iPhone,iPad and Android tablets that use GPS to identify precise locations and then throw up search results for available hotels in the vicinity available for booking. Similarly,Makemytrip recently launched its app Tripalong which integrates a users social networks and maps travel itinerary to help connect with friends while travelling. Its all about exploring new platforms for reaching out and connecting with customers. Another recent trend is of m-commerce,that is selling using mobile phone,like mobile ticketing, says Manish Kalra,chief marketing officer,Makemytrip.

With both foreign and home-bred companies eyeing the tech-savvy Indian traveller,there is also a race to acquire new customers. No wonder then the portals are trying to expand their reach in tier 2 cities,which account for a sizeable chunk of travellers. Mazumdar of Yatra,which recently signed on actor Salman Khan as their brand ambassador,who also bought a minor stake in the travel portal,explains why it chose to bring on board the Bollywood hero. He is the only Indian actor who cuts across both masses and classes. In last five years we have created our brand in the minds of the metro consumers. While we want to retain them,we want to acquire new customers in tier 2 cities. Salman connects with that janta. In a more recent development,early this month Yatra acquired Mumbai-based hotel portal Travelguru,from Travelocity. With Travelgurus strong inventory of more than 6500 hotels,Yatra hopes to strengthen its presence in the hotel booking space.

Mumbai-based Ezeego1 had seen this potential much earlier when it launched its Hindi website a couple of years back targeting the vast Hindi speaking population that is exploring newer destinations and booking tours online. The booking system and the entire payment option,both online and offline,are integrated in Hindi.

To get closer to the consumers one has to focus on regional markets like Gujarat and Bengal. This also means focusing on niches such as pilgrimage tourism, says Makemytrips Kalra.

The writing on the wall is clear. Non-metros and tier 2 cities are the new battleground for the travel portals. This fiscal,with our print campaigns,we are aggressively penetrating tier 2 and tier 3 city markets,after having gained market share in metros and mini- metros, says Niraj Seth,chief marketing officer,Cleartrip.

Ezeego1 has gone a step ahead and recently launched franchisees in Surat and Thane and is planning to open more such outlets in non-metros to push sales. Backed by the promoters of brick-and-mortar travel agency Cox amp; Kings India,it recently tied up with San-Francisco-headquartered travel website Viator that helps travellers plan and book trip activities. This tie-up will give Ezeego1 customers the flexibility to book only sight-seeing tours online and not air-tickets or hotels.

The results are already showing. About 30 of our airline bookings today are a part of a package, says Vikram Malhi,country head,Expedia. It recently tied up with offline travel biggie Thomas Cook for visa assistance. This will help the portal in pushing its international tour packages. Before this Yatra was the only online player offering visa assistance. This move is expected to help expand the target audience for the portal which is looking at attracting travellers who want to book an international trip on their own online.

Clearly,travel portals are already expanding the market.