“'Revenge tourism' has become passé, destination travel is becoming popular again”: Kunal Dubey, Cleartrip

After a lull, the travel segment is back, and we speak to Cleartrip’s chief marketing officer about trends in the hospitality and tourism segment.

After nearly two years of hesitating before thinking of travelling or booking tickets to another country - Indians can finally travel freely again. India has lifted restrictions on international travel and if your sense of wanderlust is calling out to you, it seems like there’s no better time than now to book those tickets and board that flight.

But the reason there were restrictions on travel in the first place was because of the COVID pandemic. Many countries barred international flights in a bid to stop the virus from spreading - and this meant a break from travel for many people too.

Once lockdowns lifted, people began to travel again to make up for the last time and now that the third wave of the pandemic has subsided, Cleartrip has announced its ‘Big Travel Sale’ - live from 22nd to 31st March. The Sale offers deals on domestic and international flights, as well as discounts on domestic and international hotel bookings.

To celebrate this marquee sale ahead of the upcoming summer travel season, Cleartrip has roped in well-known cricketer Ravi Shastri (in his first-ever brand endorsement), Mithila Palkar and Dhruv Sehgal (from web series Little Things), and Indian actress Shruti Haasan for its latest ad campaign films. Created by Lowe Lintas, the three ad films have the same key message - don’t miss the Cleartrip Big Travel Sale.

Cleartrip has rolled out three films each promoting different aspects of the sale across domestic flights, hotels, and international flights. Over a call Cleartrip’s chief marketing officer Kunal Dubey tells us that there is an increased interest in travel, especially in the light of upcoming summer season and summer holidays.

He explains that the actors in the ad were selected in a bid to appeal to a pan-Indian audience. “After two or three years, we’re witnessing a dramatic shift in the desire to travel. We’re seeing a steady increase in international booking - our customers are interested in traveling to places like Maldives, Dubai, Thailand etc. These are some popular destinations that we are seeing people flock to in the upcoming travel season,” says Dubey.

He adds that by the end of January 2021, the company saw a recovery in booking numbers, implying that with each day that goes by, the impact on the travel segment continues to reduce.

“We’ve also seen a steady increase in bookings among our customers despite the recent spike of cases in few country. Travel air bookings are hitting pre-pandemic levels right now. Revenge tourism has become passé and destination travel is becoming popular again” he tells us.

“People are taking precautions to travel but there is a strong sense of confidence when it comes to travel right now,” says Dubey. Cleartrip also introduced features like Flexifly and Easy Cancel. With Flexifly, a user can cancel their tickets before their journey and with Easy Cancel - users can amend their bookings to different dates.

Some of the ways that people travelled during the pandemic included work cations (where people worked remotely from a tourist destination), and leisure vacations.

Planning for travel has also changed because of the pandemic. Earlier, people would plan their vacations weeks or months in advance but Dubey tells us that planning period has become much shorter. People are planning travel at a week’s notice now - which according to Dubey is a relaxation in travel timelines that the company hadn’t seen before.

“Business travel has started to take off on a very strong note. Although leisure travel holds a larger share of the pie, we are expecting business travel to gain momentum in the coming days. Companies that are opening up offices also are expecting employees to return to their base location. Business travels will go up with essential travel protocols in place. We work with B2B businesses which gives us an indication that corporates want their employees to return to base, so they are planning for that aspect of travel very strongly,” he says.

“During the pandemic, users did not have an intent to travel, but we still had to put out content. This was the time when booking took a backseat and educational content about safety or travel took the front seat,” he explains. He adds that the company keeps talking to its employees about their travel needs and accordingly, they design content for their consumers.

"The impression a brand makes decides the level of exposure it gets. The main problem a digital marketer should deal with is how to maximise brand presence and create impressions."

Dubey has a history of working as a digital marketer. Some of the brands he's worked with in the past include Vedantu - an edtech platform (as head of marketing), PhonePe - a digital payments app (as head of business marketing), Flipkart (as director of brand marketing) and at eBay India (as head of brand management).

He also had an entrepreneurial stint at Dentsu Slingshot along with Lucky Saini (who currently heads marketing at Meesho - an online shopping site). Dubey tells us that customers are the same across segments - its just that their needs change when it comes to the different businesses they interact with.

"We currently operate an internet business and our audience is largely online. Their travel requirements can be broken down into three stages - the dreaming stage (fantasising about a destination), the planning phase (figuring out travel, logistics etc) and the booking stage (making arrangements to get there)."

He signs off mentioning that we, as a country, are coming a lot closer because the internet brings people closer. "I do everything from a demand and supply perspective. With increased internet adoption, there are more brands coming up, creating competition in every segment."