Travelocity Sells Travelguru to Yatra

Yatra.com, India's leading online travel company, just got a bit bigger. They acquired Travelguru from American online travel company, Travelocity.

Travelguru was an Indian travel site owned by Travelocity until Yatra.com cut a deal with them. This move is huge for Yatra as it will strengthen its position as India's leading travel company. Yatra.com already has many offerings for flights and outbound vacation destinations, but Travelguru will broaden its offers on hotels and domestic vacations within India.

Travelguru is India's largest hotel distribution network. It has offers for more than 6500 hotels in India and 72,000 hotels around the world. The site allows travelers to book hotels easily and fast as it recommends travel options for domestic and international travelers. Travelguru also has agreements with flight search sites such as Goibibo.com and Via.com, but these agreements will be discontinued with Yatra's acquisition.

Mr. Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and CEO, Yatra.com, said in a press release, "This acquisition will significantly strengthen our domestic hotels and holidays business and reinforces our growth strategy and long term commitment and belief in the Indian online travel industry. Not only will this consolidation increase our customer base, but it also widens our product portfolio and leverages our ability to bundle solutions, offering better deals and value propositions to our customers. The acquisition will also provide Travelguru's hotel partners with a much wider distribution network through Yatra.com and its B2B network of 10,000+ agents."

Travelguru was bought by Travelocity in 2009 so the company to expand its reach in the domestic hotel industry. There was no word from Travelocity on why they gave it to Yatra after only three years of ownership. However it may have been so Travelocity can focus on their own Indian edition of their site rather than trying to focus on their separate Indian site, Travelguru, Reuters reported.

Mr. Promod Haque, Managing Partner, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Chairman of Yatra.com, said, "We seeded and launched Yatra.com six years back and are immensely proud of the company's successful growth and execution. We believe that this acquisition will significantly broaden and diversify Yatra's business and marks an important milestone for the future."

This recent acquisition is just one of many big moves that Yatra has made in the past 18 months. Since 2011, it had made deals involving ticket consolidator Travel Services International, hotel aggregation company MagicRooms and event and entertainment promotion portal Buzzintown, widening Yatra's travel portfolio and beyond.

It is not known how much Yatra purchased Travelguru for.