Musafir.Com targets smaller cities, towns in India

UAE-headquartered online travel firm Musafir.Com plans to open retail outlets in smaller cities and towns across India during the next fiscal as part of expansion plans here.
The firm is also aiming to add more countries in Europe along with several popular destinations in the US to its visa services itinerary going forward.
"We will be opening retail outlets in tier II, III and tier IV cities across India in the coming fiscal," Musafir.Com Country Head India Giya Diwaan told PTI.
In metros, the business is already evolving and growing with people moving from web-based model to mobile-based model, she added.

"We will be making investments primarily in technology development to help expand our online service operations and for opening retail outlets in the country," Diwaan said but did not specify the amount the company was planning to raise.
On European expansion, she said: "We plan to expand our visa services to cover all the European countries and most popular destinations in the United States in the coming fiscal."

Currently, the company provides visa services to 40 countries and is looking to move them to online operations in FY 2017-18.
"We want to focus and cover all the Schengen countries and offbeat destinations in Europe that were not popular earlier as the customers are looking for niche experiences," Diwaan said.

Regarding the hotel properties, when this fiscal started the company had over 85,000 hotels in the inventory. "But by the time we end this fiscal, we will have close to 2 lakh hotels," she added.
Musafir.Com was founded by Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Thani, Sachin Gadoya and Albert Dias in August 2007 and launched services in India in 2010.