Any tweak in US student visa policy may dent biz: Yatra CEO Shringi

Corporate travel spike and pro-travel govt policies likely to come as a boost

US President Donald Trump’s tariffs will not have any significant effect on India-related travel, but any changes to visa issuances for students can have an adverse impact on the segment, said a top executive at Yatra Online.

 

Dhruv Shringi, whole-time director and chief executive officer (CEO) at Yatra Online, said, “We are hopeful that domestic travel demand can offset any impact of US tariffs. But the thing to lookout for is what happens to students' travel, which is a large and repeat segment. If the intake of Indian students in American universities goes down in the future, it can affect volumes on the US route.”

 

Speaking further about the impact of Trump’s tariffs, he added that while sectors like IT and manufacturing will be impacted, travel will remain fairly insulated.

 

Shringi said India’s travel sector is expected to grow faster than the GDP growth rate. It would be driven by a younger population, higher disposable incomes, and a shift towards spending on experiences.

 

Speaking about growth at the portal, Shringi said it will continue to focus on the corporate travel segment and work on strengthening it.

 

“Our growth driver is our corporate travel business. While the consumer business shifted online in the early 2010s, we are now seeing the same shift start to happen on the enterprise side too,” he said. 

 

“The pandemic forced companies to become more tech savvy and adapt business platforms and we are seeing a larger number of companies open to adopting a digital solution to automate travel. We are benefiting from that shift,” he added.

 

The company is the largest managed corporate travel services provider, catering to over 1,200 large and medium corporate houses and around 58,000 small and medium enterprise (SME) clients, with an addressable employee base of more than nine million.

 

The corporate travel market is expected to reach around $20 billion by FY27. However, online penetration in this segment remains low at just around 20 per cent in FY24.

 

“Our annual customer churn rate is less than 3 per cent and we enjoy a 9 per cent market share in the managed corporate travel business. We also have the ability to sell multiple products and services and so the segment makes a robust, core business for us,” Shringi said. He added that Yatra has registered a faster-than-industry growth rate in the segment.

 

Speaking about foreign tourist arrival recovery, Shringi said that Indian tourism needs to be rebranded.

 

“A lot has changed in the country – on the infrastructure front, the quality of hotel assets, the road network, and world class airports – and that awareness needs to be spread,” he added.

 

However, he noted that the focus on domestic tourism has benefited the industry.

 

“The government’s focus on domestic tourism has created a resilient demand pattern, which is not too susceptible to geopolitical risks. We are talking about 10 million foreign tourist arrivals, but in the overall scheme of things with 400-500 million high-value domestic trips, they are not really a game changer. While it will be good to have them, the focus around building domestic demand is much more sustainable,” he said.