Cleartrip wants the festive season to mean travel, not just shopping

Ask where Indians are headed this festive season and Govind Bansal, Cleartrip’s marketing chief, is quick to warn that the country’s itineraries cannot be plotted on a single map.

“We will go to London. Before that, to Thailand. And before Thailand, to Goa. Indians remain aspirational, but each is at a different stage of aspiration,” he says.

Bansal was discussing Cleartrip’s new campaign for parent Flipkart’s Big Billion Day Sale. The idea carries a touch of irony: though the period marks a peak for travel, most Indians associate it with shopping. The same holds for the wedding season that follows Diwali.

“Our aim is to seize that white space and tie travel more firmly to big sale events,” Bansal explains.

The first two films of the campaign show parents urging their indolent son to book a stay at a five-star hotel, and a grandfather instructing his son to take his unruly child on holiday and grant him some peace. Affordable rates are the lure.

There is no clear target group. “Cleartrip has to be whatever you want it to be,” says Bansal, explaining that just as a Facebook page or Instagram feed is curated to suit users’ interests, so too should his brand.

That breadth of positioning is reflected in actual booking patterns. Cleartrip’s travel-trends tracker, PeekABoo, shows a 60% year-on-year rise in trips to spiritual destinations such as Haridwar, Rishikesh and Dehradun. Gen Z accounts for 12% of these journeys, a 15% annual increase.

Gen Z, meanwhile, is also embracing solo travel, accounting for a 7% higher share of such trips than other age groups. Meal-attached bookings are on the rise too.

To appeal to every type of traveller, Cleartrip is rolling out a range of offerings. One is a free visa-denial cover that refunds the full ticket price if a tourist visa application is rejected. Another allows families booking two tickets to get a free ticket for a child aged up to 12, or receive a complimentary meal when booking a ticket through the brand’s app or website.

The campaign is built for digital consumption. A series of Instagram-first clips depict scenarios designed to resonate with different audiences. In one, a man kneels in a restaurant to propose, only for his friend to accept; the twist is that he was asking for an all-boys trip to Thailand.

“We can't think television, and then, you know, start thinking on digital later. For us, everything is digital,” says Bansal. Alongside Instagram, the brand is leaning heavily on connected television. “We're going with a very broad high-frequency campaign there. Obviously, at the start of the campaign, to create some sort of a top-of-mind awareness, and then go with more reminder ads as we progress through the event,” he adds.

The brand is spending 95% of its campaign budget on digital with the remaining sum going for activations. 

The ads were produced by Tilt Brand Solutions. Bansal stresses that the agency was treated as a partner rather than handed a perfunctory brief.

“Nobody remembered any travel sales throughout the year. So, we call this India’s biggest travel sale for the right reasons. And that is something that we want to continue to build on across years,” he explains.