MakeMyTrip’s Sunil Suresh talks ad sales, travel trends and marketing plans

When India’s first COVID-induced lockdown was announced in 2020, many passionate wanderlusters were forced to stay indoors due to travel restrictions in many parts of the country. Even after the lockdown was lifted, travel restrictions continued in different parts of the country. This was the time when many industries – especially tourism and hospitality – came to a standstill.

Many sectors that depended on tourism – like hotels, travel agencies and online travel aggregators (OTAs) – also felt the pinch. MakeMyTrip (MMT) is one such aggregator that had to pivot to keep up with the rapidly changing times during the pandemic.

One of the moves that MMT took was to create an ad sales platform to help other players in the tourism and hospitality industry get increased visibility. According to the company, Go-MMT’s (MMT also owns Goibibo and, hence, the name) advertising solutions platform is one of India’s largest travel audience networks.

It aims to connect brands and businesses (within travel and beyond) with high intent travellers and premium audiences. The aim is to help marketers engage and connect with the right audience set, as per specific targeting needs.

The advertising solutions platform offers multiple solutions, including display ads, premium placements like options for roadblocks, sponsored listing, emails and notifications and audience extension with inventory on multiple external social and travel sites. This has been designed to help MMT’s and Goibibo’s partners get the best return on investment (RoI), when targeting travel audiences.

The platform also comes with different targeting options. Advertisers can target specific audiences relevant to them from a wide range of premium and mass audiences, and maximise RoI.

Over a video call, group chief marketing officer Sunil Suresh tells afaqs! that the platform is mostly used by travel advertisers who are looking to improve their discoverability, build higher propensity and maximise their RoI. The company says that past advertiser metrics indicate that partners (travel and non-travel) have seen as much as five times higher RoI on this platform, as compared to conventional channels.

According to a recent case study, a leading hotel chains received RoI of 26X. It witnessed a 60 per cent increase in traffic and 150 per cent revenue growth.

“In addition to helping our partners generate revenue, the platform also helps us generate additional revenue, apart from the ticket sales and hotel bookings we make,” says Suresh. The ads are normally placed in multiple locations across the OTA websites, and there are contextual ads when a user is trying to make a flight ticket booking.

For example, if users are searching for flight tickets to Goa, they may be served with an ad for a hotel in Goa, or an enterprise which has activities in Goa. Some of the hotels include Marriott, Taj, and so on.

Suresh also tells us that there are multiple tourism boards (the UK, Saudi Arabia, and so on), that have associated with the platforms.

When it comes to travel trends over the last two years, Suresh tells us, only a limited number of people decided to go on a workcation. The reason: only a limited number of people had the time, money and resources to travel, while working remotely.

“From a marketing standpoint, there is an increase in adoption of using the digital medium to communicate with audiences across different age groups. People realised that they had started taking basic freedoms for granted, like freedom to travel and freedom to move about. When the first lockdown lifted, people began to travel to see each other more, especially their friends and families. This was the first trend we observed before workcations set in,” mentions Suresh.

During the pandemic, Suresh tells us, MMT had a feature called price lock. People could reserve a seat on a flight for a lesser price in case they were unsure of the dates they wanted to travel on.

“We also ran a campaign recently, featuring our brand ambassadors (Bollywood stars) Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt. It talked about being able to get a refund on their ticket booking. This has become a source of concern for many travellers, who check for these terms before booking tickets,” adds Suresh.

During the pandemic, MMT and Goibibo also had to pivot to different marketing messages. During the first COVID wave, the brands encouraged people to stay home and stay safe.

As the country opened up again, the brands offered discounts to encourage people to travel. Now, the emphasis seems to be on the refund policies offered, to assure anxious travellers that whether they choose to travel or not, they will still be taken care of.