Ram Badrinathan
Senior Analyst, PhoCusWright
Ram Badrinathan: Senior Analyst, PhoCusWright
As Senior Analyst, Ram Badrinathan's focus will be on PhoCusWright's custom research projects as well as being currently focused on the rapidly changing travel distribution markets in India and ANZ. He will also be developing regular market updates on key markets (i.e. United Kingdom). Ram has authored several PhoCusWright reports: Asia Pacific Online Travel Marketplace: Tapping a Complex Market and Asia Pacific Online Travel Marketplace Second Edition (two reports on travel distribution trends in the APAC region), European Online Travel Marketplace: Focus on the United Kingdom, The Emerging Online Travel Marketplace in India, India Offshoring and the Virtual Business Offering and co-authored Corporate Travel Distribution: Key Markets. Ram has participated in strategic consulting engagements for global travel management companies, GDS market leaders and transaction services companies in Europe, North America and Asia.
Ram Badrinathan: Hot Market In India: An Online Corporate Travel Industry Emerges
PhoCusWright - India is clearly an emerging leisure online travel market, attracting millions in start-up funding, according to PhoCusWright's The Emerging Online Travel Marketplace in India report. But is there an online corporate travel market to speak of? The answer is yes and no.
Currently, India lags behind other Asia Pacific (APAC) markets in online corporate travel adoption, namely Australia, China and Hong Kong/Singapore.
Ram Badrinathan: The Indian Online Travel Market Follows Powerful Growth Curve
The travel market in India is subject to a unique blend of forces driving growth in an online channel that is projected to quadruple in just two years.
Drivers on the supply side are dovetailing with social and economic forces on the demand side to both boost online travel adoption and enable India to leapfrog distribution technologies, according to the new PhoCusWright report: The Emerging Online Travel Marketplace in India. The result is booming travel demand and rapid uptake of online transaction methods.
Ram Badrinathan: Trends in India tell the story: Riding the waves of change in online travel
The online travel landscape came under the microscope at Wired Travel Asia, a travel distribution and marketing conference held in Singapore late October. What's making the news?
First the good news. Online travel is growing and set to boom further as broadband access spreads throughout Asia and consumers become savvier on the Web.
According to PhoCus Wright, the Asia Pacific online travel market is projected to more than double after 2007 to US$25.6 billion, a 112% growth from 2004-2007 expectations.
Ram Badrinathan: Online Travel, Managed Travel Boom in India
India is rapidly becoming a power market for online travel management as new suppliers push distribution and transactions directly online. Vendors and agencies tasked with transitioning legacy systems into Web-based platforms are losing ground to more nimble market entrants, according to one Internet commerce consultant, who also said traditional travel management companies are opting out of competition for the domestic market.
Backed by millions in venture capital, so-called online travel agencies are at the forefront of the boom, said PhoCusWright senior analyst Ram Badrinathan.
Ram Badrinathan: Walkers In Hong Kong, Bookers In India
Online Indian travel website Make My Trip will take just three years to achieve the booking volumes of 250-year-old industry stalwart Cox and Kings, PhoCusWright analyst Ram Badrinathan (pictured) forecast at Wired Travel Asia.
Ram Badrinathan: Ready For Takeoff Or Crash Landing?
Asia's online travel industry is experiencing some turbulence. But two U.S. highfliers think the business is headed up, up and away, and are setting up ventures in the region to prove it.
That's where the good news ends. "There are huge limitations to [the business] reaching the scale it has in the U.S.," says Ram Badrinathan, a senior associate at Web consultancy Ion Global.
Ram Badrinathan: Japanese, Aussies lead Asian Online
JAPAN, Australia and New Zealand are the clear leaders of the Asia Pacific online travel industry pack. According to researcher PhoCusWright, Japan is out in front with a 38 per cent market share by dollar value, while Australia and New Zealand have 30 per cent.
However, it is worth noting that Japan has a population of 127 million, compared with just 24 million for Australia and New Zealand.
The next biggest Asian markets by dollar value, says PhoCusWright, are South Korea (eight per cent), Singapore (seven per cent), China (six per cent), and Hong Kong (three per cent).