They were born during the aviation boom in the mid-2000s and so it was but natural for the online travel agents (OTAs) to piggyback on it by selling air tickets online.
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That revenue-mix of OTAs is changing considerably now, skewed in favour of other streams of incomes like rail ticket booking, hotel room reservation, visa consultancy, cruises, designing holiday and adventure packages, etc.
For instance, Cleartrip today earns around 10% of its revenue from just rail ticket booking and expect income from hotel reservation to touch 20% of its total revenue.
Tarique Khatri, vice president- business development, Cleartrip, says his travel portal began booking rail tickets from October 2008 and has since then never looked back.
"It has contributed to 10% of our total revenue. We are also expecting to see a substantial growth in this particular segment in the coming year," he said.
His peer Keyur Joshi, chief operating officer, Makemytrip, is as optimistic about revenue growth from this segment. The largest travel e-commerce site by number of unique users is expecting a double-digit growth in this segment in the next two months.
"Since the launch of this service (rail ticket booking) six months ago, it has crossed over 5,000 tickets and we expect this number to increase in the next two months," Joshi said.
These OTAs are also doing brisk business in hotel segment, whose contribution to their revenues is growing as they offer wider choices to travellers. In recent times, close to 30-40% of Cleartrip's clicks (hits) came from this segment.
Khatri says hotel reservation currently generates 5% of the second largest travel e-commerce firm's revenue but was expecting it to go up to 20% next year.
Makemytrip's Joshi shares Khatri's enthusiasm on the segment, which, he says, is growing the fastest on their portal. "We have seen 80-90% increase year on year (yoy). The boost in hotel bookings has come only in this year. In the initial phase in 2005, the growth in this segment (hotel) was lean."
Sabina Chopra, co-founder of Yatra.com, also said the trend of online hotel booking was gaining momentum with her site registering a 70% jump in revenues from this segment.
Industry experts say the online hotel room reservation had picked up because of user-friendly interface that travel sites offer with user reviews, pictures, video and others such information that help travellers make a more informed choice.
But OTAs are not stopping at just offering traditional services. Cleartrip is looking at providing visa assistance services while Akbar Travels Online has seen huge traction in its cruise business. Even Yatra.com has begun designing customised tour packages for its customers, which offer better margins than traditional airline ticket booking.
Vijay Keshavan, chief executive officer, Akbar Travels Online, says with its international cruises having taken off, his portal will soon be launching cruises from India. "We are planning to launch cruises on domestic shores to destinations that are close by."
The travel company has been present in the international cruise segment for the last six months and sold close to 104 cruises. "We expect this number to double in a few months time as our consumers are getting familiar with the idea (of cruise)," Keshvan said.
Coming month will see Makemytrip making a foray into car rentals and Ezeego1 entering into luxury segment.
"We are currently in the process of enhancing our products to the luxury segment," Neelu Singh, chief operating officer of Ezeego1, said.
Rajji Rai, president, Travels Agents Association of India, believes new service offerings on travel portals will expand their consumer base as more people migrate from offline to online.
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