Paytm plans an aggressive expansion of its online travel business by branching out into rail, road, airline and tour bookings in order to drive more traffic to its portal that is largely payments driven.

The company has partnered services marketplace Ezeego1 for hotels and flight bookings and is also in talks with several airlines. The online player is also integrating the rail inventory of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation on its platform.

“It is becoming increasingly challenging for vertical players to drive traffic. Whereas, horizontal players like Paytm have been fairly successful in driving loads of it,” said Abhishek Rajan, head of travel marketplace, Paytm.

“Our intention is to continuously add new travel categories to the platform and drive organic growth without making large marketing investments,” added Rajan. Paytm is planning to invest around Rs 120 crore on its travel marketplace in the current financial year.

A horizontal player in the ecommerce space offers multiple shopping categories such as books, apparel, appliances and more on a single platform whereas, a vertical player specialises in one kind of offering.

Source: The Economic Times