Yatra.com celebrates completion of 5 years

Yatra.com, India’s leading online travel company, today, announced a ‘5 Years Celebration Offer’ for the customers to memorialize the completion of five years since its inception. This special offer provides the customers a chance to win a free holiday for two to Goa daily and a car worth Rs. 8 lakh as the grand prize during the 30 day promotion.

This offer is valid from 1st August 2011 till 30th August 2011. To avail the offer the customers will be asked to submit a slogan following a booking with Yatra.com. Every day, one lucky winner will be rewarded with a free holiday for two to Goa on the basis of the slogan entries received on www.yatra.com/5years. Towards the end of the 30-day promotion, one lucky winner with the best slogan will be chosen for the Grand Prize*- a brand new car.

Speaking on the offer, Pratik Mazumder, Head, Marketing and Strategic Alliance, said “We are ecstatic on the completion of five glorious years. This offer is our way of expressing appreciation to our customers for making Yatra.com the most preferred online travel company of the country. We will continue to bring forth an enthralling and happy travel experiences to our customers through our consistent endeavors.”

Yatra.com always strives to introduce innovative offers and schemes. It is this customer centric approach that has made it one of the leading travel companies in just a span of five years.

*Grand Prize winner to be announced on 10th September 2011.

Inside Europe

Most armchair travelers have heard and read a lot about Western Europe and the kind of fascination it has for tourists all around the globe. With countries like France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Greece in its fold, WesternGondolas at Venice Europe definitely holds a lot of appeal and offers immense value for money to backpackers and round-the-world travelers. Anyone who has toured Europe widely will tell you that the continent offers some bewildering contrasts and diverse natural landscapes that are just waiting to be explored. Being the seat of power in the medieval ages, Western Europe holds a lot of appeal amongst tourists who are interested in exploring Europe’s rich natural history visible in its churches, mosques, museums and synagogues.

Planning an itinerary for Europe is no easy task but for the benefit of those who are visiting the continent for the first time, I have a few handy tips. First and foremost thing that you should do is to purchase a EURAIL pass that will help you get train rides throughout the continent at very affordable rates. It helps if you a Schengen Visa as it will help you to easily tour countries in the whole of Europe like Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemborg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Once you have a EURAIL pass in your hand, your next task should be to decide the places you intend to visit and the time you are going to spend depending on your budget.
Read full on : http://www.yatra.com/blogs/?p=50

Yatra.com launches Cash on Delivery service

Customers can now make travel bookings and pay by cash against travel bookings

Yatra.com, India’s leading online travel company, today announced the launch of its much awaited ‘Cash on Delivery’ (COD) service. This facility will now enable the customers to make travel bookings with Yatra.com and pay cash against the travel bookings. The COD payment option is available for International Air, Domestic and International holiday bookings with Yatra.com. This service is currently available for all customers in Delhi / NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Pune and Chennai with an endeavour to soon extend this facility to other cities as well.

Enhancing the convenience quotient for the customers, Yatra.com representative will visit the customer to collect the cash against the travel bookings made with Yatra.com. E-Tickets / package vouchers will be sent to the customer, once the cash has been collected from the customer. The COD service will add a new stream of offline customers to Yatra.com’s customer base, particularly the one’s who are reluctant in using the electronic payment mechanism.

Understanding the need for such a service in India where a majority of customers are still hesitant in making use of credit or debit cards, Mr. Pratik Mazumder, Head of Marketing and Strategic Relations, Yatra.com said, “In our effort to reach out to a larger set of customers, we are extremely delighted to launch the COD facility. We are positive that this initiative will help us to gain popularity with the customers who have limited access to credit or debit cards or are reluctant in making use of them. We expect a significant rise in the number of transactions through this service in the coming months”.

One of the key reasons for lower penetration of travel bookings in India is attributed to the under penetration of electronic payment methods. Through COD payment option, Yatra.com intends to make online travel booking accessible to a segment of customers such as small businessmen, housewives and students who do not have access to credit & debit cards. Cash on delivery also opens up online travel bookings to customers who are reluctant to use their cards online due to security concerns.

Yatra.com is a brand which is always on the lookout for adopting newer ways and means to reach out to its customers. The travel portal is on a constant mission to make sure its customers obtain the best possible products and services.

About Yatra.com
Yatra.com is India’s leading online travel company. We provide information, pricing, availability, and booking facility for domestic and international air travel, railway reservation, hotel bookings, holiday packages, buses, and car rentals. We offer a host of travel services designed to make business and leisure travel easier.

Based in Gurgaon, India, Yatra is a one-stop-shop for all travel-related services. A leading consolidator of travel products, Yatra.com provides reservation facility for more than 3,800 hotels across 336 cities in India and over 90,000 hotels around the world. We partner with domestic and international airlines to offer flight-booking services at the best rates. Through a close working alliance with all leading airlines, we are able to offer negotiated rates for flight bookings for travel from and into and within India. All products at Yatra.com come with a best price guarantee and an assurance of instant booking.

Customers can access Yatra.com through multiple ways: through our user-friendly website, 24x7 multi-lingual call center, a countrywide network of Holiday Lounges and Yatra Travel Express stores or through their mobile phones. Yatra.com provides booking facility for all the popular as well as exotic national and international destinations.

Launched in August 2006, Yatra is today ranked as the leading provider of consumer-direct travel services in India. Yatra.com has emerged as the most trusted travel brand in India and we were recently voted ‘Most Trusted Branded of India’ in the online travel category by Brand Equity, and also received the coveted most preferred online travel company award at the CNBC/Awaaz Consumer Travel Awards from the Hon Tourism Minister of IndiaSmt Kumari Shailja . Within this short span of time, Yatra has shown an impressive growth by posting average revenue of $30 million a month with a volume of 10,000 tickets and 350 rooms a day. The company achieved a gross turnover of $250 million for FY 2010.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/yatracom-launches-cashdelivery-service/427577/

BJP youth upset over scuttling of yatra

Train traffic on the Mumbai-Chennai route went haywire on Sunday, with eight trains running late after a violent protest by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha members.

The protest was against the scuttling, by the Railway authorities, of their journey to Srinagar in a special train to take part in the national flag hoisting at Lal Chowk in Srinagar.

More than 1,800 Yuva Morcha members from different districts of Karnataka boarded a special train in Bangalore the party had chartered for a “pilgrimage.” In the early hours of Sunday, the authorities stopped the train somewhere near Daund Junction in Maharashtra and re-routed it to Bangalore. (The train is expected to reach Bangalore on Monday morning).

At Solapur Junction in Maharashtra, the Yuva Morcha members travelling in the 23-bogie train were surprised to find that they were being returned to Bangalore. They staged an angry protest at Solapur Junction for more than an hour before they were persuaded to board their train.

The irate members pulled the emergency chain of the train in between Akkalkot and Naganasur stations and squatted before the train, demanding that the train be allowed to travel to Jammu as scheduled. They shouted slogans against the UPA government, terming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi agents of Pakistan and alleging that they were trying to prevent “patriotic” BJP workers from hoisting the national flag.

The train, which entered Karnataka through the Dudhini station, took more than six hours to pass through major stations in Gulbarga district, including Station Gangapur, Gulbarga, Wadi junction and Yadgir.

At Station Gangapur, the Yuva Morcha workers were involved in a fracas with police personnel after they stoned the station manager's office and damaged the windowpanes. The police used mild force to bring the situation under control. Later, they were persuaded to proceed further. Though the train did not stop at the Gulbarga station, the BJP workers stopped the train outside the station by pulling emergency chain. For two hours, they did not allow the train to move further by demanding that they be given drinking water. Read more on The Hindu