NEWS| Travelguru acquires desiya.com for USD 25 million

Travelguru has fully acquired New Jersey based online travel company, desiya.com for USD 25 million. Desiya.com will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Travelguru. Although the company has acquired 100 per cent stake both will continue to operate under their individual brands.



"We have worked closely with desiya.com for over 18 months already. The new combined entity of Travelguru and desiya.com will add value to all our customers. They have been our preferred partner and we have been sharing our hotel inventory as well. desiya.com's strong supplier relations and experience compliment our market reach, consumer base and online resources," said Ashwin Damera, Founder & CEO, Travelguru.com. The deal is perceived to be more internal, as both companies are looking at synergies for reducing costs and sharing technology platforms.

Desiya.com is quite strong in the Northern and Eastern parts of India with an inventory of 1,500 hotels while Travelguru's strength lies in the Western and Southern regions with an inventory of 2,500 hotels. According to Amit Taneja, Founder & CEO of desiya.com, "Travelguru's great experience in managing consumer relationships and feedback to hotel partners, is a powerful new addition to desiya.com. We are excited to work with them to offer an even more comprehensive suite of travel services. Given the extensive planning by desiya.com and Travelguru we expect a seamless integration of operations."

Further to this, desiya.com will start supplying hotel inventory to a number of leading travel portals in India. It will also help hotel partners develop internet-ready inventory management tools. It will also help travel agents utilise the wide scale and variety of deals available from the combined hotel network. On the other hand Travelguru is exploring the possibility of an offline acquisition in the next six to nine months. The plan is to tie up with an offline travel agent focussing on the hotel business with a pan-India presence.