Cleartrip offers Train bookings

New Delhi, October 3, 2008: Cleartrip, in partnership with IRCTC, announced the launch of online train bookings today. With over 17 million passengers travelling daily by train, Cleartrip becomes India’s first online travel agency to tap this burgeoning market by enabling customers to book their train tickets online.
Cleartrip launched a search-only service in February 2008 and has steadily improved the offering based on feedback from thousands of users the search results from 3000 scaled up to 15000 in 6 months. As customer feedback poured in, Cleartrip added maps for stations and train routes, dateless searches to enable checking of railway schedules, connecting journeys where no direct train is available between stations. Registered users can even save their train searches, letting them conduct their regular searches again without having to re-enter information.
Cleartrip has created the easiest and fastest method for customers to purchase railway tickets online. Instead of having to check aspects of the booking separately, a single search provides users with train fares, schedules and availability simultaneously. Cleartrip lets users select the stations most convenient to them by offering multiple stations from a city instead of forcing users to specify a station and also allows the comparison of fares from multiple stations. In addition, users can instantly review fares from multiple classes such as AC 2-Tier and AC 3-Tier, letting them upgrade to a higher class of travel if they choose. Detailed information is provided for each train including arrival and departure times, number of stops and the train’s route with all stops.
In addition, a wide variety of payment options are supported, including credit cards, debit cards and net banking, so virtually anyone can use this medium. All railway bookings made on Cleartrip are permanently stored in each user’s account, Users can also cancel their bookings online at any time.
“Cleartrip has always been very focused on making travel simple and with that mission we have designed the rail booking engine. The amount of data on railways is vast and we wanted a system that kept things simple, while delivering search results in under a second, and we’ve reinvented the wheel to create that system” said Hrush Bhatt, Founder & Director, Product and Strategy.
The government-owned Indian Railways boasts one of the largest and most trafficked railroad networks in the world—over 18,000 trains operate daily, plying across over 60,000 kilometres of railroad tracks and over 6,800 railway stations. “The sheer size and scale of the Indian Railways, made offering online railway bookings a high priority for Cleartrip,” said Stuart Crighton, Cleartrip’s Founder & CEO. “Developing a unique train product has been a priority and we are very excited to launch India’s fastest and easiest way to book Indian Railways trains online.”

Cleartrip.com (www.cleartrip.com) was launched in July 2006 and is amongst the top three leading OTAs in India with 35% market share. Cleartrip is very customer oriented and offers convenience, choice without confusion, multiple payment options, competitive prices, exclusive destination information and unparalleled customer support. Cleartrip is built on the promise of providing a reliable, simple and responsible service by offering comprehensive products with competitive pricing, with the mission to making travel simple for the consumers Through the Cleartrip online website, leisure and business travelers can compare prices and purchase air and hotel products. The current range of products offered by Cleartrip includes search and booking for domestic and International flights, search and booking for over 3500 domestic hotels and 55,000 international hotels, holiday packages, mobile services for travel, and global destination guides.

Headquartered at Mumbai, Cleartrip has projected a turnover of Rs 1200 Cr. (USD 300 Million) in current fiscal 2008-2009. Cleartrip.com has 300 employees on board and offers 24x7 customer service.

Anuj Kumar Boruah
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This release was published on openPR.