Flipkart-owned online travel platform Cleartrip has launched holiday packages in India, betting that the country's biggest untapped travel segment is ready for a digital overhaul. The new product bundles flights, hotels, transfers and activities into ready-made itineraries — but with a twist: travellers can start from an expert-built template and then swap out any element they don't like, from the hotel to the transfers to the day-by-day activities.
The numbers behind the move are substantial. Cleartrip's chief business officer for air, Gaurav Patwari, told Skift that India's overall travel booking market is worth somewhere between $75 and $80 billion, with holidays and packages making up roughly $20 billion of that. What's striking is how little of that has moved online: more than 90% of the holiday package market remains fragmented, spread across small local agents and offline operators, and online penetration lags even the broader market.
Cleartrip's pitch is aimed squarely at the frustration that has kept Indian travellers tethered to traditional agents. Patwari framed it as a long-standing either-or choice: accept a rigid, fixed package, or sink hours into assembling a trip yourself. The company's answer is a middle path — expert-curated starting points that stay fully editable, with AI assistance built in and human support available when things get complicated. In other words, the convenience of a package with the flexibility of booking everything separately.
For travellers, this could genuinely change how a India trip gets planned. Package holidays here have traditionally meant set departures, fixed hotels and little room to negotiate. A large, tech-backed player pushing customisable itineraries — with transparent pricing on flights and rooms — puts pressure on the old model and gives independent-minded travellers a shortcut that doesn't sacrifice control. Expect the big itineraries (Rajasthan circuits, Kerala, hill stations, Goa, and international short-hauls like Thailand and Dubai) to be the battleground, since those are the routes where packaged travel dominates.
The launch also signals how competitive India's online travel space has become. With MakeMyTrip, Yatra and a wave of startups already circling the holidays segment, Cleartrip is entering late but with Flipkart's reach and its own airline booking strength behind it. Whether travellers actually abandon their local agents for an app remains to be seen, but the direction of travel is clear: the offline-dominated, 90%-fragmented package market is where India's next wave of online booking growth is expected to come from.
If you're planning a trip in or from India, it's worth watching how these customisable packages shake out — the early period after such a launch is often when the sharpest prices appear.
