New Delhi, Oct 18 (TNS): Ixigo hotels have reached what the company’s leadership calls critical mass, with the travel platform confident of triple-digit growth in the segment going forward, as the Economic Times reported. The claim found strong backing in ixigo’s latest quarterly numbers: the hotels business was the fastest-growing segment of Le Travenues Technology in the September quarter, with gross transaction value (GTV) jumping 159 per cent year-on-year to Rs 111.34 crore.
The September quarter of FY27 marked the first time ixigo disclosed ixigo hotels as a separate operating segment, a sign of how central the vertical has become to the company’s strategy. Overall, the company reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 63.42 crore for the quarter, swinging from a net loss of Rs 3.46 crore a year earlier, aided by a partial sale of its stake in Freshbus, an intercity electric bus operator. Revenue from operations rose 13 per cent to Rs 320.96 crore, while total GTV grew 22 per cent to Rs 5,304 crore.
In a joint statement, ixigo Group CEO Aloke Bajpai, Group Co-CEO Rajnish Kumar and Group CFO Saurabh Devendra Singh said the quarter delivered the company’s highest-ever profit after tax. “We continue to invest in hotels and AI as key drivers of our long-term growth,” the executives said, underlining that the hotels bet is now a pillar of ixigo’s ambitions rather than an experiment.
How ixigo hotels reached critical mass
The numbers behind the segment’s rise are striking. Bookings crossed 4.7 lakh room nights during the quarter, up 295 per cent year-on-year, and more than 86 per cent of those bookings came from ixigo’s existing users — evidence that the company is successfully cross-selling hotels to the massive train, bus and flight user base it already owns rather than buying every customer from scratch.
The inventory behind that growth now covers more than 70,000 properties, including over 12,000 directly contracted properties across 1,100 towns, according to the company’s disclosures. The segment’s gross take rate exceeded 12 per cent — the highest among ixigo’s businesses — pointing to healthy unit economics. Operating revenue from the ixigo hotels segment rose to Rs 8.1 crore from Rs 1.3 crore a year earlier.
The push has been reinforced by acquisition. Ixigo acquired a 54.66 per cent majority stake in Brevistay for Rs 65.7 crore, including non-compete fees, and consolidated the budget hotel brand’s financials from July 1, 2026 — a move that adds depth to its inventory in the mid-market and budget hotel categories where the company sees the biggest opportunity.
Triple-digit growth: the roadmap for ixigo hotels
Management’s confidence in triple-digit growth rests on a simple bet: India remains a large market in which ixigo is still a small player, and the company intends to use its captive demand and direct supply relationships to climb the ladder. On earlier earnings calls, CEO Bajpai said the ambition was for ixigo to become the number one discovery and booking platform for India’s mid-market and budget hotels over the next four to five years — a goal he acknowledged would require investment, patience and disciplined execution.
The road to that goal is not without friction. The ixigo hotels business recorded a contribution loss of Rs 1.2 crore in the quarter, widened from Rs 71 lakh a year earlier, though it narrowed sharply from Rs 5.7 crore in the June quarter. The company’s adjusted EBITDA, which accounts for ESOP expenses and excludes other income, declined 17 per cent year-on-year to Rs 23.58 crore — a reminder that ixigo hotels are still in an investment phase before they reach operating leverage.
Still, the trajectory has clearly turned. Where the company once disclosed hotels only as part of an “other businesses” bucket, the segment now stands on its own in the company’s results — the accounting equivalent of declaring that ixigo hotels have, in management’s own words, hit critical mass.
What the ixigo hotels surge means for travel investors
For investors tracking India’s online travel sector, the ixigo hotels numbers land at an interesting moment. The company’s core train, bus and flight businesses remain the cash engines funding the new bets: train revenue rose to Rs 149.14 crore in the quarter from Rs 128.11 crore a year earlier, while bus revenue climbed to Rs 81.04 crore from Rs 65.41 crore. Flight revenue slipped to Rs 82.66 crore from Rs 89.39 crore, but the overall GTV engine kept growing.
The bigger strategic question is how far the ixigo hotels momentum can run. With AI now handling 82 per cent of voice queries and 94 per cent of chat queries across the company’s platforms, and a dedicated AI-native rebuild under way, ixigo is betting that technology-led efficiency will compound the gains from its hotel supply build-out.