Makemytrip to soon enter online budget hotel space with investment in FabHotels

Gurgaon based online travel services agency MakeMyTrip (MMT) has been eyeing a huge move into the online budget hotels market, for which it has held talks with FabHotels and Treebo Hotels.

The Nasdaq-listed company wanted to pick up a strategic stake in either of the companies. However, its talks with Bengaluru-based Treebo didn’t yield any results despite an offer of $10-12 million. Now, MMT might be investing in FabHotels, founded by Vaibhav Aggarwal and Adarsh Manpuria in 2014.

The deal could be worth five to ten million dollars, said ET sources.

Also read: Budget 2017 didn’t promote much of tourism in India. Here’s why

If the deal goes through, MMT will be in direct competition with market leader Oyo Rooms and Priceline group-backed Booking.com.

"The deal is likely to have a clause which will see the budget hotel brand only list with MMT-Goibibo combine. This way they get to lock them into exclusivity," said an insider requesting anonymity.

Also read: MakeMyTrip to issue $960m worth shares to acquire Ibibo group

Talking of FabHotels, the Gurgaon-based budget hotel chain of 175+ hotels has Accel Partners and Qualcomm Ventures as its investors, and secured around $10 million in last funding round.