That was the question Nikhil Kamath put to MakeMyTrip Founder and Group Executive Chairman Deep Kalra and IHCL Managing Director and CEO Puneet Chhatwal in the latest episode of WTF is Travel.
The conversation moved beyond the conventional tourism checklist of airports, highways and hotel rooms to examine what happens after travellers arrive at a destination. The central concern was the last-mile experience. India has built the infrastructure, but the last mile is still broken.
India’s airports, highways and trains have improved dramatically. Yet once travellers reach a destination, the experience can still deteriorate because of parking, queues, washrooms, accessibility and difficulties getting from a railway station to a taxi.
For Kalra, that friction matters. On MakeMyTrip, 95% of bookings come from Indian customers, with around 70% of booking value coming from domestic travel and 30% from international travel. International travel is growing at double-digit rates.
Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia are not necessarily winning because they have more to offer. They are often easier to experience. The friction also matters at the national level. Indians spend around USD 16-17bn a year on travel under the RBI’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme, creating a significant forex hole problem for the country. That raises another question: if Indians are willing to spend on travel, why are more of those dollars not being spent discovering India?
The challenge is not simply a shortage of hotels. It is a shortage of the right hotels in the right places. Peak seasons expose the gap as rooms disappear, prices climb and travellers look elsewhere.
Chhatwal sees a major opportunity in boutique, experiential and mid-scale properties, described in the conversation as “lean luxury”. These smaller, well-designed hotels can offer a better experience without the economics of traditional luxury. Some of the most interesting concepts are also being built by people who do not come from traditional hospitality.
That raises another question: does being an outsider make you better at reinventing the hotel?
AI could also take travel back to conversation. For two decades, online travel taught consumers to search, compare and click. AI could change that again.
MakeMyTrip’s AI assistant, Myra, already handles 80,000 to 90,000 voice-based conversations a day. Kalra believes conversational AI could make travel more intuitive, particularly for the next wave of Indians coming online.
Hospitality, however, presents a different challenge. Chhatwal sees AI’s biggest near-term impact in the machinery behind hotels, including revenue management, contracts and back-office operations, rather than replacing the human experience.
That distinction becomes particularly relevant when the conversation turns to robots and whether technology can run a hotel without taking the hospitality out of it.
Chhatwal’s answer is clear: automation may have a place in standardised and budget properties, but luxury still depends on people.
The discussion then turned to how India could move from 10 million foreign tourists to 100 million. Kamath asked what Kalra and Chhatwal would do if they had five years to transform India’s tourism numbers.
Their response focused on changing the system. They highlighted the need to give tourism infrastructure and industry status, fix last-mile connectivity, market India aggressively as a global destination, digitise and professionalise the country’s attractions and experiences, and create stronger coordination between the Centre and states.
India also needs to spread tourism beyond the handful of destinations already struggling with capacity. The opportunity is not only to bring more tourists into India, but also to give them more reasons to stay, explore and return.
For entrepreneurs, that creates a different set of opportunities. Chhatwal’s advice to the next generation is simple: do not build another travel-tech platform simply because travel tech is hot. Instead, build the hotels, experiences and infrastructure that travellers still cannot find easily.
India’s next tourism story may therefore not be about discovering new destinations. It may be about fixing the experience around the destinations the country already has.
The latest episode of WTF is Travel is available now on YouTube.
People by WTF is a global podcast platform hosted by Nikhil Kamath, featuring in-depth conversations with leaders across business, policy, technology, culture and academia. The show explores long-term institutional, technological and economic questions shaping global society through candid, high-signal dialogue.
Past guests include Elon Musk, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bill Gates, Ajay Banga, Martin Escobari, Rishi Sunak, Akshata Murty and Ranbir Kapoor.
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