Booking.com's South Asia regional head writes that India's 500,000+ SMEs and 223,000+ recognised startups are driving corporate travel demand. He cites the company's own Travel Trends 2026 research: 71% of Indian leisure travellers took at least one business trip in the past year against 40% globally, and 85% used AI tools while planning or in transit.
Why it matters
This is Booking.com naming the SME and startup segment as its own growth thesis, the same segment Yatra and Ixigo are separately building corporate products to capture. A supplier's regional head making the same read as the platforms competing for that demand is confirmation from the other side of the transaction.
Industry lens
Booking.com is positioning itself as the free built-in travel desk for SMEs that cannot afford enterprise travel software, a segment Indian OTAs have been chasing from the demand side. Whoever wins self-serve SME booking with admin dashboards captures the accounts before they scale into managed corporate contracts.
Pattern
Fifth corporate-travel signal in two weeks, and the first from a global supplier rather than an Indian OTA. Booking.com named its India B2B push in July; its own regional head now attributes the demand specifically to SME and startup growth, not enterprise expansion.