India can be a frustrating place to travel, to build a business, or sometimes just to get something done. I’m sure most of us can relate to the fact that there are still so many things that don’t quite work the way they should.
And yet, that’s also what makes the country so interesting right now.
I thought of this while working on the stories last week… Marriott sees all the places in India that the rest of the world hasn’t discovered yet. Ixigo sees the frustration of a waitlisted train ticket and thinks, there has to be a better way. IHCL is looking at an old, complicated structure and finding a way to make it work better. And Prism is taking things it learned in India and finding that, surprisingly, they can work just as well in the U.S.
Of course, India is still a work in progress. But maybe that’s the opportunity for someone to come along and do it better.
Maybe that’s what I find most exciting about India right now. Not that everything works. Far from it. It’s that so much still could.
Skift Aviation Forum
Profitability, capacity, AI, loyalty: the questions that set aviation's agenda for the year get argued out in one room, in one day.
The CEOs of International Airlines Group, Breeze Airways, and Los Angeles World Airports are among the first confirmed for the 6th annual Skift Aviation Forum, November 12 at TWA Hotel, JFK.
CLARITYPAY + SKIFT
On Airline Weekly Lounge, ClarityPay CEO Houman Motaharian explains how its JetBlue partnership could turn financing into a loyalty engine.
EDITOR’S PICKS
Motel 6’s Power: What Prism’s Annual Report Reveals Ahead of Its IPO
by Peden Doma Bhutia
August 28, 2026
Prism has arguably built a much more sophisticated company than the Oyo of its first IPO attempt. An American-heavy, India-operated hospitality platform that wants to use technology to take more control of the hotel and its economics.
Ixigo Tests Packaged Tours for Trains, Uber Becomes a New Distribution Engine
by Peden Doma Bhutia
August 25, 2026
Ixigo is taking a smart, low-risk approach to packaged travel. Rather than build and operate its own tours, it is testing demand by putting IRCTC-curated trips on its platform. If travelers bite, packaged tours could become the OTA’s next major product category.
SKIFT TRAVEL 200
How are airlines performing around the world? The Skift Travel 200 pulls the data you need to know to understand the market. Paid subscribers get full access here.
