BLABLACAR and ixigo partner to offer inter-city ridesharing to Indian travellers

GURGAON, India - April 22, 2015 - PRLog -- NEW DELHI, April 22, 2015 – The world’s largest city-to-city ridesharing app, ‘BlaBlaCar’ has entered into a partnership with ixigo, India’s leading travel search marketplace. The strategic partnership allows BlaBlaCar to advertise its ridesharing services to ixigoers through its website and apps (trains app, PNR status app and bus app). As a part of this partnership, when ixigoers search for travel options between any two cities, they will be shown information about available car ridesharing options on BlaBlaCar as well.

BlaBlaCar connects people looking for a city-to-city travel solution with car-owners going in the same direction, so that they can travel together and share the cost of their journey. The service allows users to choose co-travellers in a member community with declared identities and peer-to-peer ratings. ixigo offers travel search and planning across flights, hotels, buses, trains and packages, and has recently entered the taxis & cabs segment.

Over 20 million people around the world connect using BlaBlaCar’s people-powered network which is present in 18 countries. BlaBlaCar members include students travelling to see their friends and family, as well as urban professionals returning to their family on weekends.

Raghav Gupta, India Country Manager, BlaBlaCar said, “India’s response to BlaBlaCar has been great. In our first 100 days, over 100,000 seats have been offered on BlaBlaCar across 700 unique cities and towns. ixigo’s market leadership on travel search & planning apps made it a natural partner for us. This partnership gives us a potential reach of over 60 million travellers across India. BlaBlaCar provides a strong alternative to people for their city-to-city travel needs especially as public transport infrastructure is insufficient.”

Aloke Bajpai, co-founder & CEO, ixigo said, “We are delighted to be bringing Europe’s largest ride-sharing platform closer to Indian travellers. With this partnership we are able to offer ixigoers more choice and convenience over overcrowded buses and hard to get train seats.”

BlaBlaCar is a friendly sharing community, not an on-demand or a professional driving service. Price per co-traveller is limited to a partial contribution towards the cost of the journey and does not allow the car-owner to make a profit. The platform makes a distance-based cost recommendation for every journey that is fair and perfectly transparent for both parties.

About BlaBlaCar

BlaBlaCar (http://www.blablacar.in) was born in 2004 when founder Frederic Mazzella wanted to get home to his family in the French countryside. He had no car and the trains were full. He imagined a new transport network, where car-owners could offer their empty seat to passengers, and share fuel costs.

Along with co-founders Nicolas Brusson and Francis Nappez, Fred created an online long distance ridesharing platform in France. Today, car owners and co-travellers across France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and India choose BlaBlaCar as a trusted inter-city travel solution.

Backed by Accel Partners and Index Ventures, the fast-growing company has 290 employees in 11 offices. BlaBlaCar won the Best Sharing Economy startup at the major tech awards in 2014, the Europas and the World Economic Forum honoured BlaBlaCar as a transformational “Technology Pioneer”.

About ixigo

Launched in 2007 in Gurgaon, ixigo (http://www.ixigo.com) is India’s leading travel search marketplace connecting over 60 million travellers with content & deals from over 25,000 online & offline travel & hospitality businesses. ixigo aggregates and compares travel information, prices & availability for flights, trains, buses, cabs, hotels, packages & destinations. ixigo’s mission is to simplify the lives of travellers by building apps that make their travel search and planning hassle-free. Join ixigo on Facebook and Twitter for more updates.