Expedia launches hotels and attractions in india.

Announcement that Expedia has launched in India with Expedia.co.in. Much like their launches in Europe (except FR and DE) and Asia, the open functionality is just hotel and attraction. Business being operated by Sharat Dhall - Managing Director India. According to to his Linkedin profile Sharat joined Expedia in May last year. Prior to that he was a VP of eCommerce at the Indiatimes.com. Expedia is entering a market that is young but moving. Euromonitor predict a $2billion online market in India by 2010 but more than doubling every year. In the Expedia press release they say the Indian market has already reached that size.

Currently leaders in full service in India are Yatra, Makemytrip, Cleartrip and travelguru.

Travelcoity.co.in launched in India with flights and hotels in April last year headed up by Himanshu Singh MD - reporting through to the Zuji executive team (Travelocity's Asia Pac brand - except in India).

UPDATE - Ram Badrinathan of PhoCusWright made contact telling me that in his latest report on India PCW are estimating that the Indian online market will be $6 billion in 2010