This article has been contributed by Louis D’Souza, Managing Partner at Tamarind Global
India’s travel market is in the midst of a dramatic transformation, moving from traditional tour packages to highly personalized, experience-based travel. This transformation has been driven by a new generation of tech-savvy, adventurous travelers – many of whom hail from smaller cities – who are looking for curated, meaningful experiences instead of generic itineraries, says Louis D’Souza, Managing Partner, Tamarind Global. Connectivity has been key to this evolution: better roads, short-haul flights and air travel infrastructure has made these often-remote destinations accessible.
At the same-time, the hospitality sector has elevated its offering to combine the best of local culture and service to satisfy rising expectations. According to industry leaders and various reports from McKinsey, changes in travel infrastructure and hospitality are redefining travel and travel behaviour and providing accelerated economic growth – ushering in a new era of destination management in India that is based on the pillars of curated experiences and seamless access.
From Packages to Personalization
India’s travel industry is shifting gears from a rigid, generic package model to a more customized and emotional travel experience. Travellers want itineraries that represent their personal interests, values, and aspirations, not standard, one-size-fits-all travel plan. While travel companies try to customize the experience for travellers, the industry pushes further personalization by using technologies like AI, data analysis, etc., to gain a deeper understanding of traveller behaviour and design experiences that match traveller’s interests.
To create personalized travel, travellers need to actively participate in their travel plans. The development of user-friendly mobile apps and digital platforms allows for this real-time customization of travel plans to make the changes quickly, easily, and seamlessly while the traveller is travelling. When a better travel experience is created through personalization, it leads to better satisfaction, deeper cultural experiences, and stronger sustainable tourism, personalizing authentic, high-quality local products over the mass-market experience.
Technology and Seamless Logistics
India’s destination management sector is undergoing a transformational phase as technology stitches together highly personalised experiences to seamless guest logistics. Destination management companies (DMCs) and online travel agents (OTAs) are harnessing AI-driven recommendation engines, data-driven segmentation and client virtual previews to curate bespoke itineraries that reflect traveller preferences, and genuine local authenticity.
At the same time, DMCs are using integrated logistics platforms, local operator networks, and real-time operations dashboards to ensure that on-ground activity co-ordination is frictionless from transfers, to event staging, to location set up. Clients experience the normalcy and expectations of late minute customisation, contactless services and measurable sustainability credentials and expect destination management firms to continue to combine their creative curation ability with operational orchestration and operational resiliences.
India’s travel landscape is evolving quickly, and Destination Management Companies (DMCs) are leading the way by fuelling a transition from packaged holidays to neighbouring, high-touch experience journeys. Travellers today expect their itineraries to infuse seamless transportation and logistics with deeply personal and enriching experiences, such as private vineyard tours in Nashik, wellness experiences in the Himalayas, and conservation-led safaris in Ranthambore.
The demand for all-encompassing or deeply immersive experiences has transformed DMCs from simple plotters into experience curators, coordinating everything and anything from exclusive local experiences to luxury hospitality. As client expectations become more nuanced, so the industry has its focus as they promote authenticity, cultural engagement and seamless execution. The transition is forcing the destination management in India to reconsider their operations and redefine their industry with bespoke experience travel becoming their new normal.
Luxury with Local Flavour
India’s destination management sector is undergoing a significant evolution, driven by the desire of luxury travelers for customized and personal journeys into local culture. Travel is no longer confined to visiting popular sights. Destination Management Companies (DMCs) now offer experiences and itineraries that provide guests with meaningful engagement: think culinary trail experiences through royal kitchens in Jaipur, wellness retreats that are led by local yogis in Rishikesh, or artisan-led textile workshops in Kutch. Such experiences combine logistical excellence with authentic engagement, and speak to an emerging client preference for meaningful luxury over material luxury. DMCs are developing increasingly meaningful ties with regional suppliers, boutique accommodations, and community-based experiences to deliver exclusivity without losing cultural authenticity; acting as total stewards of the experience rather than just organizing the travel.
Evolving Client Expectations
India’s travel sector is changing, as Destination Management Companies move towards more engineered styles of travel. The full-service DMCs are more than handling the cut-and-dried logistics (hotel, transport etc.) it’s actually curating rich and multi-layered experiences that are deeply personal, immersive of local culture. Travellers no longer wish to conduct travel only for the basics included in a trip. They aspire to more than what the ordinary itinerary would dictate. For example, a traveller could now have their very own private culinary trail in Jaipur or an art-focused heritage trail in Kolkata.
As travellers are becoming increasingly more discerning, DMCs are moving towards designing experiences that merge seamless travel logistics and rich local touch points. Clients are also expecting ethical or responsible tourism – eco-conscious stays in Ladakh or community-run experiences in Kerala – to evidence alignment of their values to travel. As clients’ expectations evolve, DMCs are now moving towards data driven planning backed up by active stakeholder engagement, to curate experiences that are unique, effortless and place-based.
With demand growing for personalized travel, culturally-rich experiences, and responsible travel, DMC’s are changing their role as storytellers and experience makers. With development in infrastructure and hospitality, we are witnessing travel that is seamless yet soulful. It is a meaningful shift where the destinations of India are being managed not simply as places to visit, but experiences to dive deep into and take away meaningful memories.
TBO Tek, a trailblazer in the travel technology landscape, has been transforming how travel suppliers and buyers connect across the globe. As a leading B2B platform, TBO Tek empowers travel agents, tour operators and online travel agencies with streamlined access to an expansive network of hotels, flights, car rentals, cruises and more. Through its asset-light business model and data-driven approach, the company creates unmatched value by helping suppliers showcase their inventory and enabling buyers to easily book travel across a range of segments—including leisure, corporate and religious travel.
As demand for international travel rises, TBO Tek is positioning itself to leverage this growth with strategic investments in technology, international acquisitions and innovative solutions like its multi-currency, multi-lingual platform. With a track record of profitability and a focus on high-margin offerings, the company is set to capture a larger share of the expanding travel market.
In this StartupTalky article we will explore TBO Tek’s journey, its history, growth, funding, business model, hardships, revenue model, funding, growth, challenges, competitors, and more.
Travel Boutique Online stands as India’s premier travel distribution platform, empowering travel agents and tour operators to provide seamless, competitively-priced services to their customers. Since their inception, they’ve been delivering an extensive range of travel solutions to agencies across India—from bustling metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, to smaller cities—helping businesses expand and thrive in the travel industry. Their offerings include White Label Solutions, APIs for hotel and flight bookings, dynamic packaging and, more recently, mobile app development to meet the growing demands of the digital travel landscape.
TBO Tek – Industry
India’s online travel market reached a valuation of $15.6 billion in 2023 and is set to grow to about $28.4 billion by 2029, with a projected CAGR of 10.5% over 2024–2029. By 2024, the market size is estimated to be around $17.24 billion, showing steady growth as the country remains a dynamic and diverse destination for travel and tourism.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic impacted India’s travel industry, it also presented a unique consolidation opportunity, allowing stronger companies to expand through acquisitions. Domestic tourism, in particular, is rebounding, driven by pent-up demand. Travel firms have reported a 25-30% boost in bookings for air travel and accommodations, especially for popular holiday seasons like Christmas and New Year’s.
Mobile apps have become crucial in this market, with major players like MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Cleartrip, Goibibo and Booking.com leading the way. Their user-friendly apps allow travelers to book flights, hotels, holiday packages and even car rentals seamlessly on the go, making online bookings more accessible and convenient than ever.
TBO Tek – Founders and Team
Gaurav Bhatnagar and Ankush Nijhawan are the co-founders and joint Managing Directors of TBO Tek.
Gaurav Bhatnagar
Gaurav Bhatnagar – Co-founder and Joint Managing Director, TBO Tek
Gaurav Bhatnagar is the co-founder and joint Managing Director of TBO Tek.
Twenty years ago, on Halloween, Gaurav Bhatnagar took a one-way flight from Seattle to Delhi. In 2004, it was quite unconventional for a middle-class professional to leave a prestigious job at Microsoft to return to India, but he was determined to fulfill a promise he’d made to himself.
Going to the US after graduation was never part of his initial plan. He had witnessed the first dot-com boom of 1999-2000 and was already set on building his own company. However, the Microsoft offer came along and it was too good to pass up. Back then, taking a job in the US often felt like a one-way commitment, but he promised himself that he would return after two years.
Gaurav ultimately spent nearly three years in Redmond. His time there transformed him, leaving him with unforgettable memories and friendships. He experienced firsthand the dynamics of a world-class tech company, working in an era when Microsoft was widely regarded as the gold standard. These experiences left a lasting impression on him and shaped his own ideas on building a company.
Shortly after returning to India, his entrepreneurial journey began and the rest, as he says, is his own little piece of history.
With a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he began his career with Microsoft Corporation. He is also a member of the executive committee of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and co-founded both TBO and Tekriti Software Private Limited. Mr. Bhatnagar joined the company’s Board of Directors on November 6, 2006 and has been integral to its growth since its inception.
Beyond his role at the company, he serves as a director at several other ventures, including Tek Travels DMCC, Mediology Software Pvt. Ltd., YB Software Pvt. Ltd., NB Technologies Pvt. Ltd., TBO Holidays Pte Ltd., TBO Technology Services DMCC, TBO Technology Consulting Shanghai Co. Ltd. and ZamZam E Travel Services DMCC. He also contributes as an advisor to Kisho Capital.
Ankush Nijhawan
Ankush Nijhawan – Co-founder and Joint Managing Director, TBO Tek
Ankush Nijhawan is the co-founder and Joint Managing Director of TBO Tek alongwith Gaurav Bhatnagar.
Ankush, a BBA graduate from Boston with a dual major in Marketing and Psychology, is making waves in the travel industry as a visionary leader at the Nijhawan Group. With a sharp focus on building a strong brand proposition and positioning the group with its core business values, he is actively exploring new avenues for growth to establish market leadership. His transformative approach has earned him recognition from CNBC as a Young Turk for his innovation in travel through his B2A travel portal and he was recently honored with the AsiaOne 40 Most Influential Asians Under 40 Award. Today, Ankush stands out as one of the most successful young leaders in the travel sector.
Understanding that technology would play a pivotal role in shaping the industry’s future, Ankush co-founded Travel Boutique Online (TBO) in 2006. Alongside a talented team and with a forward-thinking mindset, he saw the untapped potential in the B2B travel market, establishing himself as a cornerstone of TBO’s success. His efforts have helped TBO grow into a leading player, widely respected across the industry.
A passionate globetrotter, Ankush’s love for discovering hidden gems worldwide fuels his drive to create unique, immersive itineraries that go beyond typical travel experiences. His enthusiasm for diverse cultures and commitment to sustainable tourism inspire him to foster meaningful connections with local communities, making his approach to travel both innovative and impactful.
Ankush came from a family with a background in travel, which inspired him to start Travel Boutique in 2000, shortly after returning from his studies. Initially, it was a B2B offline travel company operating in North and some parts of East India. By 2005, with the internet making strong inroads into the travel industry, Ankush saw both a challenge and an opportunity, as companies like MakeMyTrip and Yatra were quickly adapting to online models.
Around this time, he met Gaurav through a mutual friend. Gaurav, a computer science graduate from IIT Delhi, had been working at Microsoft in the U.S. but returned to India to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams. With his vision that travel would be one of the first sectors to move online due to minimal logistics needs, Gaurav wanted to create an online travel platform. At that point, he was running a software services company called Tekriti Software.
Their meeting led to a powerful collaboration. Together, they transformed Travel Boutique into Travel Boutique Online (TBO) in 2006. TBO Tek Ltd. was born with a mission to simplify airline ticketing and meet the diverse needs of travel agents. The reimagined platform provided travel distribution services, streamlining the travel inventory to suit the specific demands of its clients. What started as an air-ticketing solution evolved into a global travel distribution platform, connecting travel buyers and suppliers across the world.
Today, TBO is a leader in B2A (Business to Agents) travel services, serving clients across the Americas, the UK, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India and the Asia Pacific. A significant milestone was achieved on May 15, 2024, when TBO was publicly listed on the NSE and BSE in India, marking a new chapter in its growth journey.
TBO Tek – Mission and Vision
The Vision of TBO Tek is as below:
At TBO, they aim to lead the global travel scene with smart innovations and powerful tech. They want to be the go-to choice for travel partners everywhere by offering the largest selection of hotels—both domestic and international—and making sure all their partners have the best travel options right at their fingertips. Their vision is all about making travel more accessible, connected and simple for everyone involved.
The Mission of TBO Tek is as below:
Putting Tech First: TBO is all about driving the industry forward with tech! From custom white-label and API solutions to mobile apps, they’re here to equip travel companies—big or small—with the tools they need to succeed.
Best Prices, Every Time: Getting the best deal shouldn’t be hard. By fine-tuning their hotels and packages departments, TBO ensures their partners always get competitive rates, whether booking locally or globally.
Stay Connected, Anytime: With TBO Mobile, their partners can access everything they need, wherever they are. Plus, the new Announcements and Notifications page provides the latest updates in just one click.
Here to Support You: Great tech is just one part of TBO’s promise. Their client servicing team is dedicated to ensuring partners always have support on hand. Whether it’s a quick question or something more in-depth, their team is only a call away!
With their focus on constant innovation and top-tier support, TBO is always working to make travel businesses thrive.
TBO Tek – Name, Tagline and Logo
TBO Tek Logo
TBO Tek has launched a fresh, vibrant logo that perfectly captures the company’s youthful energy and customer-first approach. This new identity reflects their ongoing commitment to innovation and their dynamic role in revolutionizing the travel industry. Alongside the logo, TBO Tek has also unveiled a new brand tagline: “Empowering Travel, Connecting People.”
TBO Tek – Business Model
TBO Tek operates on an asset-light business model that leverages operating efficiencies and strong cash generation. Their core platform, tbo.com, serves as a bridge between a large and fragmented network of suppliers and buyers. The platform allows suppliers to market their inventory, set prices and connect with a global base of buyers. On the buyer’s side, tbo.com offers an integrated, multi-currency and multilingual solution that makes booking travel across various segments—such as leisure, corporate and religious travel—seamless and accessible worldwide.
TBO Tek’s business model is underpinned by the strategic use of data as a corporate asset. This data-driven approach enhances their value proposition and drives growth through value-accretive acquisitions. Additionally, the platform fosters a network effect with interlinked flywheels, which strengthens its overall ecosystem and enhances the value for all partners involved.
TBO Tek’s leadership team, along with its board of directors, brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the company, guiding its mission to revolutionize the travel industry. By maintaining a focus on technological innovation and operational efficiency, TBO Tek has created a highly scalable platform that continues to evolve, expanding its global footprint and strengthening its position as a leader in the travel technology space.
TBO Tek – Revenue Model
TBO Tek operates with two primary revenue models: the B2B Rate Model and the Commission Model, both of which play a key role in its robust financial structure.
B2B Rate Model
Under this model, TBO Tek receives inventory from suppliers (such as hotels, airlines, car rentals and cruises) at special B2B rates. TBO Tek then applies a mark-up on these rates and passes the adjusted price to buyers (travel agencies, tour operators, etc.). This model allows TBO Tek to earn a profit on the difference between the supplier’s rate and the price charged to buyers, creating a steady stream of revenue from the mark-up applied to each transaction.
Commission Model
In the commission model, suppliers set the price at which they wish to sell their products to end travelers. TBO Tek receives a commission on each transaction made through its platform. A portion of this commission is retained by TBO Tek, while the remaining portion is shared with the buyer. This model ensures that TBO Tek benefits from each successful booking, fostering strong partnerships with suppliers and maintaining a steady flow of income.
Together, these revenue models enable TBO Tek to generate consistent and scalable income while simplifying the business of travel for both suppliers and buyers. The combination of competitive B2B pricing and commission-based earnings ensures the company’s platform remains attractive to a wide range of travel industry partners across the globe.
TBO Tek – Challenges Faced
TBO Tek’s revenue model is sensitive to several external factors, including global economic shifts, security and environmental concerns and unforeseen events like epidemics or natural disasters, all of which can significantly affect the travel and tourism industry. Their revenue is heavily reliant on hotel bookings and air ticketing, meaning any disruption in these sectors can directly impact their earnings.
A major challenge lies in the company’s dependency on a limited range of suppliers. Changes in supplier dynamics, such as cost reduction pressures or the inability to establish new supplier relationships, could lead to disruptions in the inventory they offer. This can result in fluctuations in both revenue and profit margins. Additionally, delays in receiving payments or recoverable amounts from airlines could have a negative effect on their cash flow.
Furthermore, as suppliers seek more control over distribution channels—particularly by moving toward direct platforms to reduce intermediaries—TBO Tek’s ability to renegotiate contracts with suppliers may become increasingly difficult. This scenario could affect the company’s competitiveness and profitability.
The duopoly in the Indian aviation industry, where two dominant players control much of the market, also presents a significant challenge. The limited competition in this sector may influence pricing, availability and terms, creating additional business pressures for TBO Tek in the region.
TBO has secured a total of $61 million in funding across 3 rounds, with its first round taking place on March 28, 2012 and last funding round on September 1st 2018.
Date of funding
Funding Amount
Round Name
Investors
Sep 01, 2018
$50M
PE
Affirma Capital
Feb 26, 2015
$2.34M
Seed
Naspers
Mar 28, 2012
$8.66M
Seed
Naspers
TBO Tek – Mergers and Acquisitions
TBO Tek has strategically expanded its global footprint through acquisitions like:
Acquired Company
Date
BookaBed
2023
Jumboline
2023
Island Hopper
2019
Gemini Tours and Travels
2022
TBO Tek – Growth
Travel Boutique Online (TBO Tek) has displayed impressive financial growth and operational expansion in recent quarters, underscoring its strong position in the travel industry. Here are some key highlights of their performance:
Q1 FY25 Financial Performance
Net Profit Growth: TBO Tek’s consolidated net profit surged by 29%, reaching INR 60.91 crore.
Revenue Growth: Operating revenue increased by 21%, amounting to INR 418.5 crore.
FY24 Financials
TBO Tek Financials
2023
2024
Operating Revenue
INR 1065 crore
INR 1393 crore
Total Expenses
INR 914 crore
INR 1181 crore
Profit/Loss
INR 148 crore
INR 201 crore
TBO Tek Financials FY24
Revenue Growth Over the Last Three Years
TBO Tek has experienced substantial growth in revenue, rising from INR 141.80 crore in FY21 to INR 1,064.58 crore in FY23, reflecting their expansion and strong market position.
Customer and Seller Expansion
Buyers: The number of buyers using TBO Tek’s platform grew from 23,532 in FY21 to 41,861 in FY24.
Sellers: The platform’s seller base expanded dramatically, increasing from 45,025 in FY21 to 2,13,633 in FY24. This significant growth indicates the platform’s increasing popularity and trust among both buyers and sellers in the global travel industry.
Booking Rate
The booking rate on TBO Tek’s platform also showed a healthy increase, rising from 4.87% in FY21 to 7.29% in FY24, a sign of growing customer engagement and successful conversions.
Gross Transaction Value (GTV)
GTV Growth: TBO Tek’s GTV grew by 14% year-on-year, reaching INR 7,940 crore in Q1 FY25, highlighting the platform’s expanding reach and increasing transaction volume.
TBO Tek – IPO
The much-anticipated IPO opened for bidding from May 8 to May 10, 2024, with a price band set between INR 875 and INR 920 per share. Investors could participate with a minimum lot size of 16 equity shares. The total issue size was INR 1,550.81 crore, and the allotment of shares was finalized on May 13, 2024. Following its successful subscription, the shares made their debut on the BSE and NSE on May 15, 2024, marking another milestone in the company’s journey.
TBO Tek – Advertisements and Social Media Campaigns
Grand prize winner Sarah Raouf walks away with BMW X2
In an exciting turn of events, TBO Holidays has revealed the grand prize winner of its highly successful ‘Book n Win Bonanza’ promotional campaign, which ran for 120 days across the MEA region. The campaign culminated in a thrilling raffle draw, where Sarah Raouf from Family Tours, Egypt was declared the lucky winner of the grand prize – a brand new BMW X2!
Campaign Highlights
Grand Prize: Sarah Raouf, a travel agent from Family Tours in Egypt, took home the BMW X2 as the grand prize winner of the campaign.
Total Winners: Over 1,500 winners were chosen throughout the campaign, with 6,000 rewards distributed in total.
Campaign Duration: The 120-day campaign started in April and ran successfully, engaging over 1,200 travel agents across the region.
Rewards and Prizes
The ‘Book n Win Bonanza’ campaign was a huge success, offering a wide variety of prizes to lucky participants:
TBO+ Reward Points: 1,200 travel agents won TBO+ Reward Points, which could be redeemed for any products of their choice on the TBO.com platform.
Cruise Packages: Two fortunate agents received cruise packages courtesy of MSC Cruises.
Spin the Wheel: Participants also had the chance to spin the wheel on the TBO Holidays’ online platform, winning exciting prizes like:
iPhones, iPads, iMacs
Large screen televisions
Shopping vouchers
Cruise packages
5-star hotel and resort vouchers for exotic locations like Thailand, Malaysia and UAE
Campaign Success and Engagement
The ‘Book n Win Bonanza’ was designed to reward TBO Holidays’ loyal travel agent partners while also promoting engagement with the platform. With over 1,500 winners, the campaign successfully created buzz and excitement within the travel agent community, strengthening TBO Holidays’ relationship with its partners across the region.
This marketing initiative highlighted TBO Holidays’ commitment to supporting travel agents with valuable incentives, showcasing their brand as a key player in the travel distribution space.
TBO Tek – Awards and Achievements
World’s Leading B2B Travel Provider: Awarded to TBO Holidays at the 26th Annual World Travel Awards in 2019, a testament to TBO’s global reputation.
Best Travel Technology Provider – B2B Category: Received at the Travel and Tourism Excellence Awards by FICCI, underscoring TBO’s innovation in travel technology.
Best Online Travel Agency: Recognized again by FICCI, reflecting TBO’s excellence in B2B travel agency support.
Best Online Travel Booking Site: TBO won this at SATTE 2019, highlighting its seamless booking experience.
Hotel Bedbank – Best Website: Awarded to TBO Holidays at the TravelMole Asia Pacific Awards in 2019 for its user-friendly and efficient booking platform.
Most Valuable Partner Dubai: Presented by FCM Travel Solutions UAE in 2019, affirming TBO’s valuable partnerships in the MEA region.
Best Online B2B Travel Portal: East India 2016 and South India 2016 by India Travel Awards,
The World’s Greatest Brands 2015-16 and Best Innovative Technology Product – North India 2015
TBO Tek – Competitors
TBO Tek competes with a range of other travel technology companies, all striving to dominate the B2B travel booking and distribution space through innovative tech solutions and expansive supplier networks such as:
TBO Tek is driving its global expansion by strategically establishing and acquiring subsidiaries, such as TBO Jumbonline Canarias in the Canary Islands, to capitalize on the region’s tourism growth. This new subsidiary, operated by the recently acquired Jumboline Accommodations & Services for INR 219.6 Cr, aims to leverage local expertise and broaden TBO’s reach in the European market.
The company’s international growth plan focuses on acquiring companies with strong distribution and supply networks to build a robust travel ecosystem. Previous acquisitions, such as Island Hopper in the Indian Ocean Islands and Gemini Tours and Travels in the Maldives, showcase TBO’s commitment to widening its global footprint. With the expected 11.1% CAGR growth in the outbound travel market through 2027, TBO Tek is positioned to capture a significant share by investing in user acquisition, expanding its buyer and supplier base and conducting targeted marketing and promotional activities. A portion of IPO proceeds will also be allocated towards further strategic acquisitions to solidify TBO’s presence worldwide.
FAQs
What is TBO Tek?
TBO Tek is a technology-driven travel platform that offers a range of services for travel agents, tour operators, and suppliers. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools to manage travel bookings, such as hotel reservations, flights, and holiday packages.
When was TBO Tek founded?
TBO Tek was founded on November 6, 2006.
Who are the founders of TBO Tek?
Gaurav Bhatnagar and Ankush Nijhawan are the co-founders and join managing directors of TBO Tek.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved byAir India.
Air India is the country’s best flying ambassador. Thanks to the 18,000 Air Indians who have continued the legacy of rising high, the drive to succeed and the passion that marked Air-inaugural India’s flight on October 15, 1932, is still indisputably present today.
In addition to domestic flights, Air India, covers southern and eastern Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the United States, Australia, and Canada. It was formed in 1932 (as Tata Airlines) and headquartered in Mumbai.
After the transaction was finalised by Air India Limited’s previous owner, the Government of India, it is now held by Talace Private Limited, a Special-Purpose Vehicle of Tata Sons.
Know more about Air India, its company history, business model, funding and investors, etc.
Bharat Ratna J.R.D. Tata founded an airline in 1932, realising his ambition and beginning the path that would become Air India. His love of flying, which led him to become the first Indian to acquire a commercial pilot’s licence, ignited the beginnings of Air India with the introduction of postal service from then-Bombay to Karachi via Ahmedabad. Since becoming nationalised in 1953, Air India has grown to become a significant domestic and international brand.
After joining Star Alliance, the largest global airline alliance, in July 2014, Air India’s international connectivity, which includes cities in Europe, The United States, The United Kingdom, Africa, the Gulf, Asia, and Australia, was improved. The airline flies to every remote county in our nation.
It has consistently stood by the country and its citizens in times of need and has been crucial in evacuation operations throughout crises like the Gulf War, the Coronavirus pandemic, and the most recent situation in Ukraine.
After re-joining the Tata Group on January 27, 2022, Air India is ready for takeoff, reinventing its objectives and strategy with a focus on overall excellence and customer-centric procedures.
Mr. Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons, said on the occasion, “The Tata group welcomes Air India’s new customers and is thrilled to work together to make Air India the airline of choice in terms of passenger comfort and service.”
102 local and foreign destinations are served by the fleet of Airbus and Boeing aircraft operated by Air India. Along with many key cities around India, the airline has its hub at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. With a market share of 18.6%, Air India is the biggest airline operating in India. Air India offers service to more than 60 overseas locations on four continents. On July 11, 2014, the airline joined Star Alliance as its 27th member.
Air India – Industry
Almost all facets of air travel and the operations that support it are included in the aviation business. This implies that it covers the whole airline sector as well as the manufacture of aircraft, research organisations, military aviation, and much more. The number of operational aircraft in the global aviation fleet at the start of 2022 was equal to that of 2017. However, at 25,500, it was about double the epidemic low mark set in the middle of 2020.
The business is now again set up for a decade of development after the Covid-19 outbreak lasted for two years. Domestic travel demand is anticipated to approach its pre-pandemic high in early 2023 on a worldwide scale. The projection then calls for continued growth through the rest of the decade at rates that even outpace improvements in GDP.
The ten years through 2032 are likely to be packed with problems that will put aviation’s resilience and profitability to the test, unlike the ten years between 2010 and 2019 when the sector had stable yearly gains in demand. The key issue for aviation going ahead is not its capacity for growth, but rather it’s capacity for profitable growth.
Air India – Founder
Air India is founded by Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata on 29 July 1946.
J.R.D Tata
J.R.D Tata – Founder of Air India
Indian aviator, manufacturer, businessman, and head of the Tata Group, JRD Tata was a non-resident Indian, son of renowned industrialist Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and his spouse Suzanne Brière. His mother was the first Indian lady to drive a vehicle, and he was the country’s first-ever certified pilot in 1929. He is most known for founding various businesses that are part of the Tata Group, including Voltas, Air India, Titan Industries, Tata Consultancy Services, and Tata Motors. He won two of India’s highest civilian honours—the Padma Vibhushan and the Bharat Ratna—in 1955 and 1992, as well as the French Legion of Honor in 1983.
Air India – Startup Story
In 1932, Air India launched Tata Airlines under the name of its founder, J. R. D. Tata. Between the Indian cities of Ahmadabad, Bombay, Bellary, and Madras and Karachi, Pakistan, the line transported mail and people. Within a short period, Tata Airlines’ itineraries featured stops in Trivandrum, Delhi, Colombo, Lahore, and other nearby Indian towns.
After World War II was over, the airline changed its name to Air-India Limited and went public. With the government owning a 49 per cent stake in the business, the airline expanded its reach outside of India in just two years, operating frequent flights to Cairo, Geneva, and London. The name of the company was once again changed to Air-India International Limited to reflect its expanded range of services.
For a variety of factors, India fared better in the airline business than the majority of other emerging nations. Air India mostly used native-born pilots, unlike other airlines which had to rely on foreign pilots to fly their aircraft. Similar to how many competent Indians were available to maintain India’s fleet and educate and manage its workforce, many other nations had to look outside of their borders for this type of knowledge. Along with its sibling carriers, Air-India profited from these benefits.
Early in the 1950s, Air India saw competition for its routes for the first time. Due to the affordable, war-surplus DC-3s that were becoming available, several new airlines were starting to emerge. There were no less than 21 established airlines, 11 of which had been granted permission to operate in Indian airspace.
Expanding its aviation business even further was one of Air India’s main objectives for the nineties. At the start of the decade, Air-India accounted for around 30% of the country’s air cargo business, with more than three dozen foreign airlines transporting the remaining 70%. To expand its ability to transport exports, the airline intended to hire more jet freighters. The International Airports Authority of India enhanced the ground handling and infrastructure at the entrances it manages, increasing its appeal to airlines and freight forwarders. With these modifications in place, cargo revenue for the 1990 fiscal year was the US $195 million, or 21% of Air India’s revenue.
Air India – Name, Logo, and Tagline
When J. R. D. Tata of Tata Sons, an Indian aviator and business mogul, launched Air India, it was originally known as Tata Air Services before changing its name to Tata Airlines. The airline used a six-seat Miles Merlin to launch its inaugural domestic route from Bombay to Trivandrum. It was given a new name in 1938, first as Tata Air Services and then as Tata Airlines.
Although its founder J. R. D. Tata would continue in that role as Chairman until 1977, the Government of India approved the Air Corporations Act in 1953 and bought a controlling share in the airline from Tata Sons.
As part of a reorganisation, the business was given the new name Air India International Limited and the domestic services were given to Indian Airlines.
The tagline of Air India says, “Air India… Truly Indian”
The airline’s previous logo included an orange “Konark Chakra” inside of a crimson flying swan. The soaring swan is a modified version of the iconic Air India emblem, “The Centaur,” while the “Konark Chakra” is evocative of the Indian logo.
Air India – Mission, and Vision
Air India’s mission statement says, “to deliver the highest quality of service around the world and be the epitome of Indian hospitality and to be India’s flag carrier and provide seamless travel within India and the world.”
Air India’s vision is, “to become India’s most efficient and preferred LCC on regional and international routes; constantly exceeding guest’ expectations in terms of quality, affordability, convenience and comfort.”
Air India – Products
Air India is one of India’s largest airlines, offering both international and local flights. Transport for people and goods was originally Air India’s two main services. But in 2012, the freight transport was shut down. It exclusively uses passenger transportation for operation. For the same, it makes use of Boeing and Airbus aircraft.
Some of its key products include premium lounges and in-flight entertainment. It also rents a number of its fleets to cut costs while maintaining quality. Air India’s extensive network of routes allows it to provide flights to the world’s most significant cities and commercial hubs. To encourage repeat business from its customers, it offers a high degree of safety.
According to the much research conducted and information obtained, Air India has solidified its position as India’s largest and most productive air carrier on all fronts. Millions of travellers regularly use their service, which is current and useful.
They aggressively position themselves in the market utilising a range of marketing strategies, such as social media campaigns and advertising, to tell customers about upcoming packages and other things. Customers consider their affordable costs to be a competitive advantage and a selling point. Overall, they have reached new heights while maintaining their innovativeness thanks to their marketing and sales strategies.
Some of the elements that determine the pricing include the path used by air traffic, the distance travelled, and the number of stops made along the trip. Given how fiercely competitive the airline industry is, competitive pricing makes sense. Within a flight, there are simultaneously two different pricing ranges:
Economy class
Business-class
Middle-class families may easily afford flight tickets on Air India. Business-class passengers are the main target of premium pricing since they are more likely to pay for and use premium services.
Air India – Marketing Campaigns
Through various media, including print, radio, television, and internet platforms, marketing efforts spread the word about items. It connects with the client by conveying a relevant message in addition to promoting the goods. The greatest and safest travel experience is promised by Air India campaigns.
A dig at Indigo – After a video showed one of their personnel fighting a passenger, Air India posted two advertisements on Twitter in a covert thread towards IndiGo Airlines. Air India poked fun at IndiGo after the assault incident by promising “unbeatable service” and using the letter “beat” in blue, IndiGo’s signature colour. The second one has the slogan, “We raise our hands ONLY to offer namaste,” and features Air India’s mascot, “Maharaja,” in his signature pose. On Twitter, people criticised IndiGo over the event and called for a boycott of the airline.
Mascot – The Air India Maharaja, arguably the country’s most known mascot, is typically seen standing with his hands in a polite namaste or bowing with his palm placed over his heart to greet visitors. But the mascot has since undergone several additional changes. Let’s examine a few of them.
War Ads – Air India and IndiGo are in war advertising. To entice customers, Air India is boosting up its advertising effort. Right behind IndiGo’s check-in desks, Air India posted an advertisement on a wall panel that said, “Next time fly with Air India and experience the difference.” Although no competitors are mentioned, the strategic positioning speaks for itself. Even IndiGo made no concessions. It responded to Air India with a commercial.
However, the national carrier has never engaged in such aggressive marketing. With loud advertising and promotional discounts, Air India is attempting to get consumer attention.
Air India – Acquisitions
Acquiree Name
About Acquiree
Date
Amount
AirAsia India
AirAsia India provides scheduled air passenger transportation, air cargo transportation, and charter flight services.
The COVID-19 outbreak and rising fuel prices, according to claims in the media, are expected to lead India’s airlines to suffer their largest-ever loss of almost 20,000 crore rupees this fiscal year. Since its merger with Indian Airlines in 2007–2008, the airline has never turned a profit. In actuality, it disclosed a 7,017 crore rupee loss for FY21. The Tatas want to increase on-time performance and in-flight amenities now that they are back in the Air India cockpit. They must also encourage a corporate culture among the airline’s staff. Problems like outdated aircraft and subpar cabin goods must also be addressed.
The fleet’s update and maintenance come next. Air India has 141 aircraft in its fleet, a mix of narrow and wide-body Airbus and Boeing models, but has committed to giving Tatas just 118 of them in flyable condition. The 787 fleet of Air India’s airline is likewise severely short on components and engines. Tata group discovered that at any one moment, at least five 787s were sitting idle owing to a lack of engines. On the Boeing 777 fleet, which serves as the backbone of Air India’s successful US operations, at least two aircraft have been determined to be unfit for flight, and the others require extensive refurbishment.
How well the Tata Group will organise its aviation operations is an equally significant task.
Air India – Future Plans
“In terms of fleet, we know we have work to do,” Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of the Tata Group, told. “We will address it with utmost urgency. We’ll upgrade our fleet, we’ll bring modernity in our fleet, we’ll bring a new fleet.”
In the upcoming months, Mr Chandrasekaran informed employees that Air India will swiftly boost the number of its narrow-body and wide-body aircraft. The average fleet age of Air India is more than ten years.
As per the company’s site, its fleet presently consists of 153 aircraft. This comprises 49 wide-body aircraft produced by Boeing and Airbus, including planes from the most popular 320 and 737 families. This is a challenging combination since each kind of aircraft demands a different set of pilot and crew skill sets.
Even though reductions are typical in such huge agreements, a sale for 50 brand-new 787-9 planes may be worth $14.6 billion at sticker pricing. The oldest models of the fuel-efficient workhorse are flown by Air India, one of the Boeing Dreamliner’s earliest purchasers worldwide, albeit some of them are still grounded owing to a lack of components.
FAQs
When was Air India founded?
Air India was founded in 1932 (as Tata Airlines) and headquartered in Mumbai.
Who is the founder of Air India?
Air India was founded by Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata in 1946 in New Delhi.
Is Air India and AirAsia India same?
Air India acquired AirAsia India on Jun 14, 2022.
Who are the top competitors of Air India?
Top competitors in the competitive list of Air India are:-
Indigo
Jet Airways
Go Air
Air Asia
Etihad
Oman Air
Thai Airways
Singapore Airlines
Emirates
Jet Airways
Spicejet
Who is the owner of Air India?
Air India is owned by Tata Group.
Who is the CEO of Air India?
Campbell Wilson is the CEO of Air India since 12 May 2022.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Expedia.
Are the countries present on this globe closer to you? Does the word ‘travelling’ boost your daily life activities? It always accounts for around 1 out of every 11 jobs connecting its workers globally, emotionally and most importantly physically of course not on a device, but in the real atmosphere where memories do matter the most. It expands minds, feeds souls and opens hearts! Simply, travelling is a force for good.
Expedia is an American travel organization for both consumers and small businesses. It is a travel portal offering travelers a great variety of hotels in their desired destinations and many more. Read the Expedia Success Story below!
Expedia – Company Highlights
Startup Name
Expedia
Headquarters
Bellevue, Washington, US
Industry
Online Ticket booking, Hotel Booking, Travel Agency
Expedia is such an online American company that is considered to be the 8th largest travel agency in the United States. It is the one that cares about each and everyone’s budget and activities of every kind, especially during this era of competitive rates.
Rich Barton is the founder and the CEO of the company. He initially began as a General Manager at Microsoft. Then he worked at various other companies as a Board Director most of the time. He completed his education at Stanford University.
Expedia – Startup Story
Expedia initially began providing online travel services on the Microsoft Network toward the end of 1996. Microsoft in 2001 agreed to sell its interest in Expedia and it was a deal that was finalized the next year. Expedia expanded in many ways.
It grew from selling flight tickets to providing a vast range of travel products such as hotels and packaged travel plans! It also entered the corporate travel market and expanded internationally, opening sites in Canada, and other European countries.
Expedia – Mission and Vision
The mission and the vision of the company Expedia is to power global travel for everyone and everywhere!
Expedia – Tagline, Slogan and Logo
Expedia Logo
The new tagline of the company is, ‘It matters who you travel with!‘
Expedia – Business Model
Expedia has got a merchant model when it comes to the offering of hotel rooms! Expedia buys hotel accommodations at a discounted price and then turns around and sells it at a sizable markup to the end-user. Such sort of rooms are always booked in advance by the clients and then paid for hotel rooms during the time of the main purchase done by the clients.
Expedia – Revenue Model
Expedia makes money in different ways! The greatest of all those ways is through hotel reservations, which the company is mainly known for enabling clients to do. Around 70%-75% of Expedia’s revenue is generated from hoteliers, the lodging sector. Expedia has got a very simple supply and demand strategy. Flight ticket sales comprise just 3% of the entire revenue generated by the company. Car rental, insurance and other services also do play a role in generating the revenue which is just 15% of the total induced.
It initially buys up a large number of rooms at a discounted price and then advertises the bookings through its site as the cheapest one will find currently in the marketplace.
Expedia – Funding and Investors
Expedia did raise $3.3 billion in funding over the three funding rounds.
The global revenue of Expedia rose by approximately around 65% the last year that is over the previous year. There was a decrease sharply seen to $5.2 billion in 2020 because of the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Anyway, the company’s revenue went up to $8.6 billion in 2021 as the travel need improved.
Expedia – Online and Social Media Presence
Expedia has got its social media profiles present on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and also has got its professional profile present on Linked In. Not only this but also Airbnb has got its name on various famous web portals.
The competitors of the company are CWT, American Express Global Business Travel and Booking Holdings.
CWT
CWT is one of the top competitors of Expedia! It is headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota and was founded in 1994. CWT works in the Travel Industry Sector.
American Express Global Business Travel
American Express Global Business Travel is also one of the top competitors of Expedia. It is headquartered in Jersey City, NJ, USA and was founded in 2013. This company works in the Travel Agency Sector.
Booking Holdings
Booking Holdings is perceived as one of the top competitors of Expedia. It is headquartered at Norwalk, Connecticut and was founded in 1997. It operates in the Packaged Vacations and Your Operations Field.
FAQs
When was Expedia founded?
Expedia was founded in 1996 in Bellevue, Washington, US.
Starting a travel agency will be so much fun, fulfilling, and most profitable career. The start-up costs are relatively low and there are plenty of opportunities for someone with a passion to sell travel. Starting any business is not easy, but it certainly helps you if you have someone to advise you and give out a path. In the travel industry, there is a huge option to earn also the travel and tourism industry plays a major role in the country’s economic development. This is because people always want or need to go to places.
There are several resources available today, anyone with a passion for travelling can easily start a travel agency. In this article, we will talk about how you can start a travel agency by following some important steps. So without any further ado, let’s get started.
A niche is your friend. When you start a travel agency a niche will help you establish your brand, create your travel agency name, and navigate the world when you get to that point. Starting a travel agency without a niche is like travelling without a smartphone.
If you can confidently say that you have found a travel niche that you are passionate and knowledgeable about, then you have made a first step on the road to setting up a successful travel agency. You finding your business idea is one of the most important steps in starting a business.
Total contribution of the Indian tourism industry in billion US dollars
Choose Your Travel Agency’s Name
Choosing a company name for any kind of business is a difficult and tricky task, so you need to take some time to do some research to come up with a creative and effective name. The company name ideas that you select for your travel agency should not only be functional, but they should be catchy and noteworthy too.
When naming your agency, you will want to sit down and give some time to think about your business’s niche; how will you make your travel agency different and how can you set yourself apart? Before you start using the name that you have selected for your travel agency, make sure that it is still available and not already in use by some other company or business.
Choose a Business Structure
A base step in your travel agency business is to create a business structure. Let’s start from the ground up. You need to decide what type of business are going to have. Your options include:
Sole proprietor – Starting a sole proprietorship is easy. You can use your name and Social Security number to get started. You can use this information to get the permits and licenses that you need to start your business. When you are a sole proprietor, you can decide how you want to run your business. You can choose the job that you want to take. When you are a sole proprietor, you get all of the income that you make.
Corporation – As soon as your business becomes a corporation, you gain credibility. People are more likely to work with businesses that are a corporation than those that are not. If you are going to need help financing your business, you may need to start a corporation. When you start a corporation, you can have silent partners, who will help with financing. Corporations can offer benefits for their employees, such as health insurance.
Partnership – It is easy to set up a partnership because it is formed with an agreement between the partners. Just like it is easy to get started, it is easy to dissolve a partnership. As long as one partner is ready to stop, the partnership can change or dissolve depending on what everyone wants.
Limited Liability Company(LLC) – It is much cheaper to start an LLC than a corporation and it still gives you plenty of the same benefits. If you have a business that has plenty of risks, you may start San LLC to protect your assets. You can control your business, the way you want. Many believe that having an LLC behind your business name can make your business more official. People are more likely to work with you because your business looks more serious.
Find Some Great Partners
It makes a great value add for the customer making the booking, and the business involved gets their product in front of a large market. As travels fast in the industry, your travel partners will refer clients to your business once you have earned their trust. In return, you will do the same for them. You need to realise what type of tourism business you want to operate and what your objectives are for setting up the right partnership.
Your travel partner network needs to be a good fit for your business, and have values that align with your own. For the active participation of all parties within your travel partner network to continue, each must see some direct benefits from the relationship. You never want to end up in a situation where one is doing all the work and another enjoys the benefits.
Build Your Marketplace
Nowadays people travel a lot around this world to see the unseen and to know the unknown. As a marketplace owner, you work as a middleman and your marketplace brings lower costs to the customers by letting them purchase directly from the sellers. Travel and tourism startups can only function if they are aware of their marketplace. It is natural to think that the marketplace can get thousands of users. It is the main task of a successful marketplace to facilitate communication between the suppliers and the customers. Understanding the trends that are out there, can allow marketplace owners to decide the best tools and tactics to use for that the company’s objectives.
Adapt to Your Target Market
To develop a successful marketing technique you need to define your target audience. This is important for new businesses looking to establish their presence within the market. Analyzing the market is also about researching competitors to-be. Look out for other travel agencies, who their audience are and how they are managing them. Different regions and different suppliers may have varying profit margins. First, you have to know the situation on the market, what deals are presented, and how you are being ranked compared to your competitor travel agencies.
Travellers of all age groups are using social media networks where they talk about travel products, share experiences, or express their preferences. Use images, videos, questions, or statuses to promote and motivate potential clients to follow you.
Suggesting additional products on top of a standard package is the most straightforward method of increasing your revenue per customer. Explore and test to find out what your customers want, and use travel agency software to easily track and manage special offers and complementary products.
Combine different products into a unique travel experience. Create a package and try to offer a better price by setting a hotel, flight, and activity together.
One way to be a successful travel company is to establish your business in a niche market. The travel niche doesn’t need to be complicated or rare – but the more unique it is, the better. Niche travel means you are selling something that no one else sells, and that your product is different in some way.
The internet has changed every aspect of life and it has also affected how travellers book trips and how agencies can sell packages. Your customers can book 24/7 because the system receives and processes the reservations automatically.
A good way to stay ahead of your competitors is by offering the best possible prices on a worldwide range of high-quality travel plans.
Promote your business in Social media, when it comes to travelling, social media is the best option. Apart from that digital marketing strategies can also help you in achieving your goal.
Conclusion
While starting your travelling agency, you need to understand what can set your business apart from other travel agencies, and what you can offer that others cannot offer to the clients. If you are still in the planning stage of starting your travel agency, you need to keep in mind and follow all these steps. As everything is opening up once again after a big break because of Covid-19, the travel industry is once again back in action.
FAQs
Is tourism a big industry in India?
Travel and tourism is one of the biggest industries in India.
How much does the travel industry contribute to the Indian economy?
The tourism industry contributes over $247 billion to the Indian economy.
Which are the most popular travel agencies in India?
Till now what most of the travelers have been doing while booking international trips is to either book a pre-made package where one gets to see what the travel agents want to show, or go unplanned and explore things locally. However, there are drawbacks in both these ways. In pre-made packages, one has to rush through all or selected important tourist spots irrespective of one’s interest and do not get much time to experience and feel the destination. Again, going without a plan to a new destination can turn out to be a perfect disaster without proper knowledge and guidance. But thankfully now, there is a third way too, to plan your international trip. Pickyourtrail, a Chennai based travel startup is here to plan trips which are specially customized as per your interest, travel duration, etc. With these customized trips, one can explore a place at his own pace, while Pickyourtrail takes care of all the nuisances like hotel booking, activity booking and more.
Pickyourtrail helps travelers plan for their vacations without the pain involved in the planning. The platform uses deep-tech to let travelers create, customize and book international vacations in a jiffy. Pickyourtrail’s proprietary comfort score considers more than 40 factors like duration, travel time, ratings, etc to build personalized itineraries that travelers can further customize & book. After the trip is booked, travelers can use Pickyourtrail’s app to keep track of bookings and get real-time information on flight and weather updates, restaurant recommendations and on-trip chat support.
In February 2020, Pickyourtrail announced partnership with fintech company ZestMoney to provide consumers with flexible payment options for booking itineraries. Pickyourtrail customers will now be able to book travel packages at No Cost EMIs, along with options to ‘Travel now, pay later in 3 easy installments. Through this partnership, Pickyourtrail aims to build a wider customer base.
SomeUSPs of Pickyourtrail are–
• Trips are 100% customizable • All-round support is provided to the traveler during the trip • The travelers get to choose from unlimited traveling options based on one’s own requirements • Trips are tailored in a pocket-friendly manner.
Our goal is to become one of the top travel brands globally when it comes to vacations. Given that we have the piping/infrastructure in place in terms of automated bookings, independent modules there are a lot of opportunities for us to tap into newer businesses – Hari Ganapathy
Pickyourtrail – Industry
As per various reports, the total outbound travel market will be valued at about $40Bn by 2020. As per a recent WTO Report, India will account for 50 million outbound tourists by 2020. Again, as per a report by a leading OTA in India, the total outbound “online” market is $3.3B. If you take in the global vacation market, that is a much larger number.
“We strongly believe that this is neither a winner takes it all market nor a shrinking pie; there is a large headroom for growth for us,” Hari says explaining the outbound travel market.
Hari Ganapathy and Srinath Shankarnarayanan are the founders of Pickyourtrail. Hari and Shankar are friends since college days. Both the founders are passionate travelers and it is their love for travel that motivated them to start Pickyourtrail.
Hari Ganapathy
Hari Ganapathy is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore. Prior to founding Pickyourtrail, Hari worked with prestigious companies like Cognizant Technology Solution, Macquarie Bank, Britannia Industries Limited, Reckitt Benckiser and InMobi.
Srinath Shankarnarayanan
Srinath Shankarnarayanan is the calm that every organisation needs. His ability to break down the everyday chaos into digestible smaller units is priceless. Srinath enjoys both math and aeroplane modeling! He is the brain behind the routing, pricing and personalization algorithm at Pickyourtrail. He holds a Bachelors in Mathematics and an MBA from NMIMS Bombay. His ability to talk across subjects right from Sitcoms, bikes, wartime books, plane building to complex algorithms make him a great person to hang out with!
Team PickyourTrail
Pickyourtrail – Startup Story | How was Pickyourtrail Started?
Pickyourtrail began as an attempt to break how vacations are currently been planned and booked by travelers. The seed to all this began in August 2012 when co-founders – Hari & Srinath went on a Europe trip.
Ardent travelers themselves, the duo had put in more than 2 months to fully craft their vacation. This included planning end-end, bookings, and visa processing. It was during their trip they stumbled upon fellow travelers who were all on packaged tours. Interacting with them, Hari & Srinath understood they were literally rushed between destinations and their urge to discover new experiences wasn’t fulfilled. The travelers, on the other hand, were amazed to see the flexibility Hari and Srinath had in their itinerary and that piqued their interest.
Once back home, the duo was bombarded with pings asking for details on how they went about planning the entire trip. These interactions slowly multiplied and this lead to an idea that changed their career roadmaps forever!
Pickyourtrail – Name, Tagline and Logo
Pickyourtrail was a name that embodied choice and travel.
“In fact we got early customers calling it Pickmytrail and luckily we got that domain as well :)” Hari says.
Initially, Pickyourtrail’s tagline was, Stop Touring, Start Travelling, this was easily relatable to the new age travelers who didn’t want to be tourists. That was also in sync with the company’s early goals of getting more folks to travel at their own pace and style. The company’s current tagline is ‘Unwrap the World’.
“As we matured and built a brand, we now have moved to Unwrap the World. We believe this helps us position the brand globally and has a lot more emotional layers than the earlier one” – Hari says explaining the thought behind the tagline
Pickyourtrail’s first logo was aimed around a play on infinite options that were possible if we traveled.
Pickyourtrail’s first logo
The current logo was re-built with the need that the old logo could not easily fit into various shapes and color backgrounds. Pickyourtrail wanted to move to a logo which could scale across collaterals and use cases. The new logo symbolizes a flag and P and a baggage tag as well. The ideation behind this was – a flag is generally used to symbolize a group of people united by a cause or value system.
Pickyourtrail’s current logo
Pickyourtrail – Launching Startup
Pickyourtrail was launched initially as an activity market place – the positioning was – “when was the last time you did something for the first time?” While there was a lot of traffic on the product, the traffic to conversion was quite low. Interacting with the customers, the team realized the biggest problem was no hook to book. With hotels and flights, pricing and availability were strong hooks. With an activity, there was no real hook. In this process, they realized that planning an end to end vacation was a huge hassle. This time around the team decided to just build a minimum viable product for end-to-end travel planning, and had a simple landing page. This got Pickyourtrail almost 10000 sign-ups in the first few weeks and there was no looking back!
Pickyourtrail’s initial landing page which attracted 10000+ signups within a few weeks
Looking at the great interest that people showed towards end to end travel planning, Pickyourtrail launched VEHO in 2016 –this was its first attempt at building a product where travelers can create, customize, and book vacations online.
“We were quite skeptical about market response and hence launched it under a new name VEHO. We scaled Bali on the back of VEHO and then brought it back under the mother brand in 2017” – said the Pickyourtrail founders.
Pickyourtrail – Revenue Model
Pickyourtrail earns revenue from affiliate commissions or partner commissions that come in from the partners with whom the bookings are done.
Pickyourtrail – Funding and Investors
Pickyourtrail raised series A funding worth $3 Million in February 2019. The company further raised an undisclosed sum on March 22, 2022, from a clutch of investors including CRED founder and CEO Kunal Shah, Adit Parekh, Vina Ahuja and other existing investors. The total amount raised by Pickyourtral is more than $3 mn.
Funding Date
Funding Stage
Funding Amount
Investors
March 22, 2022
Venture Round
Kunal Shah, Adit Parekh, Vina Ahuja and other existing investors
February 18, 2019
Series A
$3 Million
Kumar Vembu and Shyam Sekhar and j joined by Rajagopal Subramanian and Girish Mathrubootham
Pickyourtrail – User Acquisition
Pickyourtrail acquired its first set of customers from referrals and word of mouth. “When a product or service solves long-standing pain points of customers, it accrues good karma. I still remember how our first landing page (personalized vacations, crafted by travelers) was a huge hit! We got 1000 sign-ups within a week. Our emails kept buzzing. And we actually had to start charging folks to start sending itineraries cos there was so much demand”Hari recalls
Speaking about Pickyourtail’s approach to customers Hari says,“I think like most good products or services, there is always a latent demand and we seem to have hit that wall with our clear positioning. The challenge has been to continue the same amount of quality even as we scale. Every customer whom we brought on board was not a transaction but a longer LTV(Lifetime Value) view. That view has helped us build trust and build the ever-increasing repeat and referral cohort!”
Pickyourtrail also used social media extensively to reach out to customers
“The first step was to ensure that we had enough followers on the Facebook page. This was around 2013 and Facebook still let you bulk invite friends to like pages. We ensured that every single friend of ours helped us gain more followers by inviting folks”.Pickyourtrail concentrated on posting original travel content that was inspirational. This helped the company gain a lot of engagement on the page without having to actually spend.
In between, Pickyourtrail also dabbled some ideas in Twitter where it would automatically be alerted for any tweet with vacation/itinerary. The team would jump in and answer those questions and plug Pickyourtrail.
The next hack that worked for Pickyourtrail was sending interesting offers to its subscriber base. Over the first 6 months, the company managed to get up to 5000 email user base and that short tactical campaign helped them garner more monies.
Hari shared another interesting technique that the Pickyourtrail team employed to get customers on board “At one point we went into competitor Facebook pages and pulled out numbers of folks who were requesting for an itinerary and called them. You would be surprised that almost 8/10 folks were unhappy with the competitor cos nobody would have responded. So we tweaked our strategy a bit and started calling folks only after a couple of days :)”
The Pickyourtrail team also used groups in FB wisely.
Rather than promoting itself, the Pickyourtrail team used its travel knowledge to answer questions in those groups and at the same time spoke about Pickyourtrail.
Besides, answering on Quora also worked for the company. Pickyourtrail answered about everything under the sun with respect to outbound vacations which helped it attract more customers.
Currently, Pickyourtrail is actively running campaigns (paid/organic) to grow its customer base and deliver happiness.
If we had to reflect on the initial strategy – it was around building good content and distributing it. Be it FB, Twitter, Quora. And this when combined with some tactical strategies like Twitter lead alerts, or FB groups it worked quite well. Once we had a flow of customers our execution capabilities ensured that the cycle of repeat and referral kicked in as well.
Hiring and scaling the tech team was one of the main challenges Pickyourtrail faced early on. Another issue that existed was that many supply partners did not have an online presence, making things tough for the Pickyourtrail team.
As Hari explains, “Once the tech hiring happened, we realized that a lot of supply partnerships was still offline. This meant that customers still had to wait to get their customized quotes. We weren’t happy that the CX was poor because of industry constraints. For a large part of our supply, we took huge risks and had static pricing. While there could have been potential losses, thanks to our learning algorithms we could revisit these static prices periodically to ensure we minimize exposure. Our focus on “speed as a habit” has helped us come up with quite a few of these hacks and put customer experience at the forefront of all our efforts”
Pickyourtrail – Competitors
While Pickyourtrail claims that it has no competition in terms of tech or business model, from a customer’s point of view, competition comes right from Thomas Cook, Cox and Kings, MakeMyTrip to even self-bookers.
What differentiates the Pickyourtrail from its competitors is broadly two things: a) Itineraries that are executable – There are the host of tech companies trying to solve the trip planning problem. Given they don’t take responsibility for the end experience, the itinerary is not necessarily well thought out. At Pickyourtrail, thanks to the combination of routing, personalization and pricing algorithms – the company is able to own the entire end to end consumer experience and ensure that each and every itinerary is bookable!
b) Touch + Tech Model – A vacation is an emotional purchase and needs consultative selling given that the average ticket size is around 2.5lakhs. Pickyourtrail uses tech to manage critical components like routing, pricing, etc. Parts of the vacation that need high emotional quotient like choosing cities or visa, we bring in a human touch to ensure the overall experience is seamless. This unique approach has also helped Pickyourtrail win recognition from Google and BCG.
We are extremely cautious as we try and balance the scale and standardization game. We cannot ever put our customer happiness on the back burner. In fact, one of the key levers for our growth is unprecedented leaps in customer delight.
Pickyourtrail – Growth
● In 2018, Pickyourtrail’s revenue run rate stood at around $9.5 Million ● Number of travelers who picked their trail has grown by ~115% ( 2018-2019 data) ● Peak concurrent traveler stood at 100 people in a day ● Over 300,000 personalized itineraries was created in the first half of 2019 ● NPS score of 72 is a testimony of the unrelenting focus on customer happiness.
Pickyourtrail has been recognized for its efforts and services. Some rewards and recognition, that the startup has in its kitty are-
Awarded the ‘Startup of the Year’ at the Tiecon Awards in October 2018.
Won the ‘Most Innovative Travel Startup’ award at the Travel Tech Launchpad Summit organized by FICCI in March 2018.
The Google-BCG Travel Trends Report June 2017, called Pickyourtrail the benchmark in the industry for its comprehensive customer experience.
In October 2016, Pickyourtrail was recognized as the Aussie Specialist, mate!
In May 2016, Pickyourtrail got into the Top 10 travel innovators at the Phocuswright Asia-Pacific Travel Innovation Summit.
Pickyourtrail – Future Plans
For the next 2-3 years, the Pickyourtrail team will be broadly concentrating on
Acquiring more customers on the digital medium, and try and build its own digital acquisition channel.
Capturing the digital-first audience of tier 2 and tier 3 towns and become their first choice.
Beefing up the tech team and overall tech capabilities, to ensure that its product innovation efforts continue to be one of the best in the industry.
There is also a larger focus on taking the product global. End of the day there is a European going to the US or an Australian going to Bali and the product is suitable even for them, and the Pickyourtrail team wants to tap this huge global customer base.
“At our very heart, we want to create happiness and not sell packages. We aspire Pickyourtrail to be the go to platform for do it yourself vacations and unite like minded travelers” – Hari Ganapathy.
FAQs
What is the Pickyourtrail company?
Pickyourtrail is a platform founded in 2014, which enables the users to create, customise and book their vacations. The startup aims to remove all the pains associated with the planning of vacations for travelling enthusiasts and other individuals.
Who is the Pickyourtrail founder?
Hari Ganapathy, and Srinath Shankarnarayanan are the founders of Pickyourtrail.
What is the name of the Pickyourtrail CEO?
The Pickyourtrail CEO is not yet confirmed by the company but Pickyourtrail has many CEOs among its investors, including Girish Matrubootham, Kumar Vembu, Kunal Shah, Shyam Sekhar and others.
Where is the Pickyourtrail headquarters?
The Pickyourtrail headquarters are located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verifiedinformation ondifferent startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by ScoutMyTrip.
Road trips have a different charm altogether. Stopping by to click photos, trying local food on the way, and those endless chit-chats—what could be more endearing? The experience gets even better and hassle-free when there is proper guidance for making the most of one’s trip: what to see on the way, where to refuel, where the nearest viewpoint is, etc.
ScoutMyTrip, a Mumbai-based startup, is doing exactly this. The startup plans the nitty-gritty details of your road trip to make it a cherishable experience. Here’s all you need to know about ScoutMyTrip, its founders and team, startup story, business and revenue model, funding and investors, name, logo,, competitors, advisors, challenges, future plans, and more.
It is a road trip planner which conflates human intelligence with artificial intelligence to help plan the perfect road trip for individuals. ScoutMyTrip works for all sorts of outings, from short weekend travels to long excursions.
With artificial intelligence, customers can create an itinerary containing the information necessary for their road trip—gas stations, toilets, restaurants, hotels to stay in, and points of interest. The human intelligence aspect brings in the ability to personalize the information as per one’s needs.
ScoutMyTrip envisions making road trips the preferred means of vacation.
An industry first product has been introduced where a Scout (travel expert for the specific region) is virtually assisting the customer throughout the journey (before and during the trip). The Scouts give you the regional flavor and make one’s holiday joyous. We call this ‘Mark and Embark’! Our team is hard at work in building great tech and striving for customer delight each time.
ScoutMyTrip – Industry Details
As far as the market is concerned, the road-tripping industry is a subset of a much larger travel domain.
“Our total addressable market is pegged at $6.6B with 33 million leisure road trips in one calendar year. This is growing at a very fast rate and we expect it to double in 3 years time. Globally, this market stands at $100B which is really what we are after; but we want to establish ourselves well in the subcontinent which is why we have started operations in Nepal and Bhutan as well” says Vineet.
ScoutMyTrip – Founders And Team
Deepak Ananth and Vineet Rajan are the founders of ScoutMyTrip.
Deepak Ananth is the CEO and Co-founder of ScoutMyTrip. He is an Electronics graduate and had been in the corporate space for a really long time, his last assignment being with Verifone as a Director for South-East Asia. Ananth is also known as a storyteller, who loves to travel and sip on fine scotch and old monk. Ananth has a Royal Enfield 500cc bike, and his favorite trip is from Mumbai to Shillong and back.
Vineet Rajan
Vineet Rajan was the Co-founder and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of ScoutMyTrip. Vineet is a Computer Science graduate and has an MBA. Vineet has been involved with various startups throughout his career, and currently works as a Marketing Leader at SAP. After leaving ScoutMyTrip in April 2021 as an Advisor, Rajan joined Shop101 as the Head of Marketing Communications & Organic Growth. Vineet left the Co-founder position of the company in June 2020 and then remained an Advisor for the company before stepping down from that too.
Deepak and Vineet met each other during a road trip organized by a bikers’ club they were part of. They also held official positions in one of the most sought-after Royal Enfield groups. This gave them a chance to collaborate in non-professional capacities. Their thoughts resonated since both wanted to do something unique in the domain of road trips, thus deliberating over possible ideas in 2015.
In terms of workload, Deepak has been responsible for the overall strategy and public relations while Vineet looked into the marketing and sales segment. Soumen Bhowmick serves as the Head of Business Development.
Neeraj Sinha was the CTO and used to manage everything to do with tech. Neeraj Sinha worked at a prestigious company, with excellent remuneration and an experience worth mentioning, but he left all of it just because of his love for travelling, which was fulfilled when he joined ScoutMyTrip after working for around 14 years with the same organisation. Though his father was in the Railways, he had seen the real struggle, as per several interviews, where he stated that his father was left with hardly any money in the middle of the month. This was what drove him away from the government sector jobs, thereby placing him in the private sector. Neeraj started with some odd jobs like that of the EDP Operator but he eventually pursued an MCA degree from IGNOU, and then he never looked back. Sinha soon joined Sopra Steria, then known as Xansa, as a Software Engineer in 2002.
In 2015, we had started talking about putting our collective experience of road tripping so many kilometers into a tech product which can help other travelers. So a ‘road trip’ called ScoutMyTrip began! Building a work drives us – and that is the common area of interest for us. Our team sticks with us; because of the independence we give them in their working style. We measure results; and not the means.
ScoutMyTrip – Startup Story | How It Began?
Both Deepak and Vineet happen to be road trip aficionados. It was this love which inspired them to conceive ScoutMyTrip with a view to guide road-trippers on making the most out of leisurely travels.
We picked this idea because both of us love road trips. Having road tripped on the iconic Royal Enfield bikes in India with over 600,000 kilometers between us; we decided to build a solution that will help people road trip better. Because not everyone will have the knowledge of roads as we would do.
While maps have been the traditional go-to for navigational requirements, ScoutMyTrip is building a new category in road trip planning. The ideation process for ScoutMyTrip started back in late 2015.
ScoutMyTrip has been designed after taking suggestions from men and women consumed by wanderlust (not limited to bikers) and scouts to make the product more customer-centric. The product’s features are the results of the feedback from more than 500 fellow travelers and Scouts. The ScoutMyTrip team carried out a survey involving over 1000 people (including individuals not too inclined towards travelling) to cover every possible scenario. This is imperative given the dynamics of the decision-making process when it comes to travelling. The team also reached out to members of various travel clubs in India. The intimate discussions with these travel communities have been pivotal in onboarding travel experts for helping others.
Some of the first people we spoke to about ScoutMyTrip were all kicked. From investors, the biking community, travel forums and everyone around. We did, however, get a sense that we would have to establish ourselves very quickly; and hence we started seed funded the company in 2016.
Since the startup emphasized having seasoned travelers help plan trips, it wanted to have the essence of a ‘guide’ in its name. After much consideration, the name ScoutMyTrip was finalized for it captured this essence through ‘Scout’.
ScoutMyTrip Logo
The Logo shows an inverted magnifying glass and signifies a bird pecking when seen straight (birds usually symbolize freedom). The road in the center is symbolic of travelling. The three colors represent the brand’s values—community, safety and fun.
A lot of thought has gone into the logo. A good friend Kirtee understood our requirements and came up with that effective logo. We still sometimes joke about how much we troubled her for the logo but wherever we go, we get great feedback on the logo and that is always music to the ears of any founder.
ScoutMyTrip is a freemium product. Customer can sign up for free on the website and can plan their road trips using the planner for a lifetime. The planner allows the user to add 25-way points (Google allows you just 10) on their route. It suggests places to stay and eat, gas stations, and things to do—all under one platform.
Customers can choose to pay a premium in case they would like assistance with their planning. They are then assigned Scouts who help not just in building itineraries but also by providing virtual assistance throughout the trip.
ScoutMyTrip from the beginning has followed a very community-centric approach. Be it a community of travelers or that of Scouts. It’s always about the people with technology which revolves around it. Scouts are the key differentiator for us. We’re a marketplace of travel experts who curate the best on the road experiences.
ScoutMyTrip has partnered with travel experts and individuals from different parts of India. These skilled individuals know the local haunts, have adequate knowledge about different places to visit and are the best people to reach out to for a well-planned road trip. ScoutMyTrip has a reach all over India and also services Indian travelers visiting Nepal and Bhutan.
The company has scaled quite a few times – from being just another travel agency to doing marketing campaigns for travel brands and now fully focusing on helping people plan awesome road trips.
Itinerary Created by ScoutMyTrip
ScoutMyTrip – Revenue Model
ScoutMyTrip has a well-planned revenue model and earns revenue from the following sources:
Hiring a Scout: When a traveler contacts an expert (Scout), ScoutMyTrip earns a percentage of the planning fee. The rates vary from Rs. 2000 to Rs. 9000 and can go up to Rs. 50,000 for custom trips and itineraries.
Platform integrations: The planner can be integrated with other travel websites for a wholesome user experience.
Corporate tie-ups and group tours: ScoutMyTrip has been successfully doing this for more than a year now and has organized over 500 group road trips for individuals and corporate houses.
Road trip packages: Once the trips are planned, the ScoutMyTrip Experience team bundles the following as part of the package:
ScoutMyTrip raised seed funding from Z Nation Lab in April 2017.
Funding Date
Funding Stage
Funding Amount
Investors
April 2017
Angel Round
Undisclosed
Z Nation Lab
ScoutMyTrip – User Acquisition
ScoutMyTrip was launched for insider access or closed beta in October 2016. It got its first 5000 signups in one month and there has been no looking back ever since. ScoutMyTrip had incidentally launched its blog much before the website came into existence. This allowed the company to build communication with its target customers. Through its blogs, the team was able to expound the vision for its product to an eagerly awaiting consumer base.
Content marketing has been a driver for ScoutMyTrip. The company has approximately 90 % of its users coming through social media platforms powered by influencers already a part of the ScoutMyTrip community. Word of mouth publicity also has been a good contributor for ScoutMyTrip with around 10% of user acquisition from this stream.
The majority of spending by ScoutMyTrip in the marketing space are on Facebook and Instagram advertising. A lot more time is vested on SEO and building great content which markets itself.
ScoutMyTrip takes pride in being a content-driven brand and has taken ownership of three intellectual properties to keep in touch with its focus group—the travel enthusiasts.
The Great Indian Food Trip: The Great Indian Food Trip is an exploratory drive-by ScoutMyTrip through the hinterlands of India for rediscovering some of the most iconic and largely lost gems of Indian cuisine.
The Highest Blogger Meet: The idea here is to take influential bloggers from different walks of life to the highest motorable roads in the world. On those roads, ScoutMyTrip hosts a blogger meet, setting a record in terms of altitude each time. The last successful attempt was at Khardung La in partnership with OYO Rooms.
#AageSeRight: A viral sensation on Instagram that is common amongst road trippers. AageSeRight is a Hindi phrase used as a response when asking for directions; ScoutMyTrip was able to create a medium of brand recall through this hashtag.
Deepak and Vineet had the most modest upbringing, belonging to middle-class Indian families. Deepak had been working in corporate roles (at senior positions in reputed companies) for over 20 years before ScoutMyTrip. Vineet had an entrepreneurial mindset throughout his career but his only brush was by being a member of an established startup. As a result, launching a startup was no less than a challenge due to lack of prior experience as told by Vineet.
Whether such a platform would find a place and apprehensions about them treading the right path plagued the founders in the initial phase.
Our families were very supportive. Parents who heard us out asked the right questions and then wholeheartedly supported us, spouses who stood by us, ready to fight the same battles along with us, helped to make our minds up, much easier.
ScoutMyTrip – Competitors
As Vineet says, the biggest competitors are the airlines and railways, which make up for over 80% of all travel spends in India. Google Maps is a formidable opponent given its reach and popularity when it comes to navigation.
Globally, ScoutMyTrip faces resistance from Road Trippers and Furkot, which are slowly building their presence in India. Desi competitors include Easy Roads and Highway Delite. However, the highly experienced Scouts associated with ScoutMyTrip are its USP and the major differentiator from its competitors.
We are different in terms of us being a very community driven space where our Scouts are the USP to ScoutMyTrip. We encourage road trips for everyone and plan it keeping in mind the likes of our customers.
ScoutMyTrip – Advisors And Mentors
ScoutMyTrip’s investor, Z Nation Labs, is also its primary mentor.
We get great support, industry connects and advice from the leadership team of Z Nation labs which includes Amit Jain, Anup Mehta and Neha Jain.
After being incubated by NASSCOM’s 10,000 Startups initiative and the Maharashtra State Innovation Society, ScoutMyTrip is getting regular support from its team as well.
ScoutMyTrip – Awards
ScoutMyTrip has had its fair share of recognition including the recent incubation by NASSCOM’s 10,000 startups initiative. The honors bestowed on ScoutMyTrip in 2019 are:
April 2019 – Selected as one of the Top Startups by NASSCOM as part of the 10,000 Startups Program.
March 2019 – Recognized by Startup India / DIPP.
February 2019 –Winners of the Maharashtra Startup Week by the Govt. of Maharashtra.
January 2019 – Entrepreneur India listed ScoutMyTrip as the top 50 startups to watch out for in 2019.
July 2019 – ScoutMyTrip won the Conquest 2019 startup challenge by BITS Pilani which opened new doors in terms of partnerships and investor connections.
August 2019 – ScoutMyTrip was invited by DIGITARAYA x tiket.com accelerator programme for expansion into SE Asia.
ScoutMyTrip Founders Receiving Award at Maharashtra Startup Week
Earlier Awards include being chosen as one of the top 20 travel tech startups by FICCI in 2017, Top 10 startups in India (Silicon India), and many more.
ScoutMyTrip – Future Plans
ScoutMyTrip has received a positive response from the traveler community; it has partnered with reputed brands to maintain the flow. Over the last two years, ScoutMyTrip has been aggressively improving its Scout and agent network to service the ever-increasing customer requirements. The company’s business partners include Treebo Hotels, OYO, Agoda, Booking.com, MyChoize self-drive cars, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Honda Cars India to name a few.
Over the next 1-2 years, ScoutMytrip is looking at consolidating the Indian market where there is a churn in the making as observed by its team.
For its long-term vision, ScoutMyTrip aspires to be present in every aspect of a road trip. The ScoutMyTrip team has christened this plan as ‘Dashboard to Dhabha’, where the idea is to integrate ScoutMyTrip into cars to make it easier for car owners to conceive a journey. This comprises showing recommendations of other roadtrippers, real and live assistance from Scouts all over the country, detours to explore the countryside, and other provisions. This shall enable ScoutMyTrip to create an extensive database which would then be used to provide up to date, real-time information in assisting holidaymakers.
After spending a week in Indonesia understanding the travel and tourism industry, the co-founders are considering expansion into a new market next year. They are in discussions with partners to venture into the SE Asian markets and provide a full suite of services not limited to hotels, flights, and last mile connectivity for trips.
It is hard to navigate through the maze and there is a long way before we as a country make it simpler for startups. And advice is not easy to come by, we had to learn a lot of it ourselves- Vineet Raja
Deepak Ananth and Vineet Rajan were the founders of ScoutMyTrip. Rajan left the company in 2021.
What is ScoutMyTrip?
It is an Indias trip planner, which conflates human intelligence with artificial intelligence to help plan the perfect road trip for individuals. ScoutMyTrip works for all sorts of outings, from short weekend travels to long excursions.
What is ScoutMyTrip Business Model?
ScoutMyTrip is a freemium product. Here, the customers can sign up for free on the website and can plan their road trips using the planner for a lifetime. The planner allows the user to add 25-way points (Google allows you just 10) on their route. It suggests places to stay and eat, gas stations, and things to do—all under one platform.
Automation and its effects on jobs will wipe out millions of job opportunities, and it is now creating hype among the generation. A threat of losing careers. Is this a real threat? If the answer is yes, then why it is introducing between us? No doubt, AI and automation promote programming, coding, content writing, website designer, data scientist, data analytics, and millions of job opportunities that were not there before the initiation of AI and automation.
Millions of jobs will lose their existence after the improvement in automation and AI.
In malls, supermarkets, and movie halls, cashiers are very commonly spotted. If we closely consider this job post, then no doubt this will no longer exist. The technology has already developed, in which a shop is running without a cashier.
Amazon has launched a retail store named ‘Amazon Go’. The whole store is automated. In which the customer needs to show ‘custom code’ before entering the store. Once you get access, you can buy anything from the store. The moment you step out of the store, the purchase amount will automatically be deducted from your bank account. Customers hate waiting; to make the process faster and to increase sales, companies around the world can implement this AI and sensor-based technique.
Telemarketers
This is a job in which telemarketers call costumes and explain their products to generate sales. You will hardly buy any product from a call. Companies stop investing in telemarketing.
The job post will be entirely replaced by digital marketing and social media. The automated algorithm introspects your product needs, and accordingly, products will be displayed to you. Amazon, Flipkart, Facebook, and Google, like big names, are already using this algorithm. You might have noticed that if you search for a laptop on Amazon, you will see the ads of laptops everywhere on Google or YouTube. This grand technology replaced telemarketers.
Drivers
Self-driving cars, AI driving technology have already arrived. Keeping road safety in mind, companies are now planning to launch an auto-drive system. This will reduce driver negligence, and traffic rules will be followed.
The Tesla company of Elon Musk has already launched self-driving cars. Still, technology needs more advancement. But road accidents are one of the biggest causes of death case producers. Considering this, a complete auto-driving system is not so far. Many companies will also benefit from automation. Mainly the taxi agencies will no longer use drivers; a one-time investment in cars will be enough.
Travel agents help you to find your best travel or trip plans and book tickets for you. Do you remember when you last consulted with a travel agent for your trip Maybe you don’t remember, but still, some travel agents are there? These jobs will be replaced entirely. Software and websites like MakeMyTrip, IRCTC is handling your travel plans. You can decide the travel location, book tickets and at more discounts.
The course of the middle man has vanished. Travel Agents are also charged separately for their booking. At an affordable price, you can book your travel plans. This is the reason this job post will vanish within a year by 2022.
Banking Jobs
Past was the time; even to check your bank account balance, you needed to visit the bank. Now the bank is ultimately shifting towards online mode. Banking is very complex management, and everything needs correct prosecution. Along with this, the bank is always crowded with people.
To make the work smoother, banks are now adopting online mode. A bank teller specifically receives money, gives, and the transaction process is mainly done by online mode. It is still there, but it will vanish soon. Banks are now using their apps and websites to control everything. As the world is stepping towards a cashless economy, it will happen for sure.
The banking sector came up with blockchain technology in which transaction records errors have no chance of occurring. Blockchain technology is now coming into the limelight; by 2022, it may enter most banking sectors.
Librarian
Again technology is the king here. AI and software can handle and analyze massive databases. Not only is the process quick but also efficient too. The work of a librarian can be handled by AI easily. Remembering the data of books, managing them, and providing them according to their needs, can be done efficiently by AI. Some libraries are now switched to AI control. Even the whole library is available in online mode.
The popularity of ebooks is the crucial game-changer here. The arrival of the Amazon Kindle made the real difference. It not only provides the required books we can even manage and carry them all with us. The role of a librarian is now fading away.
Almost all content writers, editors & proofreaders are aware of Grammarly. With every day passing by, apps and software such as Grammarly are improving their features better. From basic grammatical errors to tonality changes, these AI-driven apps and software have gained the potential to improve every piece of writing. They can detect the simplest of errors and remove them in few minutes. Thus, the editors & proofreaders no longer need to spend hours proofreading content. Thus, their jobs are also at stake.
Doctors
With robotic doctors crawling in the medical field, the chances of accuracy increase significantly. With accuracy in treatments, the risks of infections due to human interference also decreases. Today, we have apps and virtual assistants to assist us in basic health care needs. But, the day when robot doctors would be curing us is no far.
Receptionists
With auto check-ins paving their paths in hotels and communication screens becoming the new medium of placing orders at restaurants, receptionists & waiters will be in less demand. The advancement in AI can skillfully manage orders and all the other functions.
Customer Service Executive
This job of a customer service executive doesn’t require either a higher level of social or emotional intelligence for performing the assigned task. Mostly customer support questions or FAQs are used as a response by most of the companies to look over its overall performance.
And in today’s world, Chatbots are taking over such responses from customer support as testimonials to be used. These chatbots are helping a lot in gett queries done and accomplish interaction with customers.
Conclusion
Jobs in this list will increase gradually with the advancement of AI and software algorithms. Although the motive of advancement is to increase productivity and efficiency in the process, this advancement is also damaging the livelihood of millions of employees.
With the increase in population, it is a very alarming situation of creating employment. Apart from all these, some jobs are there which will remain safe from the involvement of AI. But over-involvement in anything can lead to destruction. The government bodies should think about the employment sector and build an AI to search for the maximum job possibilities out of something.
FAQs
What jobs will become automated?
Jobs that will be automated in future are:
Cashier
Telemarketers
Drivers
Travel Agents
Banking Jobs
Librarian
Editors & Proofreaders
Doctors
Receptionists
Customer Service Executive
How many jobs could be automated?
It is estimated that automation will replace about 85 million jobs by 2025.
Covid-19 has completely disrupted the Travel and Tourism Industry at both the national and international levels. With the worldwide lockdown and the heavy travel restrictions, the industry has lost not only domestic and international tourists but also local visitors. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), International tourism has witnessed a loss of $1.3 trillion in 2020 while the Indian tourism industry saw a revenue loss of ₹1.25 trillion, as per the CARE Rating study.
The pandemic has impacted all divisions of the tourism industry such as inbound, outbound, corporate, MICE, adventure, and leisure and will continue to underperform for the next two quarters. Tourism will account for 9.9% of the country’s GDP by the end of this decade with the help of Government initiatives.
The losses to the Indian Tourism Industry in 2020 have been huge but 2021 shows the revival of travel with the rise in vaccination. Significant changes were observed in traveling like more emphasis given to safety, cleanliness, and hygiene. The states that are getting the maximum tourists are Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Goa, and Kerala.
Ever since the Covid-19 Pandemic had arrived, the tourism industry started evolving and changing ways in order to suit the needs of travelers. With the reduction in Covid cases in India, theCentral and State Governments of the respective states have issued many standards and basic operating procedures in order to resume services. Major protocols are being taken as the security scan at the entrances of various locations like hotels and airlines involving thermal screening and sanitization and the staff is even extra cautious than before.
The Post-Covid Scenario of Tourism Industry
Many countries around the world are catching up with innovative solutions and activities to boost their country’s travel industry. Some of them include safe travel bubbles, SG Clean, Qatar Clean initiatives. Many travel agencies are now providing incentives, offers, and discounts to get people to travel. Understanding the solutions and practices being followed in different countries will help India in implementing the right strategies for the survival and revival of its tourism industry.
Many services have turned contactless and are following all major protocols of safety and social distancing. Simpler activities like live cooking, disposable cutlery, online food delivery services, and digital menus aids in the growth of the industry. The hotel, restaurants and resorts are following strict SOPs for Covid-19 to create a protective environment. The government is also providing relaxation against free loans, provident fund relief, and GST.
The relaxation in the lockdown along with the gradual lifting of travel restrictions shows constant opening and closing of travel make tourists feel uncomfortable to travel internationally. But 2021 saw an increase in domestic tourism, while foreign tourism is expected to remain low until the situation improves. One of the main reasons for the future boom in the domestic sector is that travelers in 2021 prefer to explore their own country and go on short weekend trips.
Here’s a look at the most affected sectors of tourism due to pandemic
Hence, increases the sightseeing of remote destinations and helps the locals to get their livelihood back. This, in turn, boosts the local economy, creates more jobs, and helps the hotels and restaurants of the region, promotes local art handicrafts and culture. With more importance given to safety and social distancing, tourists think that it is safer to travel shorter distances than compared to the longer ones. This is why many people are opting for short road trips to unknown destinations with less crowd.
The domestic vacation is now on top of the traveler’s bucket list for 2021. Just the first week of January 2021 saw 70% of users booking for future domestic trips on Tripadvisor. In the US, over 74% of travelers preferred to go on an overnight domestic leisure trip in 2021, and over 34% are planning domestic trips, which is quite high as compared to other countries like Australia (31%) and UK (24%).
So let’s take a look at the 2021 travel industry’s trends that are likely to show up in the future.
Travel Industry Trends in 2021
Workation Trips to Increase
Work plus vacation or business plus travel is not a new concept that has arrived in 2021. But the business travelers are said to be rising in 2021 because many companies are opting to work from anywhere culture. This is why they have come up with brilliant travel plans that will help employees work along with leisure. Employees also have the option to bring their family members. The concept of business travel is getting popular as people have started to realize that all people need is electricity and a good internet connection to work.
Work plus vacation has become a latest trend now
Road Trips are the New Trend
With many restrictions and travel bans, people have started opting for short road trips. Many tourists have started avoiding public transport like buses, trains or even airlines. Instead, they plan to go on road trips in their own vehicles or rent a car, as it is a safer option. Road trips are popular among tourists of all age groups and families. In addition to that, it reduces the travel expenses and vast options of destination to choose from.
Road Trips, a budget-friendly option for travelers to travel around the city
Promotion of Sustainable/Eco-Friendly Tourism
The pandemic has made people realize the importance of implementing sustainable ways of traveling. The tourist now is looking out for eco-tourism to get in touch with nature. In 2021, tourist focuses on responsible travel to remote locations or natural areas in order to experience the local culture and contribute towards the sustainable growth of environment. Tourists have become more conscious nowadays and are accepting more eco-friendly methods to reduce their carbon footprint.
Sustainable Tourism has become traveler’s best choice for embracing the nature
Travelers are keen on researching more before making any travel plans. With Covid-19, it’s no surprise that people are more conscious to travel. According to a survey, more than 74% of the global tourist population say that they will spend more time researching everything about their destination. People are spending more time in reading reviews or checking for better accommodations before planning any itinerary.
Post-vaccinations Impact on Travel
With the rise in vaccination drive, the travel industry has started blooming. People have started planning their trips as they’re excited to finally be able to travel carefree. The new travel protocols, however, will include compliances for travelers including Immunity passports for tourists to provide proof that the tourists are vaccinated for the virus. More than 77% of global travelers likely to agree to travel internationally only after getting vaccinated.
Why Travelling Will Never Be The Same
Solo Travel is the Way
Solo travel or even backpacking has grown exponentially with the pandemic. Co-living is also another new trend related to solo traveling. It is when solo travelers are looking to save money and time by getting out of their comfort zone and meeting other solo travelers while traveling. Solo travelers involves themselves in activities that includes social distancing.
Solo Travel has become a new travel industry trend
Safety and Cleanliness are the Priority
Safety and cleanliness have become priority for travelers across the globe since Covid. And the travel industry is already implementing major guidelines and protocols including PCR tests on arrival, mandatory masks, sanitation, and frequent cleaning in different sectors like hotels, airports, restaurants, etc. to provide a safe environment.
Many experts in the field have given their recommendations on how to get the industry back on track. Some of them include:
Airlines, hotels, restaurants, and other tourist operators can adopt greener and eco-friendly solutions in order to increase their business while being sustainable.
The industry must encourage renewable energy and green project to help the environment.
The government must try helping the industry with interest-free loans for up to 5 years which makes it sustainable.
Implement compulsory masks everywhere and basic social distancing laws and regulations.
Promote lesser-known tourist destinations of India.
Make it easier for the tourist sectors to get licenses, permits, and renewal.
Reduction of GST rates in the travel and hospitality sector.
FAQs on Travel & Tourism Industry
What are the top travel industry trends in 2021?
The top travel industry trends in 2021 are:
Workation Trips to Increase
Road Trips are the New Trend
Promotion of Sustainable/Eco-Friendly Tourism
Research Before Travel
Post-vaccinations Impact on Travel
Solo Travel is the Way
Safety and Cleanliness are the Priority
Which one sector is going to see a rise in tourism in 2021?
2020 has completely disrupted the travel industry but 2021 is showing the revival of travel. The tourism sector will be very different than what it was before. The domestic sector is witnessing a surge as people are avoiding foreign travel and the situation is going to remain the same till the pandemic is over.
What are the SOPs followed by the tourism industry in India?
The SOPs followed by the tourism industry in India are security scans at the entrances of various locations like hotels and airlines involving thermal screening, wearing masks, sanitization, and social distancing.
What is the fastest-growing trend in the travel industry?
Eco-friendly/Sustainable tourism is one of the fastest-growing trends in the travel industry.
Is the travel industry growing?
The travel industry will slowly and gradually see a surge in the traveler once the pandemic is over. Currently, domestic tourism is growing at a slower pace. The reason being, people are feeling bored to remain at one place and therefore planning short trips.
“It will be much more about responsible travel now. We are going to value our freedom a lot more” – Deep Kalra, Founder of MakeMyTrip on impact of Covid on travel industry
The travel and tourism industry is one of the largest industries in India, it’s a major driver of economic growth globally. India’s tourism industry is experiencing a good period of growth, driven by the flourishing Indian middle class, growth in high spending foreign tourists and coordinated government campaigns to promote ‘Incredible India’. But Due to restrictions linked to Covid-19, the number of foreign tourist in India during 2021 decreased to 1.52 million compared to 2.74 million in 2020, dropping by 44.5%, though foreign exchange earnings grew during the same period, as per the India Tourism Statistics 2022 report. In 2019, India saw 10.93 million foreign tourist arrivals, which dropped by 75% in 2020.
In 2021, the travel and tourism industry in India contributed around 178 billion U.S. dollars to the country’s GDP. Just a few days ago the Indian government has said that the country’s tourism sector will recover to the pre-pandemic level by mid-2024 , they also said that by 2030, the tourism sector will contribute $250 billion to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).According to the recent India Travel Market Report by Phocuswright, the total Indian travel market stood at US$19.1 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $40.4 billion in 2025, with online penetration reaching 58% in 2025.
The booming IT and outsourcing industry has led to a growing number of business trips made by foreigners to India. After Covid, along with work from home, a new trend has come, i.e., workcation for which travel companies are coming up with very good offers and packages. These plans comprise elegant and peaceful places to work with sightseeing and event sports in the evening. These packages are varied and diverse.
From choosing destinations to connecting with locals and customizing the holiday, the travel startup business in India is looking to add a new dimension to the ever-evolving traveling story.
Here is the list of successful tour and travel startups.
Best Travel and Tourism Startup in India – MakeMyTrip
MakeMyTrip is one of the oldest travel startup in India . The inspiration for this startup came to Kalra when he was booking a holiday to Thailand. He realized that the internet could offer more competitive prices by cutting out the middleman. MakeMyTrip’s mission is to provide customers a one-stop-shop for all their travel needs by providing online travel services that include flight tickets, domestic and international holiday packages, hotel reservations, rail and bus tickets.
ClearTrip
Founders
Stuart Crighton; Matthew Spacie; Hrush Bhatt
Founded In
2016
Headquarters
Mumbai
Top Travel Startup – Cleartrip
Cleartrip, headquartered in Mumbai, was founded by Stuart Crighton, Hrush Bhatt in the year 2005. The company operates an online travel aggregator website for booking flights and train tickets, hotel reservations, and activities in India and the Middle East countries. Cleartrip is one of the few business travel startups in India. It has offices across India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Cleartrip is another travel tech company in India, started its services to the Persian Gulf nations of Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt. On June 21, 2018, Cleartrip announced the acquisition of Saudi Arabia-based online travel aggregator (OTA) Flyin.
Clear trip also operates –
Cleartrip for Business, an online corporate travel management tool. It is a business travel solution for companies
Agent Box, a travel tool for travel agents.
Cleartrip Mobile, a travel booking app for consumers.
Expressway, to let users store traveller profile and payment details securely to make one-click bookings.
Flexifly, a solution that enables flyers to change their travel date and time and switch flights between airlines without any hefty penalties.
Within few years goibibo became a big payer in travel industry. Goibibo acquired redBus in 2013 to enhance its product offering. The 2016 merger of MMT and Goibibo gave MMT depth of content and an access to a bigger consumer base. It’s core value differentiator is the most trusted user experience, be it in terms of quickest search and booking, fastest payments, settlement or refund processes. Along with the usual services travel startups provide, Goibibobecame the no 1 travel startup to introduce real travel booking currency named as Go Cash which can be used without any restrictions or limits of use.
In small towns, this start up company has built up good trust and about 48% of new users are associated with tier 2 and tier 3 cities, it has seen a 65% increase in transacting users since January this year and that it has been ‘successful’ in consolidating its position as the ‘second largest’ OTA brand in the country.
It is the largest hospitality startup from the list of top hospitality startups in India comprising budget hotels. It is usually one of the first names that pop up in people’s minds when they think of cost efficient hotel bookings in India. The startup works in liaison with existing hotels and offers travellers vacant rooms at a cheaper price. OYO Rooms start at a nominal price of Rs. 999. Besides bulk renting hotels, they have also invested in their own properties as well. Click here to know how exactly OYO Rooms work.
The users can also opt for OYO Premium which provides a more-than-basic experience. OYO Rooms are located in the prime areas of the city and therefore they ensure travellers of having the best experience, it is also close to the best sight-seeing destinations and various dining options. The startup also raised an investment of $90 million from Softbank earlier in 2016. In 2019, OYO raised $1.5 Billion in Series F funding led by SoftBank Group, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Sequoia India.
Travel and Tourism Startup in India – Pickyourtrail
Hari Ganapathy and Srinath Shankar got the idea of the startup after their experience from a self-planned trip to Europe in 2012. This platform uses deep tech to let travellers create, customize and book international vacations. Pickyourtrail considers more than 40 factors like duration, travel time, ratings, etc to build personalized itineraries that travellers can further customize & book.
After the trip is booked, travellers can use Pickyourtrail’s app to keep track of bookings and get real-time information on flight and weather updates, restaurant recommendations, and on-trip chat support.
Their goal is to perform best in the tour and travel business when it comes to international trips.
Best Travel and Tourism Startup in India – SCOUT MY TRIP
ScoutMyTrip is a road trip planner ,It works for all sorts of outings, from short weekend travels to long excursions.
The motive that the duo has been able to solve through their startup is to collate information that is currently very diversified. Basically it is an information portal that makes travel easy and accessible for anyone. The company plans to connect travellers with people who want to travel on any particular vehicle. It will also facilitate customised tour packages.
With artificial intelligence, customers can create an itinerary containing the information necessary for their road trip—gas stations, toilets, restaurants, hotels to stay, and points of interest. The human intelligence aspect brings in the ability to personalize information as per one’s needs.
The corporate outdoor and experiential learning model adopted by Thrillophilia in its early days, has proven to be of great significance since it was fairly new concept in India.
Thrillophilia provides you with handpicked adventure travel options. It is best suited for travellers seeking an off-the-beaten-track package for sightseeing, sports, and adventurous activities like water rafting, snorkelling, bungee jumping, and skydiving. The travellers can also curate the best tours and authentic suppliers.
Travel Triangle operates their services with a versatile team of 450+ people. Travel Triangle is operating as an online marketplace model bringing both travellers and trusted & expert travel agents on a common platform. Travel Triangle is a SaaS-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform to help them manage and analyse customer interactions and data.
goMowgli
Founders
Anil Alur and Sunil Abhilash
Founded In
2013
Headquarters
Mysuru, Karnataka
Top travel and tourism Startup – goMowgli
goMowgli is a travel startup that had its name inspired by the fictional character we all loved growing up –Mowgli from Jungle Book. It has a fleet of buses across different states (using the concept of “hop-off buses”) and the travellers can buy a pass for a fixed number of days – a week or two. It is suitable for solo travellers and backpackers who want to travel without a fixed plan or do not want to get in trouble of booking cabs while traveling the city.
goMowgli claims to be India’s first flexible bus network for travellers. Flexible bus network mean is you can catch the bus anytime you want from any place in their network, and get off anytime, at any place.
goMowgli will tell you the exact location of the nearest bus when you switch on the GPS feature on your smartphone. The app is growing in popularity very fast. At present, their revenue generation is basically based on the passes they sell (Rs. 1700/day) . And their marketing is mainly based on social media and word of mouth.
Tripoto is a Delhi-based startup founded by Anirudh Gupta and Michael Lyngdoh and one of the best travel startups in India. It allows users to create itineraries for their future trips that they can also share with other travelers.They can share their travel experiences, related content and pictures, itineraries, maps, stories, and reviews.
The startup has one of the largest communities of travellers in the world where people get a chance to share their travel experiences, discover unique trips and travel itineraries by other travelers and connect with them around the world through the website. Tripoto’s aim is to become the largest source of crowd-sourced travel content platforms in the world by enabling users to share their credible travel information.
ExTravelMoney
Founder
George Zachariah
Founded In
2015
Headquarters
Kochi, Kerala
Travel Startup in India – ExTravel Money
ExTravelMoney is an online aggregator and marketplace for forex services that bring the hyperlocal eCommerce model to foreign exchange business and is helping users save money on currency exchange and money transfer from and to abroad. Users can use this platform to search for banks and money changers near them who offer these forex services. They can also compare the exchange rates and total cost of a forex service including the services fees, tax charges, even the rating of each forex store they are searching for.
The users can therefore make an informed decision based on this knowledge and book the cheapest and the best forex services near them directly from their app ExTravelMoney. If you are traveling in a foreign country, foreign exchange is an important component to plan. It isn’t easy to purchase forex due to the time and the hassle it takes in finding the best exchange rates. The website provides travelers with forex dealers across the country to bring them the best available exchange rate in the market and all they need to do is log in to their website, state their forex requirement, and then it connects you to the nearest forex dealer.
Nearify is an app founded by Mayank Kumar, Saurav Singh and Vivek Srivastava in 2012 that provides users with updated information on events that are happening around them. Like information on the city, major tourist attractions, and fairs & festivals happening in the area. All the user needs to do is to key in the name of the city to find listings of meet-ups, workshops, music concerts, and cultural hangout places in their close proximity.
It is best suited for travelers who want to know what’s happening in other locations of the place they are traveling to and wish to plan their itinerary and also don’t want to miss out on the social events happening in nearby cities or locations.
TripHobo
Founders
Praveen Kumar, Saket Newaskar, and Karthik Ramachandra
Founded In
2012
Headquarters
Pune, Maharashtra
Travel Planning Startup – TripHobo
TripHobo is a Pune-based travel startup that has an innovative new travel platform where the collective effort of their dedicated team of travel enthusiasts. They are trying to transform its user’s travel experience by making travel more sharable and personally tailored. The platform lets you connect with travel buddies around the world and hence makes your experience even richer and memorable.
TripHobo is a vacation planning website that is also the world’s leading vacation planning platform on which you can plan trips to about 150,000 destinations worldwide. It lets users discover great itineraries created by travellers just like them.
iTraveller
Founders
Shiju Radhakrishnan and Sanjay Kumar
Founded In
2011
Headquarters
Banglore
Top Travel Startups – iTraveller
It’s an online travel platform for travellers to explore travel destinations, plan and book their trips in advance. It allows users to dynamically create self-serviced customized travel packages after receiving inquiries from clients.
The users can also compare reviews and plan their activities and sightseeing for their trips, it also involves native wholesale suppliers who are responsible for the operational aspects of the business of your trip that includes ground handling and fulfillment. iTraveller has created more than 2 lakh trips featuring over 20 travel destinations across the globe and more than 60 native wholesale suppliers from across these destinations. The brand of iTraveller is now changed to Lastminute.
SeekSherpa
Founders
Sukhmani Singh and Dhruv Raj Gupta
Founded In
2014
Headquarters
Delhi
Top Travel and Tourism Startup in India – Seek Sherpa
The mobile marketplace connects travellers with the local people in the city you are traveling to. These people are called “Sherpas” and are chosen after a thorough background check and verified authenticity. They offer numerous itineraries, popularly known as “micro tours”, from sightseeing, photography tours, and heritage walks and food walks to explore a location from the eyes of a local guide – Sherpa.
Sherpas can be from any profession and list experiences that will cost you less than Rs. 3,000 per participant. This is a unique feature that SeekSherpa offers, it helps you in traveling better by interacting with the residents of the place you are seeking to explore. This way, your trip is better, well experienced, and more memorable.
SOTC
Founder
Mr. Vishal Suri (Managing Director)
Founded In
1949
Headquarters
Mumbai, India
Top travel and Tourism Startup in India – SOTC
SOTC India is a leading travel and tourism company active across various travel segments including Leisure Travel, Incentive Travel and Business Travel. It is one of the leaders in segments, namely Escorted Group Tours, Customized Holidays, and Incentive Travel amongst others. SOTC offers customized holidays around the world, Corporate Tours and provides packages for MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events) related travel needs.
Conclusion
Travelling is one of the most exciting and important parts of our life. It teaches us a lot. These startups in the tourism industry in India are helping us to make our journey better, safer, and easier. If we have missed out on any travel startup in India, do let us know in the comments.
FAQs on Travel Startups in India
How to start a travel business in India or how to start a travel company in India?
Best tips to start a travel business in India or a travel company in India:
Step 1: Prepare a plan for your travel business.
Step 2: Brand your travel business along with dealing in legal formalities.
Step 3: Manage your funding strategy.
Step 4: Pick a great location and hire employees.
How to start an online travel agency in India?
The list of requirements to start an online travel agency in India:
Make a thorough research on your competitors and the market.
Find your own niche in the travel industry.
Build your team.
Take a call on a travel website or a travel software, or both.
Ria Sahni
