Tag: travel startups

OYO Marketing Strategy: How Is OYO Positioning Itself to Dominate the Market
OYO Rooms, also known as OYO Hotels & Homes is the third-largest hospitality chain by room count providing a comfortable room stay and ensuring the acceptability of the services by the OYO’s customers in more than 80 nations. Incorporated in 2013 by Ritesh Agarwal (one of the youngest Indian entrepreneurs, the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms) it has established itself as the fastest-growing network of hotels offline and online.

Headquartered in Gurgaon, it has expanded its reach worldwide within the span of 10 years and has employed over 17,000 employees globally. However, this is not the only reason why OYO has recorded such a huge success. Its excellent marketing strategy shows that it continues to be a leading hotel chain.

Oravel to OYO Rooms
Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning of OYO
Marketing Mix of OYO Rooms
Traditional Marketing Strategy of OYO
OYO Digital Marketing Strategies

Ritesh Agarwal started his journey at the age of 17 and is considered to be one of the youngest CEOs in India. In 2011, Ritesh moved to Delhi with the intention of starting his own business. Soon, he started traveling extensively across India and stayed in PGs or budget hotels. These unpleasant traveling and stay experiences led him to launch Oravel Stays in 2012.

Ritesh has been one of the judges in Shark Tank India since Season 3.

Ritesh Agarwal – Founder & CEO, OYO Rooms

Oravel to OYO Rooms

Oravel Stays Pvt.Ltd was Ritesh’s first startup. Oravel was designed to enable the listing and booking of budget and premium accommodations.

It was meant to be a destination for short and midterm rentals for bed and breakfast joints, private rooms, and serviced apartments.

Oravel was then transformed into OYO Rooms in 2013 when Agrawal realized that a combination of bed and dinner was not sufficient. He proposed to make it an affordable and standardized accommodation.

OYO rooms are India’s largest branded network of budget hotel chains. It currently operates across 400 Indian cities including major metros, regional hubs, leisure destinations, and pilgrimage towns, and was valued at $9.6 billion in 2022.

They offer the hotels to their clients and retain a proportion of the profits.

OYO Rooms is a budget hotel aggregator in India. In order to standardize different measures in each room, OYO Rooms partners up with hotels, including free wifi and breakfast, flat-screen televisions, spotless white bed linens, toiletries with a brand name, 6-inch showerheads, drinking cups, etc.

OYO Success Story | Founder | Business Model | Funding | Acquisitions

The growth of OYO is incredible, and the story of its founder is truly inspiring. Know about OYO startup story, history, founder, growth, revenue, funding, acquisitions & more.

StartupTalkyBharath

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning of OYO

OYO uses a mix of demographic, geographic, and psychographic segmentation strategies to understand the changing needs of the customers in the competitive market. OYO segments the market in the following manner:-
- OYO Townhouse targets Millennial travelers
- OYO SilverKey caters to the needs of corporate travelers
- OYO Vacation Homes targets people who come on vacation at the beach or a villa on an exotic island
- OYO Life provides residential space
Targeting strategy is the cornerstone of the product development process. OYO uses a differentiated targeting business strategy for different product categories.
- Corporate tie-ups for airline travelers
- Tours and travels
- College students or working professionals who are in search of fully managed homes on long-term rentals at an affordable price
OYO uses a value-based positioning strategy for its customer by providing:-
- Standardized budget hotels
- Luxurious productive place
- Open grass greenery
- Better room service
Marketing Mix of OYO Rooms

As OYO Rooms concentrate on co-branding, they operate differently from OTAs (Online Travel Agency). They state that they are working with zero-to-2-star hotels and guest houses, ‘standardizing’ them and getting them customers through their website and apps. Usually, other hotel aggregators simply connect the customer with the hotel by listing hotels on their website and taking a commission as their revenue. They would work out a deal with the hotels with a minimum order guarantee per month and are able to provide discounted rates and deals on the room rates compared to the rates provided by the hotels directly to a normal guest.

OYO’s market coverage has swiftly increased because of being listed with travel aggregators like MakeMyTrip, clear trip, and hotels.com. Their aim is to target small business travelers and budget tourists to eminently swift-cash and that works in favor of OYO because revenue gets realized quicker too.

Product in the Marketing Mix of OYO

Oyo has a wide range of products and services that they offer to their customer as per their need. OYO Rooms, OYO Hotels & Homes has a multi-brand approach. These include:
- OYO Townhouse
- OYO Home
- OYO Vacation Homes
- SilverKey
- Capital O
- Palette
- Collection O
- OYO LIFE
- YO! HELP
Promotion/Advertising in the Marketing Mix of OYO
- OYO prefers to promote via various social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. With its exclusive offerings and reduced costs, OYO uses the digital platform to draw new customers.
- OYO organizes several online campaigns such as #AurKyaChahiye on YouTube, #OneForEveryone contest, #OYOnauts, Father’s Day Celebration campaign, etc.
- Many of the promotions have featured artists from Bollywood to make them more appealing. Sonu Sood is the brand ambassador of OYO.
Brand Endorsement by Sonu Sood

Pricing in the Marketing Mix of OYO
- The strategy of OYO Rooms is to attract customers with a lower room price than the hotel’s base price.
- The primary objective is to provide an unequaled price that suits the user’s budget. The room price varies depending on the location and luxury of the hotel, between Rs. 399 and Rs. 4000.
- Overall OYO Rooms follows a very sensible approach, aimed at providing rooms with outstanding facilities at a moderate rate and generating customer loyalty.
Place in the Marketing Mix of OYO
- Oyo rooms work fully online where one can book the available hotels at an approximate cost either via an app or through online platforms.
- Once booked with a confirmation one can avail of the service on reaching the booked hotel on a specific date.
OYO Rooms Online Booking

People in the Marketing Mix of OYO
- Oyo team comprises 25000 young and professional people who deliver maximum both for the company and individual growth.
- With a dynamic team, OYO provides excellent customer service, creates a positive experience for its customers, and in doing so markets its brand to them.
OYO Business Model | How OYO Makes Money

Discover OYO’s business model and how it makes money through commissions, franchise fees, room bookings, leased properties, and additional services, offering affordable and standardized accommodations globally.

StartupTalkyVivek Dev Jacob

Traditional Marketing Strategy of OYO

OYO started with traditional marketing to make people aware of its brand. It used billboards, TV ads, print media, flyers, and even taxi ads, especially in cities and tourist areas. These methods helped OYO reach travelers who were not very active online.

OYO Billboard

OYO also focused on local marketing by working with travel agents and sponsoring events. This helped build trust and made OYO a familiar name among different types of travelers. However, while billboards and ads caught people’s attention, they couldn’t engage customers like digital marketing. That’s why OYO later shifted to online marketing, using social media and personalized ads to connect with more people in a better way.

OYO Digital Marketing Strategy

OYO has shifted its business model from hotel aggregator to the fastest-growing chain of franchises offering OYO hotels (OYO flagships, townhouses, studio stays Collection O, Premium), living spaces (OYO Life), and workspaces (OYO Workspaces).

Marketing Approach Adopted by OYO Rooms

Prices in the real estate sectors are rising day-by-day still OYO has managed to provide the best places to people at an affordable price. The Internet brought the world closer and digital media became a huge marketing platform. In today’s digital and connected world, it is important to stay ahead of the competitors. OYO makes use of a 360-degree marketing strategy. OYO used all forms of digital as well as traditional media to reach its customers. Traditional media include both print and television whereas digital media include Google search ads, social media ads campaigns, and OYO’s own website and app.

Assi Reach Gaye? | OYO Rooms Official | Roadtrip

Search Engine Optimization For OYO Rooms

Search Engine Optimization is done to ensure maximum traffic to the website by using particular keywords that have the highest searches from their customer. They understood their customer’s needs and intentions and updated their website accordingly. This ensured people searching for hotels would be redirected to their website.

Social Media Marketing Strategy of OYO

OYO uses Facebook to share location-based posts, promotional posts, and posts related to the detailed progress of the organization. These posts helped people to browse destinations to travel, and regular promotional posts provided customers with offers and discounts, encouraging them to book OYO.

OYO reposts pictures taken by travelers and users of OYO on their Instagram handle. Along with this strategy they implemented Facebook marketing strategies to Instagram. This strategy leads to an engagement rate and encourages people to tag OYO in their posts.

OYO Meme Marketing Strategy

OYO often works with influencers who create content around travel. This is either done via posts or re-posts. These posts are about the experience these influencers have during their vacations and not about their stay at OYO. The core idea of OYO’s influencer marketing is that you will need a place to stay whenever you go out for a vacation and here comes influencers’ experiences.

OYO tweets as well as retweets informative content such as award wins and events, news as well and companies’ CSR activities which adds credibility to the brand in a not-so-obvious manner.

Ritesh Agarwal’s Journey from Oravel to OYO

Discover the inspiring story of Ritesh Agarwal, founder of OYO, from humble beginnings to global success. Explore the journey of innovation and determination that shaped his remarkable story.

StartupTalkyshifa ali

Conclusion

OYO is a well-established online portal for hotel bookings in India that can grow tremendously with the right digital marketing practices and the use of resources. The OYO marketing strategies put up in this article are for a better understanding of the reader. And, also to help the reader shape their ideas into creative campaigns that could be utilized in their business.

FAQs

What are OYO Rooms?

OYO Rooms is India’s largest branded network of hotel chains offering standardized rooms to their customers at an affordable price.

How are OYO Rooms different from online travel agencies?

When you book OYO Rooms, you get a guaranteed OYO experience across all the hotels unlike an online travel agency or marketplace where end-user service is not standardized.

What is OYO marketing strategy?

OYO uses a mix of traditional and digital marketing. It started with billboards, TV ads, flyers, and local partnerships to build trust. Later, it focused on digital marketing, using social media, personalized ads, and influencer collaborations to reach a wider audience.

Does any payment need to be made at the time of booking?

Customers have the option to either make an advance payment or at the time of the hotel’s check out.

I am a hotel owner. How can I partner with OYO?

In order to partner with OYO Rooms, you have to visit partner.oyorooms.com and fill up a simple OYO rooms registration form by stating your name, mobile number city, and property type i.e. home, commercial, and hotel and click on Become an OYO to submit this form.

How much does OYO pay to the hotel owner?

OYO Rooms charges a commission of 22% from its hotel partners. However, this commission does vary according to the services provided by the brand.

What is OYO full form?

The full form of OYO is On Your Own.
February 27, 2025

PickYourTrail – A Success Story of How It is Making Vacation Planning a Breeze!

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 Highlights

Startup Name	Pickyourtrail
Headquarter	Chennai
Founders	Hari Ganapathy & Srinath Shankarnarayanan
Sector	Travel and Tourism
Founded	2014
Website	PickYourTrail.com
Parent Organization	Travel Troops Global Pvt Ltd

About Pickyourtrail
Pickyourtrail – Industry
Pickyourtrail – Founders and Team
Pickyourtrail – Startup Story | How was Pickyourtrail Started?
Pickyourtrail – Name, Tagline and Logo
Pickyourtrail – Launching Startup
Pickyourtrail – Revenue Model
Pickyourtrail – Funding and Investors
Pickyourtrail – User Acquisition
Pickyourtrail – Startup Challenges
Pickyourtrail – Competitors
Pickyourtrail – Growth
Pickyourtrail – Awards
Pickyourtrail – Future Plans

About Pickyourtrail

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.

Some USPs 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.

Pickyourtrail – Founders and Team

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!

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.

Pickyourtrail – Startup Challenges

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 – Awards

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.

April 16, 2022

ScoutMyTrip: Helping You Plan Those Memorable Road Trips!
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 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.

ScoutMyTrip – Company Highlights

Startup Name ScoutMyTrip

Headquarters Mumbai

Founders Deepak Ananth and Vineet Rajan

Sector Travel and Tourism

Founded 2016

Parent Organization ScoutMyTrip Private Limited

ScoutMyTrip – About
ScoutMyTrip – Industry Details
ScoutMyTrip – Founders And Team
ScoutMyTrip – Startup Story | How It Began?
ScoutMyTrip – Name And Logo
ScoutMyTrip – Business Model and Services
ScoutMyTrip – Revenue Model
ScoutMyTrip – Funding And Investors
ScoutMyTrip – User Acquisition
ScoutMyTrip – Startup Challenges
ScoutMyTrip – Competitors
ScoutMyTrip – Advisors And Mentors
ScoutMyTrip – Awards
ScoutMyTrip – Future Plans

ScoutMyTrip – About

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 & Vineet Rajan, ScoutMyTrip Founders

Deepak Ananth

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.

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ScoutMyTrip – Name And Logo

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.

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Ithaka Startup Success StoryStartup NameIthakaHeadquarterMumbai [https://startuptalky.com/mumbai-startups/]FoundersRahul Singh & Mithilesh SaidSectorTravel Planning AppFounded2015ParentOrganizationTraveljunkie SolutionsAbout IthakaTravel Market in IndiaFounders of Ithaka and TeamHow was Ithaka…

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ScoutMyTrip – Business Model and Services

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:
– Hotel bookings

– Self-drive cars and taxis

– Guides

– Roadside assistance/insurance

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ScoutMyTrip – Funding And Investors

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.
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ScoutMyTrip – Startup Challenges

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

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FAQs

Who are the Founders of ScoutMyTrip?

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.

Who are the competitors of ScoutMyTrip?

The ScoutMyTrip competitors include:
- Google Maps
- Road Trippers
- Furkot
- Easy Roads
- Highway Delite
April 13, 2022
List of Top Travel and Tourism Startups in India
“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.

Travel & Tourism Industry in India – Key Highlights

Top Travel and Tourism Startups in India:
1. MakeMyTrip
2. ClearTrip
3. Goibibo
4. OYO Rooms
5. Pickyourtrail
6. ScoutMyTrip
7. Thrillophilia
8. Travel Triangle
9. goMowgli
10. Tripoto
11. ExTravelMoney
12. Nearify
13. TripHobo
14. iTraveller
15. SeekSherpa
16. SOTC
17. Expedia
Travel & Tourism Industry in India – Key Highlights

Best Tourism and Travel startup – Key Highlights

Also Read: Travel and Tourism Industry Trends in 2021: Post-Covid Scenario

Top 20 Travel and Tourism Startups in India

MakeMyTrip

Founders Deep Kalra

Founded In 2000

Headquarters Gurugram, Haryana

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.
Goibibo

Founder Ashish Kashyap

Founded In 2007

Headquarters Gurugram, Haryana

Travel Startup in India – Goibibo

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, Goibibo became 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.

OYO Rooms

Founder Ritesh Agarwal

Founded In 2012

Headquarters Gurugram, Haryana

Best Travel & Hospitality Startup – OYO Rooms

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.

Pickyourtrail

Founders Hari Ganapathy and Srinath Shankar

Founded In 2014

Headquarters Chennai

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.

ScoutMyTrip

Founders Vineet Rajan; Deepak Ananth

Founded In 2016

Headquarters Thane, Maharashtra

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.

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Thrillophilia

Founders Chitra Gurnani and Abhishek Daga

Founded In 2011

Headquarters Banglore

Top Travel startup – Thrillophilia

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

Founders Sankalp Agarwal, Sanchit Garg, and Prabhat Gupta

Founded In 2011

Headquarters Gurugram, Haryana

Top Travel and Tourism Startup – Travel Triangle

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 S aaS-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.

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Tripoto

Founders Anirudh Gupta and Michael Pargal Lyngdoh

Founded In Headquarter:- Delhi

Headquarters Delhi

Top Indian Travel Startup – Tripoto

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

Founders Avelo Roy, Mayank Kumar, Saurav Singh, Vivek Srivastava

Founded In 2012

Headquarters Delhi

Top Travel Startup in India – Nearify

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:
1. Make a thorough research on your competitors and the market.
2. Find your own niche in the travel industry.
3. Build your team.
4. Take a call on a travel website or a travel software, or both.
5. Make a strategy for marketing.
6. Target a location.
July 25, 2021

Startup Name	ScoutMyTrip
Headquarters	Mumbai
Founders	Deepak Ananth and Vineet Rajan
Sector	Travel and Tourism
Founded	2016
Parent Organization	ScoutMyTrip Private Limited

Funding Date	Funding Stage	Funding Amount	Investors
April 2017	Angel Round	Undisclosed	Z Nation Lab

Founders	Deep Kalra
Founded In	2000
Headquarters	Gurugram, Haryana

Founders	Stuart Crighton; Matthew Spacie‎; Hrush Bhatt
Founded In	2016
Headquarters	Mumbai

Founder	Ashish Kashyap
Founded In	2007
Headquarters	Gurugram, Haryana

Founder	Ritesh Agarwal
Founded In	2012
Headquarters	Gurugram, Haryana

Founders	Hari Ganapathy and Srinath Shankar
Founded In	2014
Headquarters	Chennai

Founders	Vineet Rajan; Deepak Ananth
Founded In	2016
Headquarters	Thane, Maharashtra

Founders	Chitra Gurnani and Abhishek Daga
Founded In	2011
Headquarters	Banglore

Founders	Sankalp Agarwal, Sanchit Garg, and Prabhat Gupta
Founded In	2011
Headquarters	Gurugram, Haryana

Founders	Anil Alur and Sunil Abhilash
Founded In	2013
Headquarters	Mysuru, Karnataka

Founders	Anirudh Gupta and Michael Pargal Lyngdoh
Founded In	Headquarter:- Delhi
Headquarters	Delhi

Founder	George Zachariah
Founded In	2015
Headquarters	Kochi, Kerala

Founders	Avelo Roy, Mayank Kumar, Saurav Singh, Vivek Srivastava
Founded In	2012
Headquarters	Delhi

Founders	Praveen Kumar, Saket Newaskar, and Karthik Ramachandra
Founded In	2012
Headquarters	Pune, Maharashtra

Founders	Shiju Radhakrishnan and Sanjay Kumar
Founded In	2011
Headquarters	Banglore

Founders	Sukhmani Singh and Dhruv Raj Gupta
Founded In	2014
Headquarters	Delhi

Founder	Mr. Vishal Suri (Managing Director)
Founded In	1949
Headquarters	Mumbai, India

Rayna Tours—From A Humble Startup To A Global Travel Company

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 the organization it is based on.

Travel gives us more happiness than buying any material goods. Studies have shown that while the excitement of buying something new fades away soon, travel makes us happier for longer. The travel and tourism Industry is one of the most significant and fast-growing industry globally. As per Statista data, the overall global economic contribution of the travel and tourism industry was more than 7.6 trillion US dollar in 2016. Till date, this contribution has increased further. World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) also confirms the fact that the number of international travelers is increasing over the last few years. All thanks to the tour and travel companies that have made it safer and easier to explore foreign lands.

Rayna Tours, a UAE based tours and travel Company was started up in 2006, to offer smooth and wonderful travel experiences to the travelers and explorers from around the globe.

Rayna Tours – Company Highlights

Startup Name	Rayna Tours
Headquarter	Abu Hail, Dubai Emirate
Founders	Manoj Tulsani & Kamlesh Ramchandani
Sector	Travel Agency, Tour Operators
Founded	2006
Parent Organization	Rayna Tours

Rayna Tours – About
Rayna Tours – Founders
Rayna Tours – How It All Started?
Rayna Tours – User Acquisition
Rayna Tours – Funding & Investors
Rayna Tours – Startup Challenges
Rayna Tours – Awards
Rayna Tours – Growth
Rayna Tours – Founders Advice
Rayna Tours – FAQ’s
Rayna Tours – Conclusion

Rayna Tours – About

Rayna Tours is a UAE based destination management company which is licensed by the Government of Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM). Rayna Tours offers the best of travel management services catering to B2B and B2C clients. Over the years, the company has established itself as one of the best destination management companies in the UAE through its excellent travel expertise and professionalism.

Rayna Tours has experience in handling worldwide holiday packages, hotel reservations, easy visa processing, and tours and excursions through a group of well-trained, efficient staff and makes the travel experience hassle-free for its clients. Rayna Tours offers unique holiday packages suited to different categories of travelers.

Rayna Tours – Founders

Rayna Tours was co-founded by Manoj Tulsani and Kamlesh Ramchandani.

Manoj Tulsani & Kamlesh Ramchandani | Co-Founders, Rayna Tours

Prior to starting Rayna Tours, Manoj and Kamlesh worked with Dubai’s Safeer Group of Companies. Manoj also worked as Marketing Head at Time Machine Group of companies.

Currently, Manoj Tulsani is the CEO of Rayna Tours. Kamlesh Ramchandani is the MD of Rayna Tours.

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Rayna Tours – How It All Started?

Manoj and Kamlesh (both from the Indian state of Rajasthan) met while working with Dubai’s Safeer Group of Companies where they strengthened their friendship over the common interest for travel and entrepreneurship. It was back in 1999 during their early 20s. Although Manoj went on to work at Time Machine Group of Companies where he was promoted to the position of Marketing Head, he later joined Kamlesh to realize their greatest dream.

Rayna Tours Logo

In 2006, Manoj and Kamlesh came together to put in all their savings to operate Rayna Tours from a small counter at Flora Grand Hotel. As they dug deeper into the region’s travel trade scenario, the founders realized that there is a huge gap in the market. They discovered a niche in organizing gimmick-free, reliable tours and activities for hotel guests which was then an overlooked aspect. And this was actually the seed for the launch of Rayna Tours and Travels.

OYO VS Airbnb, a backpackers dilemma and a question by tourists

A traveler, A tourist and A first-time backpacker. These three have something incommon despite their differences in experience. They all want a peaceful nightto stay after having a long walk to someone’s dream place or to a normal visitor a trip. The business of giving people home or a place to …

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Rayna Tours – User Acquisition

Keeping up with the stride of the dynamic customer demands and market trends, Ryan Tours managed to build the most effective channels to boost sales in different phases of growing their business.

As the competition got intensified and became tougher, they first implemented the direct to customer strategy by investing in their own desert camps, cruise lines and vehicle fleets; this not only excluded the presence of middlemen but also promised best price guarantee for majority of their tours and services.

Following this, the company gained a competitive edge with the use of latest technology; this has now expanded their reach while raising their position as one of the top on-demand travel portals on the web. They even have a dedicated technical department to ensure seamless user experience across all platforms, from its B2C and B2B service portals to online destination guides and handy travel apps.

Furthermore, the company’s strong media presence (on Facebook, Twitter, etc.) serves a direct source of information for its guests/users to stay abreast of Rayna Tours’ latest launches, innovative services, and all other updates on promotions, deals, and exciting contests.

The founders realized how important it’s to sustain success and future-proof their business.

“The initial success and challenges have taught us that the path to achievements full of dips and hurdles. And to keep yourself out of it, you not only have to think different but also need to take your business ideas to a whole new level” says Manoj. This strategy apparently has helped the Rayna Tours to create their own genre of the travel trade, one that focuses on comprehensive solutions at competitive rates (in both B2C and B2B markets) without compromising quality.

ScoutMyTrip – Top Road Trip Planner

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on. Road trips have a different charm altogether. Stopping by to click photos,trying local food on t…

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Rayna Tours – Funding & Investors

Rayna Tours is a bootstrapped company.

Rayna Tours – Startup Challenges

To begin with, leaving behind their successful careers to start something new was not an easy task for Manoj and Kamlesh. They had to walk away from the trading industry and fit into an entirely new space in the service industry. But it is their enthusiasm and passion about the business that made it possible for the founders to achieve big in a space where they have no prior experience.

Besides running a startup has never been an easy job. “Running the startup wasn’t as easy as its launch. It was agonizingly gruesome especially during the initial days” Kamlesh says.

Without a mentor or an efficient team, the founders had to do most of the tasks themselves. As there was a stigma of sorts, the most difficult part was to persuade customers to rethink about their travel perceptions because until then travel planning was all about booking the hotels and airlines in advance. It was frustrating altogether, but they still worked with all gusto to convince guests about their innovative selling proposition and execute them with utmost legitimacy.

Despite the lack of solid industry experience or a strong support system, among other enormous challenges, they didn’t have any regret and did their best to bring in a consistently positive outcome. A journey thus started out as a small travel outlet began to show results as they opened seven more such outlets in the next two years, before moving to a roomier office and raising its status one of Dubai’s leading Destination Management Company by 2009.

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Rayna Tours – Awards

13 years on, the company has garnered maximum attention from all corners of the industry, so much so that it has won several prestigious awards and accolades. This validates the quality of the company’s services and packages while emphasizing their role as a pacesetter for advanced growth in the industry.

Rayna Tours Team

Rayna Tours received the Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor in 2016 and later the Top Wholesaler Award (2016) and Best Performer Award (2017) from Yas Waterworld and Ferrari World, among many others. To top it off, Rayna Tours’ was recently recognized with two coveted awards (in the categories of Best Destination Management Company and Best B2B Travel Portal) at Arabian Travel Awards.

Rayna Tours – Competitors

The Ultimate Travel, World’s Ultimate Travels, Dadabhai Travel, IndeBo, Safari Ventures are some of the competitors of Rayna Tours.

Rayna Tours – Growth

Started out from a single location, the company has now built a strong global presence with its head office in Dubai and branches in different parts of the world. It has over 500 employees working in its 10 diverse locations across India, Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand), Europe (Turkey) and Africa (Cape Town).

Kicked off with a personal savings of just AED 500,000, Rayna Tours is now a multi-million dirham company whose specific goal is to make travel a breeze for all types of visitors. In fact, it’s one of the highly valued travel brands favored by travel agents and end customers alike.

“As our offerings evolve as per customers’ demand, our service product portfolio has also grown from organizing UAE tours to include more destinations such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Georgia, South Africa, etc. Moreover, our high-end yet easy to use portal allows you to choose, compare and book almost everything from hotels, visas (to 40 plus countries) and all-inclusive holidays to local tours, activities and transfers all under a single roof,” says Kamlesh on their service packages.

As the company looks forward to proliferating all over the world in the next five years, it has also taken steps to expand their business in new routes by already foraying into transport, construction and real estate industry. Thanks to its highly intensified expansion strategy.

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Rayna Tours – Founders Advice

In spite of lack of funds/resources and all ups and down along the way, the brilliant duo claims that their entrepreneurial sail has been remarkably amazing. They believe that one has to start off immediately if they have a great idea or concept to share with the world.

“You only win or take lessons and of course not fail with every adversity or obstacle. In fact, things will just fall in place as you clear impediments and learn from each setback. And the most important thing is to keep a track of changing industry trends and conscientiously listen to your customers’ demands,” Manoj and Kamlesh’s advice to the entrepreneurs.

And we can’t agree with them more! No two successful entrepreneurship stories may be the same but all of them involve a lot of challenges, efforts and resources to bring it to the stature that they enjoy now.

Rayna Tours – FAQ’s

Why to choose Rayna Tours?

Rayna Tours’ mission is to make travel smoother and accessible to all. Rayna Tours is a comprehensive one-stop solution to all your travel-related services.

When was Rayna Tours founded?

Rayna Tours was founded in the year 2006.

What sector does Rayna Tours operate in?

Rayna Tours operates in the Travel Agency and Tour Operators sector of the tourism industry.

How much funding does Rayna Tours have?

Rayna Tours is a bootstrapped company.

How much revenue does Rayna Tours generate?

Rayna Tours has generated $68M in revenue from its operations till now.

Who are the competitors of Rayna Tours?

The Ultimate Travel, World’s Ultimate Travels, Dadabhai Travel, IndeBo, Safari Ventures are some of the competitors of Rayna Tours.

Rayna Tours – Conclusion

Rayna Tours is a destination management company based in UAE licensed by the Government of Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM). It offers the best of travel management services catering to B2B and B2C clients. Over the years it has swiftly gained the reputation as one of the best destination management companies in UAE through its excellent travel expertise and professionalism. Rayna Tours have travel experience in handling worldwide holiday packages, hotel reservations, easy visa processing, and tours and excursions through a group of well-trained, efficient staff. It is a one-stop travel solution for creating unique holiday plans and activities in a hassle-free manner.

April 21, 2021

3 Travel Startup Founders Shared Opinions on how they will Recover after CoronoVirus Outbreak
COVID-19 virus is spreading so rapidly and it has hit dozens of countries globally. Travel industry, airlines companies have got the worst impact. Indian government has put 1.3 billion residents in lockdwon. So, international flights are shut, trains are shut. So, travel industry has come to a halt. After lock down, people will be scared to travel as travelling caused this virus to spread from China to different countries as it is heavy contagious. This virus originated in China but has spread-ed to many countries. Nobody knows when this contagious disease will end.

We have asked few travel companies about the impact of coronavirus outbreak on their business and what are they planning to recover it.

Also Read: Coronavirus Challenges for Travel Startups & how to Survive them?

Impact of Covid-19 on Travel Startups

Travart International

Travart is experiential travel startup working to achieve 10X improvement in discovery, booking and consumption of travel experiences through deep tech vertical integration of travel services. We talked with Akash Deep Choudhary, Founder and CEO, about their plans to recover after Covid-19 outbreak.

The last few weeks have been very tough for all travel corporations and startups with the sharp, sudden spread of COVID-19 globally, and in India. Our growth for the current FY as well as our expectations and projections for the next year are in limbo, the travel and tourism sector being one of the worst hit among all.

There has been a sharp drop in bookings with mounting cancellations, and the latest global travel restrictions have brought the entire industry to a complete standstill. We are constantly in touch with all our suppliers in over fifty international destinations we serve, and it seems to be the same story in all parts of the world, playing at different time frames.

These are incredibly tough times and we are seeing a huge number of travel startups folding due to the gravity of the situation which hasn’t even peaked yet. As a mature and more established company we are focusing on two critical areas- the safety and well being of our team, customers and the general public; and minimising the impact to our business.

We have swiftly taken action, basing our market behaviour expectations on data extrapolated from the SARS epidemic of 2002-03, which in itself is a tough endeavour given that the scale of COVID-19 is incomparable to anything we have seen in this century. We are continuously working to reduce operating and variable costs. This is being achieved by taking a hard look at our costs and deciding to allocate the available resources towards endeavours which allow us to come out of this situation strong. At such times, most of our teams have offered to take a reduction in salaries, which speaks volumes about the passion these teams carry for travel and for Travart.

The path to recovery of the industry will be a slow and tough process, more so because we are yet unaware of the scale this is capable of reaching globally. As of now, it is impossible to correctly estimate the damage COVID-19 would cause the industry as a whole.

We are positive we will be able to weather this storm and come out stronger. We also understand this might not be possible for a lot of passionate travel startup founders, hence we are offering support and partnership to every travel startup with the same shared vision of providing customer-centric experiences.

We are also very thankful to the global medical services staff and crew members of the travel industry who are on the front line of this pandemic, and are working to ensure anyone and everyone needing to get home safely, does.

We will get out of this stronger together.

Journey Weavers

Journey Weavers is a Delhi based Boutique Travel Consultancy that has crafted journeys for individuals and corporates to over 125 destinations since past 4 years. We talked with Ms. Shalini Raj, Founder, about their plans to recover after Covid-19 outbreak.

The market latest storm has plunged the global travel and tourism industry into uncharted territory. This drastic effect was unexpected for which no one in any economy and industry was equipped. It is a kind of slowdown when nothing seems in our control. As we are into travel consultancy and create personalized trips for people due to lockdown and suspended all the flights and trains creates a major issue for us and our all advance bookings have been canceled and there seems to be limited queries for future months.

We are convincing our customers to postpone their trips for next year so that they cannot bear the full loss. To look out the current situation International borders will not start in the next 6 months so we are targeting winter travel and destination weddings from December through that we will be emphasizing on the importance of beautiful India.

Also Read:
- How Startups are Building Products to fight COVID-19?
- Layoffs Increased in Indian Startups due to COVID-19
FareHawker.com

FareHawker.com is an leading airline group booking platform for multiple airlines that has changed the experience of flight group ticket booking process in India. We talked with Shiv D Gadekar, Founder, about their plans to recover after Covid-19 outbreak.

The world is going through its toughest time as this Corona Outbreak has affected us in every way it can. Lockdown all over the country has done immediate disruption to the travel sector. Travel startups are boom and have screeching halt for a few weeks. It’s been seen a major drop in bookings combined with a rise in customer service demand as people with existing travel plans seek to get in touch to cancel or reschedule trips. It’s the biggest drop in demand I have ever seen in the Online Travel Industry. Airlines group booking travel is facing huge stress as demand is dropping off in booking behavior because of the orders passed by the government, our aviation portal is on hold till further notice is passed by the government on aviation. After hunkering down for three months and even more it will be challenging to recover. We’ll be very optimistic through this but we cannot expect to recover in a night or few days it’ll take at least a year to fully recover from this loss. It will likely start in 2021 and we have to think of long term recovery. If your startup has some unique selling proposition lean into that! Also we’ll work on tools to better merchandise, segment, and market our products and services. Also, another way of marketing can be a new partnership with aviation companies. We have been collaborating with almost every company but now is the time to expand. Every startup company has to be ready for a lower valuation offer. We have to lower the cost of tickets if we need capital, we have a lot less leverage with a lot fewer investors who could potentially join the round.
April 15, 2020
Coronavirus Challenges for Travel Startups & how to Survive them?

The coronavirus aka COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread with no signs of fading away. Preventive measures taken by the public sector and by global industry are already having widespread effects. Most of the businesses around the world are facing many challenges and lower demands of their services & products. Meanwhile, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has said the global economy may now grow at its slowest rate since 2009.

With the COVID-19 virus spreading to dozens of countries globally, the travel industry is working hastily to both prevent the spread of the virus and navigate through heavy economic uncertainty & slowdown. Now, with the globalized world going into partial or complete lock down over the Covid-19 pandemic, startups in the travel sector are facing a huge stress test as well as immediate interruption to business because public health concern has increased and entire populations are encouraged or even forced not to travel.

Travelers are reconsidering travel plans both to prevent infection and avoid being quarantined. Due to this, airlines are also facing a huge fall in bookings. Airlines have ceased flights to the hardest-hit areas and reduced capacity elsewhere. Similarly, many hotels are empty or facing declining fall in occupancy; conference organizers are losing major events, local tour operators have far fewer customers due to travel avoidance of customers as experts say that there’s no sugar-coating: It’s rough out there right now. Lean times are inevitable for the travel industry – that much is for sure. But among the furrowed speculation and fearful reports, some of the startup founders have been busy formulating ideas and plans catalyzed by the recent crisis.

No to non-essential travel

With restrictions on travel and large business events, many startups, IT majors and corporates have ruled out non-essential domestic and international travel. In a statement, IT major Wipro said: “Wipro has suspended travel to and transit through mainland China, including Hong Kong and Macau, until further notice. Employees have also been advised to avoid non-critical travel to Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Italy.” As many companies have asked their employees to work from home, it has caused decrease in travel. Asheesh Chanda, CEO of digital wealth management startup Kristal.AI, said all necessary precautions as advised by the government were being taken. “Kristal.AI operates in three locations – Singapore, Hong Kong, and India. Non-essential travel between offices is currently discouraged. We have asked all employees across locations to work-from-home.”

In the same way, many travel tech companies have seen a spike in cancellations. In general the impact is heavy. While some have stated that demand is dropping off a cliff but it’s not as bad as they thought — but it is definitely heavy. Bookings are down by almost half It’s seeing similar changes in booking behavior. Advanced booking has come down drastically. TravelPerk told that it’s currently dealing with a drop in business globally of around 50%.

Lockdown due to COVID-19 has resulted in low demands of bookings

The co-founder and CEO of TechCrunch, Johannes Reck said, “This is the most severe shock that I’ve seen in the last 10 years. The irony of Europe is that we had a fantastic start to the year, consumer sentiment was high, and then it fell off a cliff a few days ago.” An airline trade group said last week that the industry will lose as much as $113 billion in sales because of the coronavirus pandemic. Also, Booking.com withdrew its forecast, citing the worsening impact of the virus on travel.

Here’s some of the useful tips and tricks for staying afloat in these tough times –

Look for bright spots

If your startup has a global focus, look for bright spots of travel demand. Not every area is affected by travel restrictions and flight bans. For instance, depending on your business model and market, one can switch to targeting short journey. Another tactic is to target travelers from areas less affected by the virus. Take a methodical look at current travel conditions and compare that with your target demographics. Wherever you find opportunities, you’ll need to balance pricing with market share and thus customers can be attracted to use your services.

Also Read: List of Top Travel Startups in India

Work on your expertise

The travel community has a unique perspective with many “boots on the ground” i.e. contacts in different places around the world. So ask your suppliers, distributors, partners what is happening on their end. So, by gathering information from them, your expertise can be utilized to provide customers what they are actually needing at this time. This can help with lowering cancellations while also keeping your team informed on the virus.

Create your USP

Travelers now face uncertainty and lack clarity over when, where, and how to travel due to constraints. If your startup has a unique selling proposition that addresses some of these challenges, work on it! Try to be creative and see how you might be able to apply your product to add new or unexpected value to the current global situation. Or, perhaps there are aspects of your business model that could be improved a bit to increase relevance in these circumstances.

Partner up with others

Now is the time to get creative with partnerships and building relationships. By joining hands with other startups which are also facing the same challenges, new solutions can be found to deal with current circumstances. As you consider potential partners, look for those who may be especially hard in this climate and needing cost-cutting or short-term revenue.

Also Read: Coronavirus Impact on Digital Payments Startups

Final Thoughts

It’s important to remember that no crisis lasts forever and to attempt to look to the future. This isn’t the world’s first recession and it won’t be the last. It’s not the world’s first pandemic and it won’t be the last. The key for entrepreneurs is to keep a cool head about you, don’t do anything and adopt a war footing while your company struggles through choppy waters for 12 to 18 months in the wake of this pandemic. When the crisis recedes and the courts reopen, your company will need to provide an accounting of its obligations and answer for any it has fallen short on in the meantime.

March 27, 2020

Tag: travel startups

Oravel to OYO Rooms

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning of OYO

Marketing Mix of OYO Rooms

Product in the Marketing Mix of OYO

Promotion/Advertising in the Marketing Mix of OYO

Pricing in the Marketing Mix of OYO

Place in the Marketing Mix of OYO

People in the Marketing Mix of OYO

Traditional Marketing Strategy of OYO

OYO Digital Marketing Strategy

Marketing Approach Adopted by OYO Rooms

Search Engine Optimization For OYO Rooms

Social Media Marketing Strategy of OYO

Conclusion

FAQs

What are OYO Rooms?

How are OYO Rooms different from online travel agencies?

What is OYO marketing strategy?

Does any payment need to be made at the time of booking?

I am a hotel owner. How can I partner with OYO?

How much does OYO pay to the hotel owner?

What is OYO full form?

Pickyourtrail Highlights

About Pickyourtrail

Pickyourtrail – Industry

Pickyourtrail – Founders and Team

Hari Ganapathy

Srinath Shankarnarayanan

Pickyourtrail – Startup Story | How was Pickyourtrail Started?

Pickyourtrail – Name, Tagline and Logo

Pickyourtrail – Launching Startup

Pickyourtrail – Revenue Model

Pickyourtrail – Funding and Investors

Pickyourtrail – User Acquisition

Pickyourtrail – Startup Challenges

Pickyourtrail – Competitors

Pickyourtrail – Growth

Pickyourtrail – Awards

Pickyourtrail – Future Plans

FAQs

What is the Pickyourtrail company?

Who is the Pickyourtrail founder?

What is the name of the Pickyourtrail CEO?

Where is the Pickyourtrail headquarters?

ScoutMyTrip – Company Highlights

ScoutMyTrip – About

ScoutMyTrip – Industry Details

ScoutMyTrip – Founders And Team

Deepak Ananth

Vineet Rajan

ScoutMyTrip – Startup Story | How It Began?

ScoutMyTrip – Name And Logo

ScoutMyTrip – Business Model and Services

ScoutMyTrip – Revenue Model

ScoutMyTrip – Funding And Investors

ScoutMyTrip – User Acquisition

ScoutMyTrip – Startup Challenges

ScoutMyTrip – Competitors

ScoutMyTrip – Advisors And Mentors

ScoutMyTrip – Awards

ScoutMyTrip – Future Plans

FAQs

Who are the Founders of ScoutMyTrip?

What is ScoutMyTrip?

What is ScoutMyTrip Business Model?

Who are the competitors of ScoutMyTrip?

Travel & Tourism Industry in India – Key Highlights

Top 20 Travel and Tourism Startups in India

ClearTrip

Thrillophilia

goMowgli

Tripoto

ExTravelMoney

Nearify

TripHobo

iTraveller

SeekSherpa

Conclusion

FAQs on Travel Startups in India