The internet is flooded with OTAs that are trying to lure travellers by offering them discounts and are fighting each other in a bid to offer the lowest prices. In the middle of all this, we came across a Singapore based startup that is doing things differently.

The company in question is the hotel booking site Kaligo.com. They cater to frequent travellers by offering an incredible number of airline miles and points for every hotel booking instead of conventional discounts or cashback. These miles and points can then be used to redeem free flights and upgrades with a large variety of airlines. A single hotel booking on Kaligo.com can easily earn enough miles for a free flight.

Kyle Armstrong, co-founder and CEO, Kaligo

During our recent visit to Singapore for Echelon Asia 2015, our Founding Partner, Daksh Sharma got a chance to catch-up with Kyle Armstrong, co-founder and CEO, Kaligo at their office in bustling Chinatown. Here is an excerpt from the conversation.

What’s your background? Where did the idea of Kaligo come from? What problem is it solving?

I’m originally from Australia and have been living in Asia for about 11 years. Previously I was working with AMEX leading their premium travel services business. During that stint, we saw a gradual shift of frequent travellers moving their hotel bookings from offline agency to online.

This set of travellers are used to being treated differently and being recognised for their value. We saw there was a gap in the online travel market for loyalty and an opportunity to better reward frequent travellers which we believe represent an approximate 10-15% of the online hotel bookings.

The way we do that is by using a unique business model. Compared with the big OTAs who invest an enormous amount into mass market advertising and discounts / rebates, we instead invest in loyalty and rewarding our customers.

So what you are trying to say here is that Kaligo is a product catering to people who have a pattern of travelling often? So the segment isn’t necessarily youth or people on the lower end of the spending spectrum.

To some extent yes. We do offer a wide range of hotel types (from budget to luxury), and our customers range between 20-60 years old, with the greatest concentration in the 30-40 years old group.

When did Kaligo start and what does the name stand for?

We launched in October 2014. Kaligo is the name of a butterfly. Our logo combines two elements together- the hotel location marker as well as the butterfly. It represents that you can “take off” with Kaligo by booking a hotel and then flying for free with the airline miles that you have earned.

How has the journey been so far?

We’re experiencing rapid month-on-month growth and as we add more airline partners we are able to continue accessing new customers around the world. Currently, we have 20 airline partners and have plans to further increase that in the balance of the year.

Do you have local representatives in different regions?

Our HQ and core team is based in Singapore and we have regional offices in the United States and Europe. I’m privileged to have some of the top people in their fields on our team and on our advisory board. We have a very powerful combination of experience, skills and talent within the group which has been a key ingredient to the speed of our execution and growth.

What are your biggest markets?

We’re fortunate to have a business model that allows us to operate on a global scale and we have paying customers now in over 100 countries around the world.

How do customers come to know about the product? Are you using online marketing to promote?

We work very closely with our partners to get the word out collaboratively. We do a small amount of offline marketing but the majority is all online.

What about social media? Most of the travel brands we have worked with have some sort of localized social media strategy.

Our product is highly shareable and there are huge online communities of frequent flyers who we actively engage with.  For some businesses, social media is critically important from day one. At this stage, social is more of a complementary channel for us, and it will be a gradual process for us to build it up and localize.

Have there been some exceptional customer stories since you have started, anything where you have provided some fantastic value to your customers?

Hearing from our customers is one of the most rewarding aspects of this business. We analyse our top customer behaviour every month, we get their feedback and use the information to make improvements. We have received numerous stories from customers who have made bookings with Kaligo and then taken their family on a holiday using the miles they’ve earned with us. A gentleman in the UK recently made a couple of bookings with us and then flew with his wife to Rome for a weekend getaway in business class for free. There are many more stories just like this.

At present Kaligo can be accessed via website. Are there any plans for a mobile app?

Kaligo is accessible via mobile web and our desktop site for now, and our app will be launching very soon.

We did some research and there are other companies like Rocketmiles and Pointshound offering miles for hotel bookings. How is your product different?

Those sites have built the bulk of their business in the US market and they’ve done an outstanding job in doing so. The frequent traveller segment in US is gigantic. We are trying to do things a little differently by predominantly taking an international focus.

Are you present on any Metasearch sites?

We’re not currently working with any Meta-search as we don’t fit the traditional OTA model. But you never know, something may happen down the track.

I guess we talked a bit about challenges, but are there any particular challenges that you guys are facing?

There have been many challenges, but nothing that we have not been able to overcome. This really comes back to having a great team. With the culture we have built, where we’re having so much fun, we feel energised to solve even the most difficult problems.

Okay one last question. How do you plan to scale up further? Of course adding new hotels and partners is one of the major things, but do you also plan to expand the services that you are offering now?

At this moment we are very focussed on new partners and hotels, but of course there are a number of opportunities to expand our product line or move along the value chain.  We’re carefully evaluating each of those opportunities as they arise.

At this moment, Kaligo is a young brand but their team has done a really impressive job in a short period of time. They have joined hands with 365,000 hotels with new ones being added regularly. They are already helping a large number of frequent travellers make more of their spend, earning free flights and with more airlines & hotels coming on board, it will only get better. You can check out their website at Kaligo.com.

The post In conversation with Kyle Armstrong: CEO & co-founder Kaligo appeared first on TravHQ.

We have seen the emergence of really innovative online travel startups from South East Asia. If you go a little further, countries like Korea are now making a major impact on the entrepreneurial map. During our visit to Echelon Asia Summit 2015 last month, we came across many travel startups from the region and these three from Seoul caught our eye.

My Real Trip

My Real Trip is a peer to peer platform that connects the travellers to local tour guides. According to them, booking group tours through agencies often results in low quality and unsatisfactory experience as the travellers are looking for reasonable prices and the guides are focused on commissions. My Real Trip gets rid of the middle agencies so that the travellers can get well tailored tours at reasonable prices. At this moment they have around 890 different tours spread across various parts of the world. For now, they offer services for Koreans only but they do plan to expand their services to other parts of Asia as well. Until they start operating in other regions, travellers can try other platforms like Vayable, eOasia, TakeMeTour, Byond Travel and Padhaaro for similar services.

Donggun Lee, CEO, MyRealTrip

dailyHOTEL

For most parts of the year, the hotel industry has to bear the burden of unsold room nights. dailyHOTEL tries to solve this problem by selling the unsold room nights of partner hotels at last minute discounted prices. A large number of travellers especially backpackers head out without a well defined plan and explore their stay options on reaching the destination. Such travellers can grab impressive deals using the app while the hotel is able to sell the unsold inventory. dailyHOTEL is app only and is available on iOS and Android platform. RoomsTonite from India and US based HotelTonight are similar services that offer impressive last minute hotel deals.

According to e27, dailyHOTEL is the most popular last-minute hotel reservation mobile app in Korea, with monthly bookings growing by 65 times since the start of 2014.

THERE

THERE is another startup which will help you to find and book amazing activities at your destination once you have booked your stay & flights. They have tours to offer across many countries from Asia Pacific and Europe. Similar to MyRealTrip, THERE is currently targeting Korean nationals only. The website offers language support in Korean for now and has South Korean Won as the currency transaction option. Users need to sign-up and select the destination of their choice and simply choose from the range of activities on offer.

The growth of travel startups in South Korea is certainly very promising! If you happen to be from the region and have a story to share with us do connect with your team. For more information on startups we met in Singapore, head to Echelon Asia 2015.

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Beyond travel and stay booking services, many providers are now offering activities and adventures at the destination. With the penetration of internet and mobile services, people are now comfortable booking their flights and hotels online but they are still sceptical about booking local activities online, especially in Asia. For such bookings, people usually rely on offline providers, but when travelling with family or in groups, it might not be the best option. In that case, it is better if travellers make some bookings in advance. During our recent visit to Echelon Asia 2015, we came across some startups that are trying to solve this by offering reliable online options.

TakeMeTour at Echelon Asia 2015

TakeMeTour has got a range of options for people travelling to Thailand. It has got a marketplace structure where local providers offer their services and travellers can use the platform to book with them. The confirmations and receipts are sent to the user over email. They claim to have trips hosted by 1940 local hosts and with such a large number, they are able to offer a wide range of experiences.

They have a neat website with easy navigation. You can simply select a destination from a list and browse through your options there. The listings are detailed with images and description to keep the visitor clear of doubts. There aren’t many options for some destinations but as it gains popularity, there will be more options for the travellers.

eOasia at Echelon Asia

eOasia was started by a group of individuals who come with expertise in different fields but share the common passion for travel. In the initial days, the founders themselves experienced the activities before listing them on the website. Now they have expanded across multiple countries but their field team still hand picks the activities and personally meets the providers because they say that it is hard to judge the professionalism of a company from behind the desk. So unlike other similar platforms, you don’t get a dozen providers offering the same service or activity in a region but only the best ones out there. They have brought many providers online that were originally operating offline only so many of them are exclusive to eOasia.

Like we mentioned, these services primarily target people travelling with family or in groups and that is exactly where eOasia is focussing. At this moment, they are offering more than 2000 activities spread across 12 countries. They are working to expand in other counties in the region (India is also on the list) and that is why they accept payments in multiple currencies popular across the region. The website is really impressive with a simple search box and listing of top destinations. Finding an activity to book is really easy as there are multiple filters to find suitable activities from the large number of options.

Over the years, they have tried out different activities and explored different destinations and they use their learnings to serve some really interesting content on their blog (blog.eoasia.com). So not only are they helping people book activities but also giving them some inspiration for their next vacation.

Both these startups look quite promising and will surely help bring more activity providers online. eOasia has already got a big number of options for the travellers and they are constantly adding more. TakeMeTour is relatively younger and covers only Thailand for now but they are also building up their inventory at an impressive pace.

We wish them good luck in their journey ahead. For other updates from Echelon Summit, follow Echelon Asia 2015.

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The Echelon Asia Summit has been running for 6 years now and the event has been growing bigger and better with every passing year. It brings together Asia’s technology leaders, businesses, investors and industry representatives under one roof to boost the region’s mobile and internet market. The Echelon Asia Summit at Singapore featured keynotes with world class speakers, workshops by industry experts and showcased the brightest innovations in the region. Such an event offers great opportunities to network with attendees coming from different sectors. We met some amazing people from geographies such as Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea and even Bangladesh etc. who are creating some really interesting products for the tech & web industry. We also met investors who were looking to fuel the growth of such startups.

One of the unique things we came across at Echelon was its networking app. There are very high chances of meeting professionals with complementary business goals at such events. But the problem arises as the events grow in size. More time is spent in the hustle and bustle rather than talking actual business with the right people.

At Echelon Asia 2015, this was addressed with the help of Echelon CONNECT. The app listed down everything and everyone at the event in a structured and & organized manner. It was available for all attendees before the start of the event making networking a whole lot easier.

The whole list of attendees was right there so we knew in advance whom to expect at the event.

Access to the app was made using the ticket information and the profile was connected with the LinkedIn account. In addition, the information was made available to the users and they could send messages to other attendees in a seamless fashion. The startups looking for investors could take care of the search and communication part well in advance before the actual event. This allowed them to narrow down the interested ones from a long list and then schedule a time slot for the meeting during the event.

What we really loved about the app was its Twitter like feed where attendees could post realtime updates! Depending on how often they engaged with the app, a leaderboard of top users was generated. To increase participation, the organizing team rewarded the most engaging app user.

The announcements were updated frequently on the app so that the attendees didn’t miss out on any activity. It also included a map to help people with navigation and there were some fun activities included in the app as well.

The app included a map for reference

The Echelon CONNECT app added great value to the excitement of the event. The e27 blog posted about how Hipflat, a startup from Thailand raised two funding rounds using this app at Echelon Asia 2013 and 2014. We are certain that many other investors and startups succeeded in finding their business match at this year’s event via this app.

We would love to see something similar being tried out at events in India. In our country, there is no dearth of quality events which drive huge participation across sectors such as technology, travel etc.

The app has been conceptualised by the wonderful folks at DoubleDutch who have vast experience in developing similar apps for other events. You can read more about the Echelon CONNECT app on the e27 blog.

For more updates from the summit, follow the link Echelon Asia 2015.

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If you frequently travel abroad, you know the horror of shockingly high roaming costs added to your bill. From where we can remember, mobile networks have improved by miles and costs of services have reduced considerably. Even after that, roaming costs continue to be significantly high, even more so for international roaming. Many companies provide international SIM cards, but even those aren’t very cheap to use. In our recent visit to Echelon Summit, we came across some startups that are trying to solve this problem.

The first one we found interesting was Malaysia based Flexiroam. Flexiroam is a good alternative to international SIM cards and the traveller SIM cards that you can get at airports. It allows you to retain your phone number so you won’t have to notify your contacts about your temporary phone number or even let them know you are abroad. Over the years, they have improved upon their services and added new features.

Flexiroam team at Echelon Asia 2015

At this moment, Flexiroam is available for travellers from 9 countries and they plan to expand to India and China soon. The service can be used in around 200 countries and local SIM cards across multiple countries can be linked to it. They provide doorstep delivery of local SIM cards of over 40 countries before you travel so you can be prepared in advance. The voice calls are forwarded to your temporary local number via the Flexiroam gateway and the service can be enabled or disabled easily by sending text messages.

You can find more details about Flexiroam on their website http://www.flexiroam.com/.

Another company that caught our attention was Singapore based startup Gentay Communications with their app called Nanu. Nanu isn’t exactly a service focussed on serving international travellers but for everyone who needs an alternate to conventional voice calls. Nanu allows you to make unlimited calls to other Nanu users over mobile data and it works seamlessly over slow 2G networks as well. They claim that it can work at speeds as low as 10 Kbps and would offer high quality audio at over 24 Kbps so you can just pick any local SIM card with a basic data plan to use Nanu.

At first look, it appears to be just another app that is trying to go against the likes of Skype, Viber and recently introduced calling feature on WhatsApp, but there is more to it. You can also make free voice calls to people who aren’t using Nanu. You will hear ads from dialling to the time your call is answered and this helps them provide the service for free. At first you get just 15 minutes of calling and you can’t choose to buy more credits. However, there are multiple partner offers that you can complete to earn more minutes ranging from 2 to 202. They say that as the users grow in volume, they will be able to provide more free minutes and cover more countries.

You can know more about Nanu through their website http://www.hellonanu.com/. You can also download the Android or iOS app for your device.

We will keep updating you about other interesting startups at the Echelon Summit. You can read more by following the tag Echelon Asia 2015.

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