The travel and hospitality sector is rapidly evolving with the rising adoption of various tools, technologies and digital platforms — primarily to improve customer experience, build strong loyalties and run businesses efficiently.

Based on this growth trend, KPMG in India and FICCI released a report titled ‘Expedition 3.0: Travel and hospitality gone digital’ to portray an immersive view on the key trends, challenges and consequences of digital travel.

The study found that following global footsteps, Indian players are also leveraging various tools, technologies and digital platforms; India was projected to have accounted for 3.7% of the global digital travel sales – making it the third-largest market by value in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Image source: Valtech

This uprising of digital travel in India can be attributed to the increasingly digitally-savvy Indian travellers. The online sale of travel bookings — including airlines, hotels, car rentals, cruises, accommodation aggregators and other transportation modes — is expected to have grown 33% in 2017, according to the report. Majority of growth in India’s digital travel is increasingly being led by tier-II and tier-III cities, as digital transactions in these areas rise on the back of increasing penetration of smartphones and the Internet. Moreover, the Indian government’s move to remove high currency notes out of circulation in November 2016 is expected to have further catalysed the growth of digital travel sales in the country during 2017.

The report also states that travel and hospitality is one of the key sectors of the Indian economy, growing at a steady growth with 15.6% year-on-year (y-o-y) rise in foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) and 20.8% y-o-y growth in foreign exchange earnings (FEEs) during 2017. Estimated to directly contribute to 25.9 million jobs and INR 5,141.1 billion ($75.8 billion) to the GDP of India, it is also one of the largest employment generators.

The report also speaks of the tools and technologies driving this growth and lists mobile applications, social media, Big Data analytics, AI, machine learning, VR, and AR as the biggest contributors. India is also witnessing a growth in technology-driven start-ups in the travel space. These start-ups are influencing the industry with their niche offerings — complementing the traditional players in some ways and disrupting them in others. These players operate across various segments including online travel communities, travel planning, activities and experiences, travel guide services (emphasising on localised and authentic experiences), food delivery (during travel), niche/customised travel packages, digital communication platforms (e.g., for travellers and locals) and online accommodation booking.

The report enlists six key focus areas to win the tech-friendly traveller: Marketing to the modern-day traveller- through Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), following a mobile-first approach, leveraging social media, providing personalised offers and utilising User Generated Content (UGC).

Expedition 3.0 also predicts that with increased adoption of technology, the Indian travel and hospitality sector is expected to see more of innovative solutions and services such as AR city tours, smart tourism, robots for security and housekeeping, smart luggage, radio frequency identification (RFID)/facial recognition technology to open hotel doors, driverless/self-parking cars and air taxis over the foreseeable future.

Read the full report, here.

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As part of its mandate to further enhance India’s digital drive in the travel and tourism industry, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) is organizing the third edition of Digital Travel, Hospitality and Innovation Summit 2018, March 21-22, FICCI, Federation House, New Delhi.

The Summit will witness the presence of who’s who from the travel and hospitality industry and will cover various topics of discussion related to Future of Travel and Innovation. FICCI and KPMG India will also jointly unveil the knowledge paper ‘Expedition 3.0- Travel and Hospitality Gone Digital’ at the inaugural session of the event.

The Knowledge paper looks at unraveling the technology trends in the travel and hospitality segment that will help better define the future of the industry, how digitalization has impacted the evolution of this industry, and what can be achieved by overall technology inclusion across the stakeholders in the industry ecosystem.

The Summit will also offer an opportunity for travel startups through Travel Tech Launch Pad, a platform for the travel startups to learn from experts in the field of travel, exhibit their business ideas, and display their products and services, in addition to providing a unique opportunity to connect with right set of ecosystem partners. Several travel startups, hospitality and technology companies from across India and abroad will gather during the summit, in addition to the participation of leading investors and angel networks such as Waterbridge, Equanamity, Matrix Partners, Nucleas Partners, Indian Angel Network, Hyderabad Angel network, and Calcutta Angel Network.

For more information about the event, visit www.ficci-thtc.com.

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While the digital revolution engulfs functioning of all major sectors, digitization of travel and hospitality in India has also been gaining enough momentum. This will not only help better define the future of the industry and but will also impact the evolution of the sector in the country.

TravHQ spoke to Ashish Kumar, co-chairman of the Travel and Technology Committee at FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry), and Managing Partner at Agnitio Consulting, a travel advisory firm, about the digitization of travel in India and how the overall technology inclusion among stakeholders in the industry ecosystem can be realized.

1. What is the core objective of the committee this year?

First of all, as a representative of the industry body and an association that deals with governmental issues, we saw the growth of e-commerce in India – all kind of e-commerce. Today, travel is one of the largest contributor to e-commerce growth in the country. That includes the railway ticket distribution (IRCTC), so keeping that in mind, we saw that a couple of things need to happen. The number one objective was to see that the travel industry adapts to the changing technology and to the way e-commerce and online is affecting their day-to-day working. So, we wanted to see if we could contribute in some way to ease this process and for them to adapt and transfer into the next phase of travel. The second objective is that travel e-commerce is going through a lot of challenges, both from distribution, governance and statutory perspective. So, we wanted to highlight that to the government as a body, for them to adapt it under its policies.

If you look at e-commerce today, it’s not only the growth of ticket distribution or companies that have affected the holiday industry; it is also about the incoming foreign tourists, which the government in particular is interested in increasing. Today, if Indian travellers are behaving in a particular manner when it comes to choosing their holiday to go to an overseas destination, or within the country, you can well imagine that the people outside would want to travel to any destination adopting the same practice. So, we thought that for inbound tourism to grow, India had to become an ‘Internet Bookable’ destination. The current business model is very B2B. For instance, for a tour operator in Germany, handling passengers in India, he will have to contact existing tour operators in India. In order to refine this whole distribution process, this operator in Germany should be able to search holiday destinations anywhere in the world, including in India. A traveller overseas needs to be assured that it is safe to book online, and that all contents are available online. We work closely with the Ministry of Tourism on that to give inputs on new tourism policies, for instance, for the inbound business.

2. Do you see any issue that has been holding India back from becoming an Internet Bookable destination?

Let’s start from the source market – the overseas. The Government of India today has an overseas office that markets India as a destination. The first objective for these offices is to change the way they work; their role. They still work in a manner of the time when digitization hadn’t hit the world. So, one of the biggest challenge is to adapt India to a digital market in the global domain, which the government is getting conscious about and is outlining funds for these initiatives overseas. The marketing policy needs to become more digital savvy. So should the role of the tourism officer overseas.

The second challenge is to make content available on various sites in India. It could be the department of tourism’s website or even the general tour operator’s site. You would want an equivalent of an Indian OTA internationally to be able to search for content regarding India, or a tour operator will have to set up a global website so you can search sitting in any part of the world and then construct your own holiday package. This committee is advocating that from the inbound perspective.

3. So, is there a partnership possible between OTAs and the government to cater to this?

An alliance is certainly possible, where established tour operators could put up websites from a global perspective. They also have the strength of handling passengers. I would certainly want to see investments coming in, and at FICCI our focus is on digitization. The smaller agents across the country need help to adapt to the changing distribution pattern so at FICCI, we have forums and conclaves and speakers coming in to help them. For instance, on March 21, we have a conclave where you’ll have a 1.5- hour workshop conducted by Facebook on using social media to market your holidays. Social media is obviously playing a great role in travel. We are just helping people get adapted to such techniques.

4. Could you tell us more about this conclave and its objective?

This is the third edition of the Travel and Hospitality Technology Conclave that will be held on March 21 and 22. The first day as a format is delegated to speakers in leadership positions, overseas guest lectures, and other guest speakers slots. There are four to five relevant panels, and each of the panel has five prominent people, which is followed by an informal debate. The second day is focused on travel technology startups. FICCI plays a great role in this. We guide, mentor, incubate in some manner without being commercially involved, help them showcase their ideas. We invite applications from them, they register, and we select some out of them who pitch to a group of angel investors and venture capitalists at the conclave. This year, we have also aligned with the India Angel Network (IAN) to take this travel tech startup platform to the next level. There will be three very prominent people sharing their journey of their own travel tech startups, what it takes to succeed, and what startups should learn from their experience.

5. Going forward, what will be an important play for travel startups in capturing more consumers?

If you look at the travel industry and the way the consumer is moving, there are still gaps. Technology is moving at a rapid space, with artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality coming to the fore, and the day-to-day pressure for online travel companies to put time and technology spend in keeping their business running is immense. There is a play for these startups to concentrate on these processes, but they cannot be outside the current travel ecosystem. They will need to position themselves within the ecosystem to plug these gaps, go to larger players, get into a partnership role, work with them and provide the bigger operators with the missing links, because the bigger players can’t be spreading themselves across all areas. I see a role for tech startups to provide very specific activities and services that then get aligned to the larger travel ecosystem. I don’t see any travel tech startup start today and then suddenly become a big player, but they can align themselves towards a specific activity. I would urge the travel tech startups to pay attention to the inbound space, because that for me is still an open sky, and make processes that support the existing inbound industry.

6. What are some of the big changes we can expect in the travel space this year, in terms of policies?

With the Government of India’s own policy about regional connectivity in aviation, the UDAN policy, I certainly see the underutilized air strips and regional connectivity becoming much better. The moment air connectivity becomes better, you would be able to access certain regions, which will be a big boost to the domestic travel industry. The North East for instance is badly connected, and so are some areas in Central India. If you get to access these areas decently, traffic will go up automatically. I believe almost 60 percent of all people travelling in the country travel with a religious purpose. There are many well-established tourist circuits like the Tirupati, but there are many more that are ill-connected. If you connect them properly, they will become a Tirupati in their own right. Connectivity would certainly help boost pilgrimage traffic and help domestic industry growth. This will not so much affect the inbound industry, but the upheaval will come in terms of air distribution, because today the online travel industry has grown exponentially on the back of air tickets.

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Taking another step in its constant endeavours to catalyse the growth in India’s online travel industry, FICCI recently announced the launch of Travel Tech Launchpad. The objective is to provide a platform that encourages innovation and growth for travel startups. It will be hosted as part of Digital Travel, Hospitality and Innovation Summit which will offer startups to learn from and network with the experts in the industry. Leading investors have extended their hand to support the platform and share their meaningful inputs to the travel startups showcasing their products. The event is scheduled for March 23, 2017 and here are the industry experts and seasoned investors who will be judging and advising the startup pitches:

Dr. Apoorv Sharma

Dr. Apoorv Sharma is the Co-Founder of Venture Catalysts, India’s first seed investment and innovation platform. He holds a PhD in Incubation and has been involved in early stage investment since 2002. He established almost 10 incubators and accelerators. He was also actively associated in establishing various angel networks across India. Having led and mentored more than 50 early stage investments including OYO Rooms, Confirmtkt among others, he is always on the lookout for the next big idea.

Bhavanipratap Rana

Bhavanipratap is Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners and is responsible for sourcing, making and managing investments in India and Southeast Asia. He is a seasoned venture investor carrying experience of working across different geographies including US, India and Europe helping technology startups in their growth. Prior to Amadeus Capital Partners, he has worked as Investment Director with Intel Capital.

Girish Shivani

Girish Shivani is the Director at YourNest Angel Fund and carries close to two decades of diverse experience in IT consulting, Telecom, Media and Financial Services. YourNest is an investor in Wings Travel which acquired Bookmycab last year. Along with this, YourNest has also got portfolio companies providing marketing solutions and AI technologies. Girish has also worked with some of the leading names like Teradata and Bennett Coleman.

Karan Mohla

Karan Mohla is Executive Director at IDG Ventures India and is leading the India sector strategy in mobile and internet space. He has successfully completed 20 M&A and Capital Market transaction in US and India across sectors including technology, media, telecom, education, cleantech and infrastructure. He also led IDG Ventures India investment in leading OTA Yatra.com.

Manish Kheterpal

Manish Kheterpal is the Founder and Partner at WaterBridge Ventures. WaterBridge Ventures released a USD 15 million fund last year to invest in early stage startups and has got portfolio companies in education domain. A private equity veteran, Manish is interested in startups having technology at their core and carries strong experience of working at senior positions with Providence Equity Partners and Actis Capital LLP prior to starting WaterBridge Ventures.

Mayank Khanduja

Mayank Khanduja is Principal at SAIF Partners and has been investing in young, dynamic tech and mobile startups in India. Travel is among his key interest areas and he is an investor in some of the fast growing travel startups like Travel Triangle, Treebo Hotels and Auto Ninja among other companies. He has also worked with McKinsey and Co. India for five years.

Navin Honagudi

Navin Honagudi is the Investment Director at Kae Capital and invests in early stage companies bringing innovative solutions to fill market gaps. He has invested in areas such as Mobile Internet, Online marketplace, Local Services, SaaS, SMB Tech, Payments and B2B opportunities. Prior to Kae Capital, Navin has been associated with Reliance Ventures and has led investments in PayTM among other companies.

Parag Dhol

Parag Dhol is Managing Director at Inventus Capital Partners and actively works with startups in both India and Silicon Valley. Inventus Capital Partners currently has 27 portfolio companies including transportation companies MoveInSync and Savaari among many other startups in different industries. They were also an investor in Redbus before it was acquired by Naspers. Prior to Inventus Capital Partners, Parag was Associate Director with Intel Capital.

Prerna Bhutani

Prerna Bhutani is Partner at India Quotient identifying ideas and companies that don’t seem popular but hold huge potential. India Quotient has got investment across some popular ecommerce and transportation companies. Prior to India Quotient, Prerna has started and scaled her own businesses and leverages her learnings to help the portfolio companies.

The registrations for Travel Startup Launchpad are open for just few more days and the initiative is supported by brands like Agnitio Consulting LLP, Nucleus Partners and Charson Advisory. Travel Tech Launchpad will be hosted as a part of FICCI Digital Travel, Hospitality and Innovation Summit which is scheduled to be held on March 22 and 23, 2017 in New Delhi. You can find more details here.

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FICCI hosted the Travel & Hospitality Tech Conclave and gave us an amazing platform to host the second edition of Travel Startup Knockdown. Dozens of entries came in and finally yesterday, the eight shortlisted startups competed against each other to take the crown and be a part of Amadeus Next.

L to R: Kunal Jain, Co-Founder, Your Local Cousin and Sripad Vaidya, Co-Founder, Confirmtkt

Our panel of judges included Bart Bellers, Senior Advisor, Corporate Strategy, Amadeus Asia Pacific; Sunny Jindal, Co-Founder, TravHQ & Iffort; Aayush Jain, Principal at Unicorn India Ventures; Abhishek Vaish, Founder, Nucleus Partners and Ashish Kumar, Managing Partner at Agnitio Consultancy LLP. They announced Confirmtkt to be the winner of the 2^nd Travel Startup Knockdown. According to them, it wasn’t an easy decision to make and they were caught up between two after narrowing down from the finalists.

A large number of travellers rely on trains to travel in India and often have to wait till the last minute to find out if they have a confirmed ticket or not. Confirmtkt uses analytics to predict the possibility of a ticket being confirmed and also digs into a mine of data to suggest alternate combinations that can be booked at last minute.

We also invited our audience to vote for the startup that they loved the most and Your Local Cousin came out to be their favourite. While planning a trip, we look up places and experiences online but the data is often scattered and incomplete. We also seek help from our friends and relatives but the problem scales up if they aren’t familiar with the destination. Your Local Cousin allows travellers to connect with expert locals who know the place inside out to help the travellers easily plan their trip, avoid the tourist traps and save all the effort.

Here are some more images from the event:

Confirmtkt will be joining the startups that are already a part of Amadeus Next. You can know more about Amadeus Next here.

We would like to thank FICCI and Amadeus for supporting us in successfully hosting the Travel Startup Knockdown.

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The FICCI auditorium witnessed the Travel and Hospitality Tech Conclave 2016 fold with a huge round of applause from the leaders and participating organizations from the travel and technology sector. The two-day event saw some stirring discussions and prime concerns being debated upon. The panel discussion on the nuances of Content Marketing was exhilarating and the mojos had some key points to give away.

The panel included Sesh Seshadri, Director at Lonely Planet India; Aashish Chopra, Head Content Marketing at ixigo; Bhawna Grover, Head of Content at Goibibo and Dolly Bhasin, MD, SPH Consultancy & Eservices Pvt. Ltd. They gave insights on how content can be leveraged to promote brand name in the travel sector.

1-The art of storytelling

From a traveller’s perspective, everything comes down to destination. If the destination is worth it, he would undergo umpteen amounts of discomfort to get there. Similarly, if the content narrates the reality; the stark truth, so much so that if the experience gathered by just reading the content is enough an inspiration to pack your bags, then the mission has been accomplished.

Trying to sell the product isn’t the way to go. Curated content is a destination for the traveller. If they don’t relate to the brand, they would not opt it out. Selling dreams, experiences and adventures should be the core focus of the travel brands. And only good deliverable content could make it happen.

2-Attention of the consumer is all you have

Content marketing is a growth hack in this age. Travel brands should experiment and go beyond the usual marketing strategy. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are huge and chaotic. Driving the right content and the traction that it should attract seems like an uphill task on these social media platforms. However, if one captures the attention of the consumer, some hope of getting that content through him looks certain.

Share-worthy content is the prime key rather than consumable content in driving campaigns forward. Real-time engagement with contextual content can easily grab the eyeballs of users on social media and do wonders for brands. Brands need to keep on experimenting with the tonality, theme and format of the content to connect with their consumers. Though in some instances like with videos, the ratio of failures would be on a higher side, with only 2 out of 10 videos getting valuable returns to a travel brand.

3-The power of user generated content

The content shouldn’t be hammered. Let users be the end provider of the content because that’s where we want the impact to happen. And by this travel brands can deliver engaging content that creates likeability and brand image. The visual content drives maximum amount of traction in the hospitality sector.

Images are very powerful sources to draw attention. The contributed images play a major role here because that’s how the reality is perceived. Hence, meta search engines like Tripadvisor and GoIbibo let users contribute visually curated content. The way forward is to get the community to participate.

4-The emerging trends on new platforms

The right kind of content gets the right kind of traction on a right platform. That being said, the social media has expanded its reach to the millennial. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are not the sole propagating areas and travel brands should go beyond just them. The new emerging platforms that are unheard of as means to expand the brands reach could include Wikipedia and TED.

TED is a rather interactive platform where innovation meets expansion. A particular product or a campaign could draw n-number of views on TED given its marketing strategy focuses on the innovation and experience.

5-Popular formats to be applied

The marketers talked about how not just purist content should be the only focus in driving traveller’s imagination. They talked how infographics, GIFs and vine videos could provide engaging content as they drew the attention of the viewer. Thumbnail image in a video plays a great role in catching the attention of a user. Square video formats have to be propelled forward in an m-commerce platform dominated space if the brands want the content to go viral. Being said this; the attention span in a chaotic space is very less which lays emphasis on streaming captivating content in first 2-3 seconds. Else, the marketer loses the viewer.

We will be coming up with updates of interesting discussions that took place at FICCI Conclave. Stay tuned!

The post “Content Marketing is a growth hack at ixigo”- Aashish Chopra, Head Content Marketing, ixigo appeared first on TravHQ.

As the countdown for second Startup Knockdown commences, the finalists gear up to pitch their disruptive start-up ideas in front of our judges.We are hosting this session in Delhi at FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) and the winning start-up will be backed by Amadeus Next, an Amadeus initiative that will help the start-up reach its potential while offering technology, reach and funding. The whole idea is to bring these innovators together to provide them with a bundle of opportunities in terms of media recognition, networking and potential investor access.The panel that will be judging the entries include:

Sunny Jindal: Co-Founder at Iffort and TravHQ

Sunny Jindal is the Director and Co-Founder at Iffort and TravHQ. Iffort is a full-spectrum digital and social media agency based out of New Delhi, India. TravHQ is an online media portal that offers information, news, insights and reviews about the travel industry, focussing primarily on the intersection of technology, digital marketing and start-ups across SEA/APAC region. Sunny holds a Masters degree from Northampton University, and his vision helps in executing the project deliveries at Iffort and TravHQ with a process-oriented methodology. He is an avid traveller and loves exploring offbeat destinations when he’s not working. His love for travel has taken him to South-East Asia, Europe and many places across India. He’s a techno-traveller and believes that technology can add tremendous value to his experience.

Bart Bellers: Senior Advisor, Corporate Strategy, Amadeus Asia Pacific

Bart is an experienced business executive and passionate out-of-the-box thinker who has successfully led commercial and innovation initiatives at the leading edge of technology. His credo is: “Think Different” and “Just Do It”. Bart is Senior Advisor, Corporate Strategy at Amadeus Asia Pacific and his role are to lead new business opportunities and seed innovative initiatives in the region. He has been with Amadeus for over 12 years and held management positions in e-Travel, Customer Delivery, Business Development & Innovation. Prior to Amadeus, Bart built up a strong digital, technology and commercial background in the ICT industry and has worked for several start-ups focusing on the development of e-business solutions.

Aayush Jain: Principal at Unicorn India Ventures

Aayush Jain, a Principal at Unicorn India Ventures comes with over 7 years of experience in corporate and product strategy, capital raise, business/corporate development and M&As across sectors including technology, media, cloud, digital, consumer and education. Aayush heads Unicorn’s Delhi operations and is always eager to partner with, mentor and motivate energetic and smart entrepreneurs who trust in technology as a means to disrupt various sectors. Prior to this, Aayush was Head of Corporate Strategy and M&A at Essel Shyam, India’s largest technology-led managed services provider to the broadcasting industry. He was instrumental in expanding company’s broadcasting operations to Southeast Asia and in launching a cloud-based digital distribution product platform for the company. Apart from this, he’s an avid traveller and enjoys playing golf in free time.

Abhishek Vaish: Founder, Nucleus Partners-Private Equity and M&A Advisory Firm

Abhishek has over eleven years of rich experience in managing fund raisings, IPOs, and Mergers & Acquisitions in India, UK, and Europe. He is currently an entrepreneur and is further helping other fellow entrepreneurs in achieving business growth by raising capital or through Mergers & Acquisitions. He has been an advisor to quite a few travel start-ups in India as well. He is a chartered accountant and a commerce graduate from Delhi University. He has previously worked with Goldman Sachs, both as an Investment Banker and a Private Equity Investor for over five years, and worked across various sectors around the world. He has worked on transactions worth over USD 1.25 trillion so far.

Ashish Kumar: Managing Partner at Agnitio Consultancy LLP

Ashish Kumar is a travel and hospitality veteran with over 37 years of experience in the travel sector. Ashish is the Managing Partner of Agnitio Consulting LLP which provides an end to end advisory cum operational implementation support in a partnering approach to organizations. Ashish is a pioneer in driving both revenue side enhancements and cost optimizations in companies delivering sustainable value. He is the driving force in the travel industry in a big way as well. He conceptualized and led the implementation of the technology in a large number of companies such as International Travel House and understood how technology should work to deliver business value. He advises many travel companies in a strategic capacity as well.

Travel startups can find details about the competing start-ups of Startup Knockdown in Delhi here. You can write to us at editor@travhq.com for more details.

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This space age has been taken by content storm. Content has evolved over the years bringing about a huge metamorphosis in the way we sell and promote brands. Travel industry spiked a decade ago scaling new heights and content has leveraged it into an avenue yet to be explored. After the huge success of content marketing panel discussion at OTM Mumbai, this sure will reckon some new takeaways.

We bring you content mojos where they will share insights for potential innovators on how to use content to carve their brand image. The panel will feature Sesh Seshadri; Director at Lonely Planet India, Aashish Chopra; Head Content Marketing at ixigo, Bhawna Grover; Head of Content at Goibibo and Dolly Bhasin; Gold medallist Electronics and Communication engineer.

Sesh Seshadri

Sesh Seshadri is a big name in publishing sector and his association with Lonely Planet India as a Director makes him an effluent speaker to gain insights on the travel industry. His career of four decades spans across publishing and consulting. His pivotal role to carve a niche market for Lonely Planet in India is laudable. The brand emerged out to be a huge success and launched 37 titles under his leadership. His current role is to create a sustained and successful presence for Lonely Planet in India adding value to their future developments. His long term association with Oxford University Press has placed him as a ‘ninja’ in the publishing sector. He then went ahead to work for Dorling Kindersley India as Executive Director. Furthermore, he was the Founder Director at Textech that specializes in providing academic solutions in the form of books and ebooks.

Aashish Chopra

Aashish Chopra heads Content Marketing at ixigo. From ideation to execution he has been instrumental in making video marketing a growth hack for ixigo. He is a celebrated and an award-winning video marketer who believes in creating compelling content or not creating any at all. He is the mega mind behind one of the most talked about video marketing campaign (Campaign Asia) that went viral and got shared as branded Facebook post. His early work comprised of visual content marketing, with several Infographics going viral on Slideshare. Aashish started a web services company in Canada and learnt in early days the skill set it takes to be an entrepreneur. As early as grade 8, he was designing websites and helping others with new tools and technology and continues to do the same.

Bhawna Grover Bagai

Bhawna Grover Bagai is the Head of Content at Goibibo, where she is responsible for driving company’s content strategy across its mobile and web platforms. Bhawna’s works on setting processes and policies for sustainable and quality content while marketing it through the right media channels across travel domain. The most interesting part of her work at Goibibo is using technology to solve SEO and dynamic content problems while getting more user generated content – both textual and visual. Bhawna has more than 10 years of experience in the media and content industries. Prior to working with Goibibo, she has worked with brands like MakeMyTrip, Times Group and Praxis Technologies. While starting out, she worked as a journalist for Times of India. Bhawna is a postgraduate in Journalism and Mass Media and also holds a Master of Arts in English (Literature).

Dolly Bhasin

Dolly Bhasin is a veteran in travel space and extends her expertise as a consultant in Hospitality and Tourism industry. She is a Gold Medallist Electronics and Communications Engineer with a 3-decade experience in Information and Communication Technology. She handled ICT operations for leading hotel groups including Le Meridian, Welcome group and Sarovar etc. She pursued specialisation in Business Administration of Travel & Tourism and subsequently Nottingham University scholarship. She created the first digital magazine INDIAN HOSPITALITY in 1999 and was a consultant to one of the first travel show MANZILE ANJANEE in the same year. Her notable works include destination promotion for Chamba, Kota, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand and projects including ANANDA SPA. She mainly focused on developing software and networking strategies pan hospitality sector.

We hope to hear from them some interesting insights at this session powered by FICCI.

The post TravHQ puts together a panel of Content Marketers to stir discussion at FICCI Travel and Hospitality Tech Conclave 2016 appeared first on TravHQ.

Following the success of our first event at OTM Mumbai, we had announced the second Start-up Knockdown in association with FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) & Amadeus. This initiative highlights the early stage innovators in the travel industry that hold sustainable growth potential. This edition of Startup Knockdown gives a chance to the winning travel startup to be associated with Amadeus, as a part of Amadeus Next that puts the technology, funds and its reach to facilitate the expansion of travel startups over the Asia Pacific domain.

Entries flooded our editor’s desk and went through a stringent screening. We have shortlisted the start-ups that will compete at the session to be hosted in Delhi at FICCI Travel and Hospitality technology conclave on March 19, 2016, in association with FICCI and Amadeus Next.

Here’s a callout of the start-ups that will pit themselves in front of our judges

BnBNation

BnBNation is an aggregator platform of Bed & Breakfast (BnB) accommodations that support the “Incredible India” theme, to serve foreign and domestic tourists. Their primary strategy is to unify the bed and breakfast accommodation business for domestic and foreign tourists thus enabling them to easily search, book, pay, and review the Indian homely stay experience.

ConfirmTkt

Confirmtkt is an IRCTC train PNR predictor website which employs an algorithm to derive predictions of IRCTC PNR based on prior trends. It is a one stop online destination to get confirmed tickets for all your railway ticketing purposes. Its formula also discovers alternative route options if the possibility of confirmation is low on a route. Travellers can use Confirmtkt for searching trains PNR, verifying ticket booking status before booking railway ticket on IRCTC.

Your Local Cousin

Three cousins founded Your Local Cousin, the “Airbnb for travel advice”, which is part of the peer-to-peer on-demand sharing economy. Your Local Cousin connects travellers who are looking for customized travel advice with vetted locals for conversations over text, messaging and video-conference.  ‘Local Cousins’ also create customized itineraries and maps.  The startup has over 600 ‘Local Cousins’ in 80 countries who keep 70% of what the traveler pays. In essence, Your Local Cousin adds the most human element to travel planning – communicating with an actual person who understands your interests and travel style.

CurrencyKart

While travelling abroad, a person stumbles upon the most tedious task of Forex. CurrencyKart is an online marketplace which aims to easily connect the money changers and travellers. It enables the RBI approved dealers and international travellers to buy and sell the foreign exchange products online at an attractive price. Also, their free delivery service ensures that the foreign exchange process is quick and hassle free.

Bugyal

Bugyal is an innovative platform that brings travel and social at one place. It enables a traveller to plan, share, book and query about a trip. It assimilates travel experiences and lets you share the traveled place’s itinerary in your lifetime with friends/travellers. It helps you record travel memories and frame itinerary by highlighting Likes, Tips, Map-Tip, Attractions and Activities performed, what to visit, what to avoid, days stayed at a Destination with Photos.

EasyGroupBook

EasyGroupBook is an online portal that aims to make hotel bookings for events easy. With a network of hotels in the system, EasyGroupBook offers event attendees and group travellers with lodging options to choose from. It provides a cloud-based solution, thus enabling all the event attendees to access it from anywhere and see all participating hotels for an event, the negotiated rates per hotel class and type, the room types, and any special provisions. hotels’ rates, room type and any special provision.

PostFridays

PostFridays diversify in travel segment by collating data on recreational activities that can be pursued by a traveller. It enables the consumer to choose and book instantly from a curated list of tours, activities, workshops and skill-building sessions compiled by a network of experts.

Ziphop

Ziphop aims at making the journey of travellers beautiful by offering them multiple commuting options from one place to another. It provides self-drive vehicles for rent in Goa, Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Cochin and Munnar. The range includes both bikes and cars like Harley Davidsons, Royal Enfields, Avengers, Pulsars, FZs and scooters like Activas and others. The pricing is done on an hourly basis and it also provides the flexibility of pick-up locations.

These finalists will face breakneck competition at the conclave in front of our panel of judges on March 19, 2016. If you want to watch them pitch live, register for to the FICCI Travel Tech Conclave here.

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To discuss and deliberate on the technological advancements in the field of Travel and Hospitality and to facilitate the communication and exchange of ideas between key industry stakeholders, FICCI will be hosting “Travel & Hospitality Tech Conclave”. The event will be hosted on March 18-19, 2016 and will be India’s first dedicated event on Travel & Hospitality technology.

This event will bring together global leaders and upstart innovators from the space to come together to secure new business opportunities and network with key industry stakeholders.

It will feature discussions on the evolution of distribution systems, expectations of the modern tech savvy travellers, evolutions of travel marketplaces, role of technology in hotels of the future and the future of aviation in India. Along with that, industry experts will discuss about the use of content & social media in travel industry, changing scenario of metasearch and evolutions in payment systems.

Last few years have seen a rise in number of startups in travel industry and a large fraction of the business models are dependent on funds to scale up. The event will feature a panel for such startups on how they should approach the investors for funding and what are the expectations of investors while backing a startup.

This event will see participation from prominent speakers like Anil Parashar, President & CEO , Interglobe Technology Quotient, Prashant Aroor, CEO & MD, Mango Hotels, Samyukth Sridharan, President & COO, Cleartrip, Sesh Seshadri, Director, Lonely Planet India, Michael Lyngdoh, Co Founder , Tripoto, Alok Bajpai, Co-Founder & CEO , IXIGO, Chetan Kapoor, Research Analyst, Asia Pacific, Phocuswright, Hari Nair, Founder & CEO, HolidayIQ and many more prominent personalities from India’s travel industry. The experts will discuss on different topics to give the visitors actionable insights.

We are proud to be the associate partners for this event. We will be hosting the second Startup Knockdown as a part of this event which will invite promising travel startups to pitch their ideas in front of the who’s who of the India’s travel industry. The winning startup will get to be a part of Amadeus Next, an initiative by Amadeus to support the travel tech startups in the region. Along with this, the startups will get wide media recognition, networking opportunities and potential investor access. You can find more details about Startup Knockdown here.

To find the complete event schedule or to register as a visitor, head to ficci-thtc.com

The post FICCI to host “Travel & Hospitality Tech Conclave” on March 18-19 appeared first on TravHQ.