In what seems like perhaps the first travel-tech conference of 2019 in India, the Travolution Asian Summit will be organized at Le Méridien, Windsor Place in New Delhi on 15th January, Tuesday. The Asian leg of the Travolution Summit is being organized by Jacobs Media Group, one of the largest Travel & Hospitality B2B media companies in Europe.

The summit will feature sessions on Market Insights Through Data and Analytics, Aviation and Technology and Tour operators and suppliers. Some prominent names from the travel industry across India and Asia will be present at the day-long event.

The pioneer of online travel in India, Deep Kalra founder of MakeMyTrip will be featuring in the inaugural session. Karla has been vocal about online hotel bookings leading the next round of growth for MakeMyTrip.

In a recent conversation at WiT Singapore 2018, Deep Karla had quoted, “We have so many new people, both young and those who have never bought [travel] online before, coming to buy online. Every year, we have 10 million youngsters who get into their first jobs in the country and for these folks, being online is almost second nature”.

Kei Shibata, Co-founder & CEO at Venture Republic Global Pte Ltd. is also expected to speak at the summit. Venture Republic runs “Travel.jp” and “Hotel.jp” two of the leading online travel websites in Japan.

CEO of Yatra.com, Dhruv Shringi will also be participating in the summit. Dhruv has been instrumental in growing the company from its launch in 2006 to over 2400+ people, making it one of the largest online travel agencies in India.

For sponsorships and delegate bookings please visit: travolutionasiansummit.com

The post Partner Event Update: Travolution Asian Summit to be organized in New Delhi on 15th Jan 2019 appeared first on TravHQ.

Taipei-based startup TravelSkope, provider of an All-In-One Online Travel Agency (OTA) Solution, is pleased to announce the closing of its Series Seed+ Round, totaling $297,000 USD.

Funding has come from angel investors across Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and New Zealand. Notable among them is Venture Republic Global (VRG), Japan’s leading travel search engine, Nelson Wang, General Partner at Zino Ventures, Shannon Chaluangco, Lichi Wu, industry veteran and individual investor, Yani Lee, ecosystem builder and advisors to several accelerators and startup programs, such as Asia Beat, TechCrunch ShengZhen, Shift and Barsa, Andrew Vranjes and Tom Duncan of KDV Holdings, and Sung-Min Chung, a seasoned technology investment banking and private equity veteran based in Hong Kong.

The backers’ bullish outlook on Southeast Asia’s travel sector, notably Southeast Asia’s favorable demographic trends, rapid urbanization and rising income coupled with the company’s unique business model, providing a “Shopify” solution for launching OTAs (online travel agencies) were the primary reasons why the investors decided to back the Taiwanese start-up.

Travel Skope Founding Team

Kei Shibata, CEO of VRG, reiterated this point, remarking “Having operated Travel.jp in the OTA realm for over 15 years, we have yet to see a business model as innovative as TravelSkope’s. We see a real opportunity for the team to fundamentally change the travel industry in emerging markets.”

The company plans to utilize the proceeds to establish an office in Singapore, where it is incorporated, and expand into Southeast Asian market. Already, the company has recruited Tiffany Wu from Pinehurst Advisors, the company’s seed round investor, to serve as CFO. TravelSkope will use the funding to land additional partners in Southeast Asia and build on traction beyond their native Taiwan. Currently, the company counts one of Taiwan’s two major airlines and a top three Taiwanese e-commerce companies as clients.

Unique about TravelSkope’s turn-key All-in-One OTA Solution is that it allows its partners and clients to launch an OTA “overnight.” For any partner with existing consumer traffic, TravelSkope allows the clients to add a new revenue stream almost as effortlessly as turning on a virtual tap. TravelSkope offers a portfolio of modules, e.g. car rental, hotel booking, airline ticketing, etc., allowing its partners to choose the services they want to offer. The technology stack is developed entirely in-house and is priced at a fraction of the cost of industry incumbents.

Peter Chen, co-founder & President of the company, stated, “With our software, All-in-One OTA Solution, we are leveling the playing field for media and e-commerce companies to go head-to-head with existing travel agencies and OTA. Currently, media companies are only able to monetize through referrals, but going forward, media companies would be able to capture the full economic value of a travel-related transaction.”

Founded in 2013, TravelSkope previously launched Hellowings.com and Savvytickets.com, and received Seed funding in 2016 from Pinehurst Advisors, KK Fund and COENT Venture Partners.

The post TravelSkope.com raises US$297,000 in Seed+ Funding to tackle Southeast Asia appeared first on TravHQ.