Another interesting month and many more stories to share. We turned one this month, you can read a brief note about the journey here. We also put together a list of some of the most interesting startups we learned about in the past one year which you can find here. This month we also travelled to Kolkata and Hyderabad to host Startup Knockdown+ which turned out to be huge success. Here are some major stories from the month of July:

Airlines Technology team collecting the award from Shivam Shah

1- PSA Group invests in TravelerCar

Automobile industry as we know it now is going to be disrupted and that is why the car companies are expanding their footprint into other domains. In one such move, PSA Group has invested into car sharing company TravelerCar. It offers low cost parking to travellers at airports and stations or for free if they choose to rent out their cars to incoming travellers.

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2- Guide on alternate marketing platforms for travel brands

Facebook is a great marketing platform but as the competition rises, it is getting increasingly tough to promote your brand on Facebook. While it still continues to hold relevance for the brands, there are some other platforms that brands should explore to boost their visibility.

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3- Airlines Technology and Izifiso emerge as the winners of Startup Knockdown Kolkata

Earlier this month, we hosted the Kolkata edition of Startup Knockdown in association with TTF. After filtering through the pitches, all the judges picked Izifiso to be the winner. Izifiso is a platform that connects various domain experts that host educational tours with students and schools. Airlines Technology, an NDC aggregator was selected by Amadeus to be a part of Amadeus Next.

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4- Pokemon Go is doing what Google Maps planned to do

Pokemon Go, a location based game, is making headlines all over the world. It has surpassed all descriptions of ‘viral’ and people are jumping on it even before official launch in many parts of the world. However, there is another aspect to it. The game holds the potential to drive real world footfall and various local businesses are leveraging that. We take a closer look.

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5- Yatra to merge with Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corporation

Yatra Online announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement with Terrapin 3 to combine. The deal values Yatra at USD 218 million. The combined entity will continue to be led by Yatra co-founder Dhruv Shringi. This not only fuels Yatra with capital but also helps them move towards IPO without the uncertainty of list pricing.

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6- Travelibro plans to make scattered vacation photos a thing of past

Our vacation photos are usually dumped into a single folder to be filtered sometime in future. Some of them make it to social media platforms while other continue to sit there for playing the guessing game sometime in future. Travelibro addresses that by recording your trips while on the go without requiring any inputs. This allows for logging the trips in a better way while enabling other travellers to draw inspiration from the trips.

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7- Routern, Guidezie and India Outtabox emerged on top in Startup Knockdown Hyderabad

Followed by the Kolkata edition of the event, the Hyderabad edition of the event saw more startups in travel space. India Outtabox was the common choice of judges. It focusses on offering highly customised tours to inbound travellers. Routern was selected by Amadeus to be a part of Amadeus Next. Guidezie has been invited by Hyderabad Angels for elevated round of pitching.

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8- Expedia acquired travel photography platform Trover

Expedia has acquired Trover, a platform where travellers share their photographs to inspire other travellers. It offers beautiful travel content and social experience and could be a good addition to Expedia’s portfolio.

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9- Namah Resorts hosts an exciting blogger engagement campaign

Influencer marketing, if done right, can help travel brands boost their online presence. Namah, a luxury resort operated by DS Group. The campaign was themed around International Yoga Day in sync with the brand’s message of health and wellness and it portrayed it very well.

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10- Tesla and Mobileye parting ways

Tesla and Mobileye have announced that they won’t continue to work together for the driverless car technology on Tesla’s cars. Mobileye is working with many other manufacturers and has recently announced a partnership with BMW and Intel.

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The post July 2016 round-up: Electric cars and Pokemon Go appeared first on TravHQ.

One of the most anticipated tech event globally, Google I/O, concluded recently with many new interesting announcements for the travel tech ecosystem. On the other side, we are gearing up to host a serious of Startup Knockdown+ events to give more power to travel startups. There was a lot more happening over the month that made for interesting discussions. Just in case you missed them over the month, here are the top stories from May.

1- Facebook brings new ad options for travel brands

A large number of travel brands rely on Facebook for advertising their products and Facebook identifies that. To improve the experience for their audience and give them more control, Facebook recently introduced new Dynamic Ads for Travel to display better tailored ads to people interested in travelling. The social network has also introduced the Dynamic Ad option for Instagram.

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2- Startup Knockdown is coming back with lot more for innovators in travel

We are bringing Travel Startup Knockdown+ in association with TTF to offer the innovators in travel industry a platform to showcase their get in the spotlight. The events will be hosted in four cities with different partners who will be brining lot more opportunities to the table. The registrations for Kolkata event are open with names like Amadeus, NASSCOM, Calcutta Angels Network, Agnitio and many others willing to take the promising ones to next level. You can register at startupknockdown.travhq.com.

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3- Simon Akeroyd shares what Amadeus has learned working with startups in Amadeus Next

Amadeus introduced Amadeus Next last year to nurture a community of travel tech startups in APAC. Amadeus Next has been operating like a startup itself and according to Simon, VP, Corporate Strategy and Business Development, Amadeus Asia Pacific, this has brought in many new learnings for Amadeus. We spoke with him to know more.

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4- Go-Jek associates with Indonesia’s largest local transportation company

Go-Jek, Uber’s local rival in Indonesia, is associating with Blue Bird, country’s largest taxi and transportation company. Go-Jek will allow Blue Bird to move ahead on the technology curve while gaining access to a large fleet of cars to offer through its platform. This announcement came only a few weeks after Blue Bird was in news for strongly opposing the operation of other major cab hailing companies in the market, Uber and Grab.

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5- Hyperloop One successfully conducts first test in Nevada

An idea that was being termed radical not long back saw the light of day in form of this first prototype. Hyperloop One is still far from what it has to be but the recently concluded test shows that ground transportation might indeed become fast, very fast in future. It is being termed as ‘Concorde of ground transportation’ and claims to bring down the cost of a 400 mile journey to USD 20.

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6- Google I/O brings daydreaming and chatty bots

Google I/O 2016 was sure to have a lot for anyone who loves technology. This year, Google announced improved Android Pay, more options in Android Auto along with the ability to use on phone, a new VR ecosystem called Daydream, a new chatting app called Allo along with a smart assistant accessible through it and Instant Apps for Android devices.

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7- Alex Lopoukhine shares how Viator cracked the activity code

Tours and activities aren’t easy to distribute and only few players in the market seem to have cracked the code. Viator is one big name that is strong in the activity space. We had a chat with Alex Lopoukhine, Director, Business Development at Viator to know the key.

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8- Should travel brands start exploring the chat bots immediately?

Chat bots are certainly being seen as the next big thing in travel industry and as AI technologies improve, they will offer more features. However the big question is should travel brands, especially the young ones with limited resources, start exploring the possibilities immediately? The guest story tries to answer that along with some more possibilities that can be explored.

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9- Skyscanner brought in a chat bot and we took it for a spin

While we were weighing down the pros and cons, Skyscanner went ahead and decided to try what they can do with bots, now that Facebook has opened up Messenger to third party developers. We tried out the bot to see what it offers and what it doesn’t.

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10- SITA and ShoCard plan to change authentication process at airports

SITA and ShoCard are working on a prototype based on Blockchain technology to eliminate the need of producing physical identification documents at every security checkpoint. The identity would be stored on a bitcoin blockchain and a token generated by the passenger would allowed for validation of ID against the validation data stored on the database.

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The post May 2016 round-up: Faster transportation and smarter airports appeared first on TravHQ.

The news coming from all over the world keeps on getting interesting. The highlight of this month was the first ever Phocuswright event in India and now their team is gearing up for the next event in Europe. In other news, Facebook introduced some new interesting tools that travel brands can leverage and the fight between cab aggregators and regulators over surge pricing continues in India. In case you missed them over the month, here are the top stories from the month of April:

1- QuadLabs Technologies won the first APAC Travel Innovator of the Year at Phocuswright India

QuadLabs Technologies won at the highly acclaimed Travel Innovation Summit at Phocuswright India for their new travel management platform Travog. Self-drive car rental company Myles was the runner up. Audio Compass won the People’s Choice and Amadeus Next award.

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2- Android Auto arrived in India

Google earlier introduced its in-car infotainment system called Android Auto and recently introduced it in 18 new countries including India. It can simplify a large number of in-car controls by bringing familiar Android interface to your car and using the data from your device. Travel brands can explore the possibilities and make the best out of Android Auto.

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3- Here is what Facebook F8 had for travel brands

During the recently concluded Facebook F8 Developer conference, Facebook had a lot to offer. At this year’s event, they announced APIs for live video, Instant Articles for everyone, chat bots for Messenger and an open source project for VR videos.

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4- Regulators vs cab companies again on surge pricing

After being in news for fighting against each other, the cab companies are now in the crosshair of various state governments. Indian state of Karnataka announced a ban on surge pricing and Delhi followed. Uber started campaigning against the same with personalised mails being sent to users.

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5- YouTube made live videos more interesting

Live videos were kicked off by Periscope but now YouTube and Facebook seem to be the favourite platform for live. Now with 360 degree cameras getting affordable, YouTube has gone a step further and introduced 360 degree live videos. This will not only add a new format but also attract more young tech savvy users to the platform.

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6- LeEco showcases electric driverless car

LeEco, a relatively less known mobile manufacturer from China and an investor in Faraday Future, has showcased an electric car that is autonomous. Until now, most of the developments in autonomous car technologies were coming from the west but this Chinese company seems to have aimed directly at Tesla.

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7- Highlights from the keynote of Lee McCabe at Phocuswright India

Lee McCabe, Global Head of Travel, Facebook talked about how media consumption is changing and what businesses need to keep in mind to cater to mobile first customers. He shared interesting insights on how mobile is affecting travel industry and where brands are lagging behind.

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8- Airbnb announced ‘Live There’ campaign along with new features

Airbnb recently announced its largest brand campaign called ‘Live There’ to inspire travellers to experience the hospitality of local hosts. Along with the new campaign, they introduced new features including Bespoke Matching for finding suitable rentals, neighbourhood matching and guidebooks.

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9- Raghav Gupta, India Country Manager, BlaBlaCar talks about future of ridesharing in India

Carsharing has recently started to pick up in India as vehicle ownership costs continue to grow and public transport continues to lag. BlaBlaCar, the world’s largest long distance ridesharing company started operations in India only a while back and has been received well by travellers. We speak with Raghav Gupta to know more.

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10- Yogendra Vasupal shares how Stayzilla is driving the trend of homestays in India

Alternative accommodation is a relatively new concept in India and people have started opening up to the idea only recently. Stayzilla is one brand that is heavily investing its efforts to drive this change. Yogendra Vasupal, CEO, Stayzilla shared more details about how it is being done.

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The post April 2016 round-up: Smarter cars and simpler transport appeared first on TravHQ.

Another month into our journey and we have got lot more stories to share. The highlight of this month has to be the 2^nd Travel Startup Knockdown hosted during the FICCI Travel & Hospitality Tech Conclave and now we are looking forward to attending Phocuswright India in April. In other news, American car maker GM acquired a startup working on driverless technology and the fight between cab hailing companies in India turned uglier. In case you missed, here are the top stories from the month of March:

1- Confirmtkt and Your Local Cousin emerge as winners of 2^nd Travel Startup Knockdown

We hosted the 2^nd Travel Startup Knockdown in association with FICCI and Amadeus where Confirmtkt and Your Local Cousin won the Judges’ Choice and People’s Choice awards respectively. Confirmtkt will now be joining Amadeus Next which will give them support from travel insiders and access to technology that is at the heart of travel industry.

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2- GM announced acquisition of Cruise Automation

General Motors has been actively forging partnerships to speed up the progress on driverless cars and moving forward in the same direction, it has announced that it will be buying Cruise Automation, a Silicon Valley startup developing technologies for driverless cars.

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3- Tripoto launched AI based concierge service

Industry experts have indicated that we will see an increase in use of chat as a medium for providing travel services. Going a step further in the same direction, Tripoto has launched a chat based travel assistant which uses AI to answer travel related queries and offer information.

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4- Snapdeal opens up its app for redBus, Zomato and Cleartrip

Snapdeal has opened up its app to redBus, Zomato and Cleartrip to enable its users to book tickets and order food directly from its app. Building a strong user base and retaining them is a major challenge in travel industry and this move will help the travel brands leverage Snapdeal’s reach to sell their products.

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5- Chetan Kapoor, Research Analyst-Asia Pacific, Phocuswright shares insight on APAC travel market

Ahead of Phocuswright’s first event in Asia, we spoke with Chetan Kapoor to learn more about the changing landscape of travel in Asia Pacific region.

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6- Travel brands might lose visibility on Instagram

Instagram, a popular marketing channel for travel brands, is changing the sort order of posts from chronological to show the best posts first. While Instagram has done this to deal with the increasing volume of content being shared on the platform and boost relevant content, this would also mean that brands and individuals will lose out on the easy visibility they enjoyed and will now have to fight for it.

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7- Concorde days might be coming back without the high costs

A Denver based startup that is a part of Y Combinator plans to build a 40 seater jet which will be capable of flying at Mach 2.2 (1450 mph) while minimising the challenges like sound and high cost. Their team comes with strong experience in the industry and Virgin has also decided to join the project and help in development and testing.

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8- Ola acquires mobile payment startup Qarth

Ola introduced the Ola money feature for cab payments but after realising the potential mobile payment technologies hold, launched it as a separate service that can be used for other payments. Now it announced the acquisition of mobile payment startup Qarth to further boost Ola money and stay competitive in this space.

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9- Uber plans to invest more in India

The fight between cab hailing services in India is fierce and to strengthen its position, Uber might be investing more capital in the Indian market. Recently Uber also filed a lawsuit against its prime rival Ola accusing of adopting unfair practices and creating a large number of fake bookings on Uber.

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The post March 2016 round-up: Driverless cars and humanless chat appeared first on TravHQ.