Sharing is the future. We don’t want to own assets anymore, we just want to have access to them when needed. The earlier brands adapt to this behaviour, the better it is for them. Toyota has made a move in this direction and is now looking at helping people share cars. In order to do so, Toyota Motor Corporation will establish a Mobility Services Platform (MSPF) to collaborate with various service providers. The MSPF will have various functions to support mobility services, and leverage the Toyota Smart Center (TSC), the Toyota Big Data Center, and financial services.

Shigeki Tomoyama, President of Toyota’s in-house Connected Company stated: “As a mobility service platform provider, by collaborating with various companies and services, we would like to help create a new mobility society in order to offer safer and more convenient mobility to our customers”

The key highlight of this new development is the key, or rather the lack of it. Toyota has introduced a Smart Key Box that owners can install in their cars without any modification. Anyone sharing the car will be a sent a code through an app which will be authenticated via Bluetooth when they bring their phone close to the car. The access time and duration will be managed on the basis of booking time.

For sharing services, this eliminates the need of physically handling the keys or the controlled area network systems used by most rental companies. The idea of replacing car keys with phones isn’t exactly fresh and Volvo announced a similar feature on certain car models in the past to enable sharing through Sunfleet. However, the solution offered by Toyota can be retrofitted to existing vehicles enabling easy adoption and implementation.

The technology will be put to test in a limited pilot in San Francisco starting January 2017 in association with car sharing service Getaround. Last month the Mirai Creation Investment Limited Partnership, a fund in which Toyota participates, provided strategic investment to Getaround.

“Our goal at Getaround has always been to empower people to car-share everywhere,” said Sam Zaid, Getaround’s Founder and CEO. “Integrating our experience and purpose-built car-sharing technology with Toyota’s activities across mobility services opens up new opportunities to Toyota customers and the rapidly growing car-sharing market.”

By easing the sharing process, Toyota will be able to get more people to share their vehicles while allowing them to recover some of their ownership costs. In markets like US where a large number of vehicles are leased, people will be more open to the idea of sharing their cars. Many other automobile companies are exploring the sharing space recognising the opportunities. Toyota is further planning to get more people to share their vehicles by creating a new financial product to enable people to pay off their car lease with car-sharing programs.

The post Toyota has got big plans to be a part of the sharing economy appeared first on TravHQ.

China based short term rental platform Tujia.com International has agreed to acquire homestay businesses of Ctrip and Qunar as part of a strategic agreement. With this acquisition, the homestay channels of Ctrip and Qunar along with their operation teams and entire business will be merged into Tujia. Earlier this year, Tujia also acquired rival Mayi from 58.com Inc. in June. This acquisition will further strengthen its position in the alternative accommodation market in China. This also indicates that the market has grown past the startup stage.

Upon the completion of the deal Tujia will receive a wide range of benefits from Ctrip and Qunar, including inventory, traffic, branding and operations support. The purpose of the deal is to ensure that all users, guests and hosts can gain sustainable benefits. Meanwhile, Tujia will further strengthen its dominant position in China’s accommodation sharing market.

Justin Luo, co-founder and CEO of Tujia said that with combined inventory and a larger customer base, the brand will be able to offer a better experience for both guests and hosts. The guests will get a wide array of options in one place while property owners won’t have to manage listings on multiple platforms as the guests will be coming from one source.

Maria Sun, the Executive Vice President of Ctrip.com and CEO of Accommodation Division, said, “in the segmented vertical sector of the homestay and accommodation business, Tujia has built itself into a great brand and established a high reputation. Therefore, we are very pleased to integrate the favorable advantages by handing the homestay business of Ctrip over to Tujia, infusing more energy into the latter so as to create greater value for apartment owners and customers.”

Following this deal, Tujia will release a series of new products and services. The five strategies Tujia announced at its launch event in March have all been implemented, especially the RBA program (run by agents), which pilot-runs well in several key regions in China. Tujia has also expanded its overseas business. With offices operating in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the Taiwan region, Tujia is committed to building a platform for Chinese customers to travel all over the world.

The momentum Tujia has picked up indicates that one of the largest travel markets has opened up to the idea of alternative accommodation. History tells us that homegrown Chinese tech companies take stronger position against their international rivals and maybe Tujia could be to Airbnb what Weibo is to Google.

The post Tujia acquires homestay businesses of Ctrip and Qunar appeared first on TravHQ.

Automobile companies can’t afford to ignore the huge opportunity Chinese market offers. Apart from being a huge car market, it is also a big market for related transportation services. The latest validation of this massive opportunity comes in the form of an investment by General Motors in Yi Wei Xing. Yi Wei Xing is a leading car sharing technology provider in China and its product Feezu offers convenient car rental and car sharing experience.

Along with this, the company also offers a customisable cloud based car sharing platform for other car rental companies. GM says that it is another move in exploring personal mobility in China. GM has been on a drive to explore new models for car sharing and launched its car sharing service brand Maven earlier this year. The service was expanded to multiple markets over few months soon after the launch in January.

“Every market has its unique requirements for car-sharing services,” said Julia Steyn, GM vice president of Urban Mobility Programs. “Yi Wei Xing has solid technologies and innovations that will help us explore more efficient and personalized mobility solutions for consumers in China.”

The companies haven’t disclosed the details of the deal. The investment would allow GM to better understand the usage patterns in Chinese market and learn how people prefer to move. The American car maker has been making quick moves in the transportation space in a bid to be a part of the future of mobility. GM earlier acquired Cruise Automation, a startup working on driverless cars. The company also invested USD 500 million in Uber rival Lyft with the motive to build driverless cabs in future.

Other car companies aren’t left behind either. Volvo has been integrating features in vehicles to make sharing easier and has been pushing its own rental service Sunfleet. The Swedish manufacturer is also working with Uber, which recently acquired Otto, to develop driverless vehicles. Almost all the major automaker are now trying to be a part of the sharing trend for now and a driverless future in the long run which means it is very likely we will see more such developments in this space.

The post General Motors makes another move in the technology space, this time in China appeared first on TravHQ.

Carsharing is a trend that has recently started to pick up in India. As the challenges with public transport don’t seem to disappear and car ownership costs continue to go higher, people are looking for middle ground. BlaBlaCar, the French ridesharing company, arrived in India last year and is gaining momentum quickly by allowing travellers to connect and share a car for intercity travel. This not only allows the users to travel in comfort of a car at lower costs but also reduces congestion and underutilisation of cars.

During the recently concluded Phocuswright India, we got a chance to speak with Raghav Gupta, Country Manager, India at BlaBlaCar to know more about the scope and challenges with ridesharing in India. Here is an edited excerpt from the conversation:

What opportunities do you see for BlaBlaCar in India?

At BlaBlaCar, we are trying to make it easier for people to travel from one city to other. In India travelling in a bus or train isn’t very easy and if you have a car, the costs are high. There are millions of people who want intercity travel to be easy, convenient and cost effective and that is a very large opportunity I see.

What are the challenges in growing a ridesharing platform in India? How do you tackle them?

We enable people to share cars which is a relatively new concept in India. I think sharing as a culture comes easily to Indians and isn’t very difficult as compared to the western markets but the concept of sharing a car with people you have never met in the past is relatively new. We have been in India for a little over a year and we have seen traction build up quickly. There is a strong group of early adopters and as more people get to know about BlaBlaCar, we will see it grow even faster.

I think the main difference in adoption between the western world and India is mainly on two points. First, it is a new concept so educating people is important as they need to understand it well. Second is that people want additional layers of trust and safety. Before a user travels in someone else’s car, he or she would like to ensure that it is safe and pleasant.

To ensure that, we build a community of people through a combination of checks, ratings, technology and various other things that help boost the confidence of users and inspire them to share a ride.

What is your take on UberPool? Do you think it will help increase the adoption of services like BlaBlaCar in longer run?

UberPool allows you to travel with a stranger by sharing a taxi for local travel and from our perspective, it is a positive thing. If you share a cab for short distance today on UberPool, tomorrow you might consider using BlaBlaCar for an outstation trip, maybe from Delhi to Dehradun, because it is similar except for the fact that it is not a taxi and is someone else’s private car. So it is certainly a step that helps ridesharing in India.

What is next in pipeline for BlaBlaCar in India?

In our first year, we focussed on usage. About one million seats were offered on our platform and the most interesting part was that this happened not just in the Tier 1 cities but in smaller cities as well. We saw users from over 700 cities offering seats. We are connecting two big cities better but we are also connecting small cities through our platform. The idea is to continue building that and we are focussing on growing it multifold in future.

You can find more stories from Phocuswright India here.

The post Raghav Gupta, Country Manager, BlaBlaCar, talks about the future of ridesharing in India appeared first on TravHQ.

Sharing economy is kicking off well. It’s a buzz word and everyone seems to like talking about it. Players in travel and hospitality segment have racked their brains and have come up with great disruptions ahead of us. Airbnb has established its market well in the west. It definitely plans to head east now. Given that China is creating a surge in the travel sector and the trend among Chinese travellers to try something new is scaling up; Airbnb has some really special plans for the APAC market especially China. PhocusWright India saw to it that Varsha Rao; Head of Global Operations, Airbnb spill some beans there.

Varsha Rao, Head of Global Operations for Airbnb

(Image: Phocuswright)

South East Asia is an upcoming hot plate for travellers; both inbound and outbound. International brands are trying their level best to penetrate this sector here. Airbnb has similar plans. But definitely, they come with a certain level of alterations in the existing model that the west had adopted. The whole cultural cynosure points to a lot of loopholes or in better words a chance to experiment more in this geography.

Few of the challenges that the Operational head talked about are-

Product differentiation

While Airbnb created ripples with the existing model in the west, few tweaks were seen to be unavoidable in this region. The product that rolled out in America or other European countries found a hard time scaling heights in China. The unavailability of Facebook as a sign in option made them rethink their existing options. Hence, they incorporated WeChat as an alternate sign-in option with the travellers booking from China mainland.

More adaptable model

Airbnb realises the point that the entire culture is exploding with experiments now. The fact that people are still opening up to them is a fact that validates that there is a huge untapped market for the international players. It would be a tad bit difficult, but the sharing economy giant doesn’t budge off and is taking measures to penetrate the potential market by sticking to what they do best. Educating people with this model’s working is the only way forward for it. Both guests and hosts would be educated to bring out the best of hospitality experience

Indian market: trust and security issues

Sharing economy is accelerating here but hasn’t reached its full potential. Domestic players like Stayzilla have been preparing a good flower bed for the model to be seen as adoptable and adaptable. Airbnb has also expressed similar plans for the Indian market. The important measures that are taken include-

• A review based model where nothing goes unnoticed. The smallest of the details are picked up as a review and are acted upon. So there is possibly no way where anything can go wrong.
• Airbnb double checks the IDs and verifies them so that there are no loose ends from their side. This ensures that the travellers feel safe with the host and vice versa.
• Airbnb has around the clock customer support which comes as an additional help to the travellers or the host in case they fear that their property might get damaged.

Bridging the gap in customer experience when sharing a home and when renting a hotel space

People tend to land up in a hotel because of the kind of experience the stay offers. Sharing economy is a genuinely exotic experience for anyone who wants to know more about different cultures and has that quench for knowledge. To match sharing economy with the same level of that of the hotel, educating the hosts would be the first step; says Airbnb. Sharing economy is a combination of a unique experience and personal touch. Both provided to the best of their abilities is what is should be aimed at. That’s what is going to make Airbnb stand out.

APAC is ready to grow rapidly and China will see the evolution of new age travellers. Know more what other industry experts discussed at Phocuswright India here.

The post Varsha Rao shares key challenges Airbnb recognises in order to tap the Chinese market appeared first on TravHQ.

When travelling to a new place, we often ask people in our network for help. Help on where to go, where to stay, where to eat, how to travel and everything else. Anyone who has travelled to, or has lived at your travel destination would definitely have good recommendations. These could be recommendations that you might not find on discovery platforms. This also saves a lot of time as you don’t have to start researching from scratch and put efforts trying to put together a suitable itinerary.

Your Local Cousin tries to expand the network of the people you can go to by offering a platform to connect with local experts in different regions. These local experts will give you suitable recommendations about the destinations and help you put together a sensible plan. We spoke with Kunal Jain, co-founder of Your Local Cousin to learn more. Here is an excerpt from the conversation:

When did you start YLC?

We launched our MVP using a basic Godaddy service in February 2015.

You seem to be a virtual team, with your cousin Aarti managing the operations from US. How does it work?

Besides Aarti our CTO is also based in New York. When we first started, we thought it would be difficult to operate the business given the team is split across time zones. However, we have used this to our advantage and were able to build our network not only in the US but also in India and other parts of the world.  This also allows us to respond to requests immediately and has given us access to travel / startup events anywhere in the world. The team constantly communicates over Skype, WhatsApp and meets at least twice a year.

Kunal Jain, Co-founder, Your Local Cousin

What is the core business model of YLC?

We live in the age of information overload making trip planning a very time consuming process, leaving travellers with mostly the ‘top 10 attractions’ in a city and impersonal experiences. With Your Local Cousin, travellers can get a local perspective on where to find the best beaches in Maui (Hawaii), where to shop for authentic bakhlava in Istanbul or which off the beaten path villages to visit on a road-trip from Barcelona to Nice. They can choose to text, message or speak with an actual local and spend just $15 for 30 minute Skype calls, $10 for text messaging as well as itineraries for $25 – $60 and maps for $10.  Locals earn 70% of revenue for their efforts.

What sort of growth traction you’ve seen till now since launching?

Since launch, we have been in free trial for the first city and have successfully connected hundreds of travellers over the past few months. This is after spending minimal marketing dollars. Because our locals provide such unbiased, quality recommendations, which are harder to come by on TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet, most of our travellers come to us through word of mouth. We’ve had several users pay us despite being in free trial and are now getting repeat business. Our month-on-month growth is 20% in terms of travellers and we have more than 500 locals across 80 countries (as of November end).

YLC seems to be targeting a relatively broad geography of target travellers.  Are you looking at narrowing down on geography in the near future?

We are open to ideas and have not yet finalized whether we will narrow down geographic locations. Our focus on a large geographical region has given us press in places we never imagined we would reach.  Over the past few months we have been featured in Travel + Leisure (USA), Chicago Tribune, SvD newspaper (Sweden), Tabla Magazine (Singapore), Sabemos Digital (Spain), El Universal (Mexico) as well as interviews on 89.1 (Dubai radio station) and 94.3 (Delhi).  We continue to discover press from across the globe that mentions Your Local Cousin.

Take us through the selection process of your guides. How do you ensure that travellers stay safe during the experience if there’s any in-destination interaction?

We have a strict vetting process where we Skype with our locals (video calls), scan them on social networks and also LinkedIn. Our locals are informed that our service is not for meeting up in person however, should they chose to do so, the risk and responsibility is entirely their own. Same goes for the travellers. In the future, we may include a plan where travellers can meet locals.

Share your experience of talking to investors for YLC. Are you actively looking at fund raising?

We are bootstrapped till now as we wanted to find our product and market fit. Now that we’ve had traction and feedback with our users, we’re launching a new and scalable website: www.yourlocalcousin.co by the end of January, 2016 and are anticipating several investor meetings.

What’s the next milestone for YLC?

To pay ourselves a ‘stipend’ :). Jokes apart, we’re definitely getting aggressive on funding as we have some great ideas that we’d like to implement that not only require $ but most importantly requires valuable insights from seasoned entrepreneurs.

Your Local Cousin was also among the finalists at WIT Bootcamp last year in Singapore. You can find more details about them on their website.

The post Your Local Cousin will make trip planning a breeze appeared first on TravHQ.

Airbnb is considered to be one of the biggest disrupters in the hospitality industry. With more and more travellers looking for authentic experiences during their travel, the sharing economy is booming and Airbnb is leading the change. With new tools for business travellers and premium listings, Airbnb is eating into the bigger pie. There have been some controversies around the brand but there is lot more to it than just the controversies. Here are some interesting facts about Airbnb that you probably didn’t know.

#1. Those Funding Days

The initial funds ($30,000) were generated by selling special breakfast cereals called “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCains” taking inspiration from presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.

ObamaO’s breakfast cereal

#2. The Valuation Game

It is valued at $20 billion which is higher than the valuation of Accor and Hyatt combined (Accor-$10.82 billion, Hyatt-$8.98 billion).

#3. How did it all happen

The idea originated with Brian Chesky & Joe Gebbia (co-founders) renting air mattresses in their apartment to visitors of a trade show to pay rents.

#4. You can stay at Brian’s place

Brian Chesky has been living on and off in Airbnbs since 2010 and listing the original Airbnb apartment on the website. 

#5. The name

The original name was AirBed&Breakfast which was later shortened to Airbnb.

#6. Celebs at Airbnb

You can find large number of celebrity houses listed on Airbnb like Elizabeth Taylor’s house here.

#7. Zero Ownership

Despite being the largest accommodation provider, Airbnb owns no real estate.

#8. Size Zero

You can rent a 1 sqm house in Germany on Airbnb. A wooden waterproof construction on wheels with slide door and a desk.

#9. Your Favourite F1 Team

Airbnb sponsors the Manor Marussia F1 Team.

The Manor F1 car with Airbnb sponsorship logos

#10. and lastly…

Their love for cars goes beyond F1. You can find Tesla charging stations at various Airbnb properties in California.

The post 10 amazingly surprising facts about Airbnb that you didn’t know appeared first on TravHQ.