From Treebo’s Hero app to Sabre’s cutting-edge technology, and GoIbibo’s ‘Secret’, we have curated the best of this week’s travel-tech launches for you.

Treebo Hotels launches mobile app ‘Hero’ to tap traditional offline sales channels

Treebo Hotels announced the launch of a new mobile app called ‘Hero’ aimed at tapping into the traditional offline sales channels, thereby expanding its customer base and creating new avenues for sales. With the Hero app, Treebo aims to target intermediaries like auto-rickshaw and cab drivers, individual agents, small shopkeepers, and others who typically operate at airports, railway stations, and bus stands. These intermediaries often help customers arriving in the city with their travel bookings, since many of these customers do not make prior bookings.

By bringing this traditional offline activity into the formal online space through ‘Hero’, the brand targets to drive higher awareness about its quality services and amenities through the direct recommendation of these intermediaries. It will thus allow Treebo to tap into a new customer segment that has conventionally transacted with and trusted these offline intermediaries only.

Commenting on the launch, Sidharth Gupta, Co-founder of Treebo Hotels said, “As a hotel chain we have always used both online and offline channels to drive sales for us, and we have deployed technology to drive convergence between them. With the launch of Hero we are tapping into another potent sales channel – the local offline intermediaries. We are not only excited about welcoming a new set of travellers who book through such intermediaries but also about creating opportunities for such micro entrepreneurs to enhance their incomes and become part of the digital economy.”

Goibibo launches ‘Secret Hotels’ feature for last-minute hotel deals

Goibibo unveiled a new feature on its platform – “Secret Hotels”, which will help customers who are looking for hotels at the last minute and have a set budget. The ‘Secret Hotels’ feature requires the customer to provide basic intents such as location, check-in date and basket of standardised amenities. Basis the options filled in by the customer, hotels are selected by an automated Goibibo algorithm that picks the best property suited for customer’s needs at their chosen price.

Image source: Inc42

Commenting on the launch of Secret Hotels, Sanjay Bhasin, COO, Goibibo, said, “We want to consistently provide more choice and add to flexibility of booking hotels for our customers on Goibibo. With ‘Secret Hotels’, we aim to get our users a hassle-free hotel booking experience at special prices, even as they make last minute bookings.”

Sabre launches industry-first pricing technology to deliver end-to-end dynamic pricing strategy

At the Aviation Festival in London, Sabre Corporation launched Sabre AirVision Dynamic Availability and Sabre AirVision Fares Optimizer, two next-generation pricing solutions that uncover new revenue opportunities by enabling airlines to proactively address rapidly changing market conditions in real time. Underscoring the launch announcement, Etihad Airways and Aegean Airlines will be the first Sabre customers to implement the solutions.

“Pricing is one of the most complex issues in the aviation industry, and airlines are under immense pressure to adapt prices in line with constantly changing market conditions,” said Dave Shirk, President of Travel Solutions, Sabre. “Success requires pricing and revenue management technology that will not only push boundaries, but truly equip airlines for the next frontier. As part of our commitment to enable the digital airline of the future, our dynamic pricing solutions give airlines the intelligence needed to compete and grow revenue today and well into the future. This type of innovation can only come from close collaboration with leading airlines who help imagine the future alongside Sabre.”

Sabre AirVision Fares Optimizer empowers airlines to strategically adjust their fares based on real-time market data. It recommends pricing structures based on customer segmentation and competitor price checks, and generates fare recommendations by estimating each customer’s potential willingness to pay. Then, for more tactical adjustments, Sabre AirVision Dynamic Availability – a proven big data solution – enables airlines to quickly respond to ever evolving market dynamics. These two solutions, coupled with Sabre’s shopping data and Revenue Optimizer technology, empower airlines with a complete pricing and revenue management offering.

The new solutions are part of a broader strategic decision by Sabre, which announced earlier this year that it would build a new Digital Commercial Platform that delivers end-to-end personalized retailing for airlines.

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Over the past decade or so, there has been a great deal of interest in the travel, hotels, and travel accommodations sectors, especially by startup investors. The travel industry has become extremely competitive and hundreds of startups have created entirely new markets for accommodations, even as many others work on new ways of booking travel and making it accessible to more people, primarily using technology.

This year was bigger and better for the global travel industry. According to CB Insights, while travel tech had an uneven year, emerging markets stood out as bright spots. As of October 2017, deal activity was on track to surpass last year’s record-breaking 316 deals, while equity funding in 2017 YTD had already nearly matched the 2016 total.

Let’s take a look at some of the top travel deals of the year:

1. Airbnb remained an investor favourite (San-Francisco, Online marketplace and hospitality service)

Sharing economy behemoth Airbnb claimed one of the top spots for the largest deals to travel tech startups, closing its Series F round raising roughly $450 million and taking their Series F total to a little over $1 billion. This valued the travel giant at approximately $31 billion.

2. Traveloka raised US$350 million (Indonesia, Online travel agency) 

Southeast Asia’s leading online travel company Traveloka raised US$350 million from Expedia. The round valued the company at $2 billion, making it the second most valuable tech startup in Indonesia.The partnership gave Traveloka travellers access to a diverse set of international accommodations, and conversely, Expedia managed to leverage Traveloka’s local knowledge to deepen its presence in Southeast Asia.

3. OYO closed a $250 million funding (India, Budget-hotel aggregator)

With plans to expand abroad, starting with countries in Southeast Asia, and hopes of doubling their revenue in 2018, budget hotel startup OYO continued to remain an investor favourite. The company closed a $250 million Series D funding round, backed by Sequoia Capital India and SoftBank Group, among others. It then followed this funding with an additional $10 million in funding from Chinese hotel management firm China Lodging Group.

4. Xiaozhu gets Jack Ma’s blessing with $120 million in funding (China, Home-sharing platform)

Another Chinese counterpart of Airbnb, home-sharing site Xiaozhu received $120 million in funding. Yunfeng Capital, run by famous investor Jack Ma, led the investment. Joy Capital, Morningside Ventures, and Capital Today also participated in the Series E round, and placed a more than $1 billion valuation on the company. This Beijing-based startup is more like the original peer-to-peer short-term rental model that Airbnb pioneered.

5. Klook net $60 million (Hong Kong, Tours and Activities marketplace)

Hong-Kong based Klook, a service for finding and booking travel activities, closed a $60 million Series B funding round led by Sequoia China. Existing backers Matrix Partners and Welight Capital, a firm founded by former Tencent executives, also took part in the funding round. The company, which introduced services such as local transfer options and WiFi device rental, would also soon add options for restaurants, wellness, shopping and more.

6. Goomo inched ahead with a $50 million investment (India, Omnichannel travel-tech)

Omnichannel travel-tech startup Goomo raised $50 million from a Mauritius-based fund manager, Emerging India, to build Goomo’s online platform, products, marketing, and establishing its offline partner network. Founded in March 2017 by Varun Gupta, Goomo has launched its services with bookings for flights and holidays, and trade fairs and will soon be expanding it to include hotels, trains, buses and visas online.

7. Trip.com raised $39 million; got sold to CTrip (California, Online travel agency)

CA-based travel planning and local discovery app Trip.com had raised $39 million in funding, from Expedia, Battery Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe, Square CEO Keith Rabois and angel investor Oren Zeev. However, in probably one of the most spoken-about buyouts of the year, the startup was lapped up by China’s largest online travel agent, Ctrip for an undisclosed amount.

8. Treebo snapped up $34 million in funding (India, Budget Hotel Chain)

Budget hotel chain Treebo snapped up $34 million in fresh round of funding. The Series C funding came more than a year after Treebo had secured its Series B funding. Hong Kong-based hedge funds Ward Ferry Management and Karst Peak Capital led the latest round.

9. GoFro received a $10 million backing (India, Tours and Activities marketplace)

Holiday marketplace GoFro received $10 million in funding from Japanese major H.I.S. Co., Ltd., a travel agency with its headquarter in Tokyo and India’s largest OTA MakeMyTrip. The company said it plans to utilize these funds by building its tech platform, expansion to new geographies and growing its supply and agent network.

10. GuestReady added $3 million to its war-chest (London, Rental property management)

GuestReady, the close contender to Airbnb that manages rentals on behalf of property owners, closed a $3 million seed round to grow its presence in Europe and Asia. The round was led by Impulse VC, the Russian fund that is backed by billionaire Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, with participation from Australia’s Xponova and Boost Heroes, a VC led by Lastminute founder Fabio Cannavale. Existing backers Swiss Founders Fund and Senn and Partner were among others in the round.

What are the other deals that grabbed your attention? Let us know.

The post The top 10 travel startup funding around the globe in 2017 appeared first on TravHQ.

August & September are turning out to be exciting months for funding deals in the Indian travel startup arena.

$10 million funding for GoFro (September 2017)

Earlier in the month, Holiday marketplace GoFro had received $10 million in funding from Japanese major H.I.S. Co., Ltd., a travel agency with its HQ in Tokyo and India’s largest OTA MakeMyTrip. To read more, visit this link. The company plans to utilize these funds by building its tech platform, expansion to new geographies and growing its supply and agent network.

Multiple rounds of funding for Hotel aggregator OYO (September 2017)

Budget hotel startup OYO followed its initial $250-million funding round with an additional $10 million in funding from Chinese hotel management firm China Lodging Group. Learn more here. Earlier in September, OYO had raised $250 million from SoftBank Vision Fund including a new investor, Sunil Munjal-led Hero Enterprise. More on that here.

Treebo snaps up 226 crore (August 2017)

Right at the end of August 2017, budget hotel chain Treebo’s parent company Ruptub Solutions, had raised $34 million (about Rs 226 crore) in fresh round of funding. The Series C funding comes more than a year after Treebo had secured 112cr in Series B funding. Hong Kong-based hedge funds Ward Ferry Management and Karst Peak Capital have led the current round. More on Treebo funding here.

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Technology-enabled Treebo hotel raises a fresh round of $16 million in Series B led by Bertelsmann India Investment(BII) with existing investors, SAIF Partners and Matrix Partners India. The funding round would be primarily used to scale their existing network four times to 12K rooms over 450 properties over the next year.

The deal focuses on how despite the tough funding environment companies with positive economics and a lower market share can raise capital money.

“Treebo has shown a tremendous ability to drive steady scale, and healthy unit economics at the same time,” said Tarun Davda, managing director at Matrix Partners which co-led an Rs 38-crore round with SAIF Partners in June 2015.

Treebo was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Gupta and Rahul Chaudhary, ex-Myntra executives along with MakeMyTrip’s Kadam Jeet Jain. The company offers budget hotel rooms to travellers in the price range of 1,000-3,000 where it is able to drive around an average of 75% occupancy.

“Over the past one year, they have maintained razor sharp focus on delivering a great guest experience, and have extensively deployed technology in all parts of their operations to accomplish this objective,” said Pankaj Makkar, MD of Bertelsmann.

Treebo recently had come up with an app Bumblebee to sort its operation handling which followed a not-so-conventional approach. Another on the list was a mystery audit program named ‘Friends of Treebo’ where registered members would choose to stay as impromptu representatives and give feedback to the Treebo properties to help them take quick corrective measures.

Budget stay aggregators like OYO, that spread operations in North East earlier this year, and Treebo collate 10-30 rooms from smaller hotels and standardise them with basic amenities like TV, air-conditioning, complimentary breakfast and WiFi.

Source: EconomicTimes/VCCircle

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Treebo, a leading budget-hotel startup headquartered in Bangalore, has launched an innovative initiative ‘Friends of Treebo’ under which it would leverage crowdsourcing to audit the quality at its partner hotel properties. The initiative will allow them to get more detailed reviews about their properties from the visitors along with the regular audits by their staff. This would help them get an outsiders’ view about the hotels which will help them improve the service for other guests.

To further promote this initiative, Treebo is offering freebies to individuals who sign up as ‘Friends of Treebo’ for completing quality audits. The ‘Friends’ can avail these benefits:

• A free of charge audit night
• An introductory incentive of 2 free nights at any of Treebo properties for every successful audit completed
• The first 10 people to complete 10 successful audits will enjoy all-expenses-paid vacations

By incentivising the audits, the hotel brand is attempting to motivate people to share more reviews and feedbacks. These reviews will help them measure the quality of their services and understand the general perspective of their customers.

Quoting on the same, Sidharth Gupta, co-founder of Treebo, stated:

“At Treebo, quality has always been our top priority. We are thrilled to be launching this one-of-a-kind initiative. There can be no better feedback on quality than from someone who has used the service. Guest feedback is of course helpful but it is post-facto. This initiative will give an independent and experience-based view on the quality being offered at each of our hotels, and to take quick preemptive actions wherever we find gaps.”

Elaborating on the ‘Friends of Treebo’ initiative, he added,

“Friends of Treebo is a tech-enabled initiative which will allow us to use the power and reach of communities in maintaining quality even in a large and fragmented network of hotels. This is a classic example of how young ventures like ours can use technology and innovation to solve conventionally unsolvable problems in an effective manner. We have been running this initiative on a pilot mode for the last few weeks and we have seen tremendous excitement amongst people to sign-up. We already have about 260 signed-up Friends of Treebo and this community has conducted more than 100 audit stays till date. This initiative doesn’t replace our in-house quality assurance infrastructure which continues to be important, rather it supplements it. The feedback from these audits has been very helpful in us being able to maintain the quality of service that Treebo is known for.”

This initiative is a good method for the hotel brand to better understand and perform in the travel industry. It will also help Treebo to create a better brand image in the minds of its customers while the offers will get more people to experience the brand.

If you are a travel enthusiast, you can register here to become a part of this initiative.

Also Read: Treebo hotels launches Alpha, a premium offering for corporate travellers

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Treebo Hotels, Bengaluru based budget hotel chain, kickstarted Treebotsav campaign welcoming the arrival of the festive season. Customers can avail Flipkart gift vouchers worth 50% of the prepaid hotel room booking amount done in October 2015 for check-ins between 1^st October, 2015 and 30^th November, 2015.

Details of the offer:

This exclusive offer is applicable on the base room tariffs only excluding taxes, laundry, food and other applicable charges.  The customers will have to use the coupon code ‘TBO50’ while booking the hotel at the Treebo website. They are required to stay in their respective hotels for a period of atleast 2 nights. This two month long campaign will permit the patrons to utilize their gift vouchers upto Rs. 1,500 per booking. This will reach them within a week after the checkout from the hotel. For the convenience of customers, the customers can utilize the total voucher value on multiple financial transactions during the validity period.

According to the report, Sidharth Gupta, the Co-founder of Treebo Hotels stated:

“We Indians love to travel and during the festive season, our propensity to travel increases. It is that time of the year when people love to visit different cities making the most of the holiday season and book their hotel rooms well in advance. They also tend to catch up with their loved ones and shop for gifts to give away for the special occasion. Thus, we introduced our Treebotsav offer to give them the pleasure of both.”

Treebo, founded in March 2015 by Sidharth Gupta, Rahul Chaudhary and Kadam Jeet Jain, has particularly curated rooms across eight cities viz Bengaluru (Head Office), Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Goa , Hyderabad, Mysore and Chennai. For nation-wide expansion, Matrix Partners India and SAIF Partners have funded this start-up with a sum of $6 million (Read: Travel Startup funding in India by the numbers). With the festive season approaching, we will surely see more travel brands come up with tempting offers and interesting campaigns.

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