The Travel & Tourism industry has seen a huge surge in the past few years and things have gained even more momentum this year. Innovative startups are coming up in this space and scaling at a rapid pace. We have also witnessed some major acquisitions like TaxiForSure by Ola and Mygola by MakeMyTrip. Local investors that were dormant until now have joined the game to further heat up things in this segment. The investments grew by over 50 percent in the second quarter of the year as compared to the first quarter.

Here is an exclusive infographic by TravHQ which consolidates some travel startup investments that have made the news in 2015. There are some startups in the list who haven’t disclosed the amount, but the experts can predict the range by looking at their categories, funding source and observing similar other investments.

Budget stays

This segment has seen the most action this year and according to industry experts, we will see a lot more activity in budget stays in the coming months. Finding quality budget stays was a major challenge for travellers in India and these startups seem to  be addressing the issue. While most of the inclusions are budget hotel chains like OYO Rooms, Zo Rooms, Treebo Hotels, FabHotels and Wudstay, Stayzilla operates as a platform for individual hotels as well as alternative stays.

Trip Planning

These services help you plan your travel by offering multiple itineraries or tools that can help you create your own. This is another industry segment that might see more players though growth is limited by the high dependence on community and limited monetisation opportunities here. Trip Hobo and Tripoto are two startups that help you discover itineraries of other people and help you plan your own vacations.

In-destination services

These services come in handy when you are travelling or have reached your destination. It isn’t exactly the hottest segment right now but with newer technologies entering the scene, it will gain momentum very soon. Guidoo and Trip38 are two very different startups that wiill help you in your travel. Guidoo allows you to explore destination with audio visual guides and offers the option to book local activities. Trip38 manages the itinerary in one place after you have got the bookings done via a booking service. It also offers the option of booking local activities similar to Guidoo.

Marketplace/ Travel search

Travel marketplaces are still evolving in India and are slowly gaining traction. Portals like Travel Triangle, Trip Factory or iTraveller leverage technology to capture customer preferences and offer a better tailored package for them. Travel search engine ixigo also saw investments this year while they are working to ramp up their services and increase the focus on mobile.

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Planning a trip isn’t an easy job. While it starts with just the idea of a destination to explore, getting all the details right takes a lot more effort. Managing all the bookings from flights to hotels and everything in between is even tougher. Trip Planning apps enter the scene here. These apps try to simplify the job for you by working like your personal digital assistant. They suggest plans and organise your itinerary. Some of them offer additional features that will not only allow you to plan and save an itinerary but also help you to discover and book activities at your destination. Here are five trip planning apps that you should check out.

TripHobo

TripHobo, which started off as JoGuru in 2013, is a service that helps travellers plan their trips and prepare personalised itineraries. To create your own itinerary, all you have to do is choose your destination, select the attractions and TripHobo will arrange them for you. You can share it with others and it will be added to TripHobo’s large database of user generated trip itineraries. It also allows you to pick someone else’s trip plan and customise it to your liking. This works very well when you don’t know much about your destination.

It allows you to include multiple cities in your plan along with the activities and attractions there. TripHobo tries to minimise the travel time between attractions by taking into account the opening and closing time of various attractions. They work with various major partners like Zomato to offer information about restaurants and Booking.com to help with hotel bookings to make the experience seamless. The Android and iOS apps have been recently introduced to allow access on the go.

Team Location: India

Covered Geography: Worldwide

Launched in: 2013

Platform: Web, Android (Free). iOS (Free)

Downloads: 100-500 on Android

TripIt

TripIt is one of the most hassle free trip planning apps and probably the oldest on this list. It doesn’t give you suggestions for places to visit or touristy destinations to include in your itinerary. Instead it organises all your bookings in one place. So you have your flights bookings, train tickets, car rentals, hotel bookings and everything else neatly organised in the app. During your travel, you won’t have to scroll through your emails to find the booking IDs as you have all the booking details you need at one place.

You don’t have to manually enter all the details in TripIt. Once you have registered, you can simply forward all the booking emails to an email ID and you will have everything in the app. You can also choose to share the trip plans with your friends if you want to keep them posted about your plan. If you like to organise your meetings and plans using Google Calendar, TripIt can sync with it as well so that you can view it across multiple platforms.

Team Location: United States

Covered Geography: Worldwide

Launched in: 2006

Platform: Android (Free, in app purchase for Pro acocunt). iOS (Free, in app purchase for Pro acocunt)

Downloads: 1M-5M on Android

Trip38

Trip38 recently came into existence and their team has done a pretty good job of making a trip planning app. Similar to TripIt, Trip38 users can forward the booking confirmation emails to them to find them neatly organised in the app. Unlike TripIt which comes with both free and paid account options, Trip38 is free for the users. While the basic functionality of managing trip plans is similar to TripIt, it comes with many differentiating features.

Beyond itinerary management, it offers location sensitive content like tourist attractions, restaurants, support information and events with the option to book through the app. If you choose to book, you are directed to the respective provider. The app also offers information about embassies and consulates for all countries across the world to help travellers. (Read: Trip38 plans to take away your tickets)

Team Location: India

Covered Geography: Worldwide

Launched in: 2013

Platform: Android (Free). iOS (Free)

Downloads: 10K-50K on Android

Tripigator

With the motto of ‘Be a traveller, not a tourist’, Tripigator is the official travel planning partner of Indian Tourism Ministry. Tripigator asks for basic inputs about the trip like budget, interests and timeline and destination to cook up personalised trip plans for the users. It is available via website as well as mobile app. Along with the trip plan, it offers real time prices to give an approximate cost of travel. You can collaborate with your companions by inviting them to edit the same plan together.

Tripigator uses big data technology to filter through large number of web pages and reviews to offer the best itinerary. The destinations are rated based on different categories like adventure and culture with other details like weather forecast and best time to visit. They will soon add the option of accessing the plans and destination guides offline so that users can view their itineraries anywhere having to worry about connectivity.

Team Location: India

Covered Geography: India

Launched in: 2014

Platform: Web, Android (Free)

Downloads: 50K-100K on Android

TripVerse

TripVerse combines the best of trip planning, itinerary management and local discovery, all in a single app. You can not only plan and save your own trip with TripVerse but also browse through the itineraries created by other users for some inspiration similar to TripHobo. The service is available via mobile app or desktop website giving users the freedom to use the platform of their choice. It is easy to create detailed plans on the desktop website and add activities. It will suggest related activities at the destination if you are short of ideas.

The trip can then be downloaded on your phone and saved offline on the app. They are relatively new in the space so at this point there aren’t many itineraries to browse but this will change as more users get on the platform. Another interesting feature that TripVerse offers is Trip Collaboration which allows multiple users to add activities in a shared trip. (Read: TripVerse handles lot more than just your itineraries)

Team Location: United States

Covered Geography: Worldwide

Launched in: 2014

Platform: Web, Android (Free). iOS (Free)

Downloads: 100-500 on Android

There are many other trip planning apps available for different kind of travellers. Which one is your favourite?

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The internet is flooded with options if you are looking for services to book your travel. Even a small trip would include multiple bookings for travel, stay and other activities. The booking confirmations and tickets are usually sent on your email and then you keep scrolling through your mails whenever you need to check any details. Trip38, a travel startup from Bangalore tries to simplify the process for you. They have recently raised 6 crores INR from InterGlobe Technology Quotient, a unit of InterGlobe Enterprises and Singapore based venture capital firm Lantern Capital.

Trip 38 – Your Personal Travel Assistant

Trip38 app comes in handy once you have planned your trip and made the bookings using an OTA. After you have registered with them, you can simply forward all your booking confirmations to them over email and you will have a complete itinerary in one place on your mobile phone. They are not just making an itinerary for you but also handling other parts of your trip beyond the hotel and flight bookings. Trip38 app also offers you location sensitive content in terms of local attractions, food spots, tourist support information, and local events with the option to book through it. They have included a large number of hotels, restaurants and sightseeing options from around the world so that the travellers always have access to locally relevant data. They have also included the details of embassies and consulates for all counties across the world.

With the process of mailing confirmations to generate itineraries, Trip38 appears to be similar to TripIt at first. However the Trip38 app differentiates itself by adding detailed local information and booking options. The service is available free of cost to the customers while TripIt offers both free and paid plans for managing your itinerary. Trip38 provides bookings for attractions like we mentioned but no transactions take place on their platform. They generates revenues through transaction fees from hotels, travel agents & tourism boards.

The Trip38 service is available for free and for them to continue serving it for free, they need to attract large number of users and get more hotels/ destinations on-board. Then it can become an all-round partner for travellers.

Trip38: Website Android App iOS App

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