The travel industry has gone through a series of disruptions and the process is still ongoing. The travel agents were replaced by OTAs with the increase in adoption of internet and now a new breed of travel marketplaces is trying to hit the OTAs and give the guns back to travel agents and small providers. Mobile is the propeller of this transition and during the recently concluded FICCI Travel & Hospitality Tech Conclave, this made the topic for an interesting discussion. The panel moderated by Gaurav Chirpal, CEO, Quadlabs Technologies saw participation from Michael Lyngdoh, Co-Founder, Tripoto; Pratiroop Mehta, Director-Product Management, TravelTriangle; Chitra Gurnani Daga, CEO, Thrillophilia and Praveen Kumar, CEO, TripHobo. Here are some key pointers that were highlighted during the discussion:

1- People don’t like to book bundles

While opinions varied around this topic, the general observation by most of the marketplaces is that people don’t like to book in bundles. They use the trip planning services to put together their plan and just book the activities or experiences. Providing them the flexibility to do so helps with the conversions.

2- Competition doesn’t have to result in losses

Marketplaces are not only giving travel agents and small activity providers a platform to sell but also increasing the competition between them. However the competition doesn’t have to mean that the providers are cutting down prices. This challenges them to be more efficient and strike the perfect balance between price and quality.

3- Customers understand the role of curator

Marketplaces often act as a layer between the provider and customer and while earlier the customers would often blame the marketplace for a bad experience, the modern travellers understand the liability of a marketplace and a provider. They expect the marketplaces to maintain standards and give the customer an ear but not beyond that.

4- Mobile still needs to be pushed

The mobile market has grown tremendously and lot more people are planning their trips on mobile. Still the conversion rates aren’t very high and the segment will need lot more investment to push as a primary platform. This is because visuals play a significant role while booking an activity or experience and people prefer to check them on a larger screen.

5- Chat and call support helps conversions

Booking a hotel or flight doesn’t take long and a large number of travellers are booking them quickly even on mobile. However when it comes to activities, people often want to talk to someone before they go ahead and book. This is where having a chat support helps with the conversions.

As these platform grow in scale, they will use data and technology in ways to minimise the friction in the process and help providers better meet the customer expectations. This is an active industry segment right now and we can safely assume that we will see more interesting developments here.

You can find other stories from the FICCI Travel & Hospitality Tech Conclave here.

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TripHobo – one of the largest repository of user-generated travel itineraries in the world – has recently announced a strategic decision to join Amadeus Next, the Asia-Pacific startup community backed by Amadeus.

As a result of this business partnership, TripHobo will have the liberty to integrate advanced flight search solutions for its users. Also, Amadeus will help TripHobo develop new features that provide travellers innovative and useful to tools to plan a complete trip. TripHobo will be launching an upgraded version of the trip planner in the next week. With this collaboration, the company aims to turn into an online dynamic holiday packaging solution for travellers.

TripHobo’s continuous endeavour has been to create a full stack dynamic packaging solution for its customers with services like flights, hotels, restaurants, activities, tours and transportation. With such business plan, TripHobo has taken a noteworthy step in the right direction.

Commenting on this association, Simon Akeroyd, VP, Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Amadeus Asia Pacific, quoted:

“Amadeus Next works with travel startups to evolve new and original ideas by using our technology, expertise and reach. TripHobo is a great partner; their trip planning solution addresses a huge gap in the market and has the potential to be game-changing for the travel industry. Amadeus hopes to be a part of TripHobo’s growth journey as a key enabler and advisor.”

On the other hand, Saket Newaskar, Co-Founder and CTO at TripHobo, said:

“Being part of Amadeus Next will enable us to scale our technology to create and recommend the best trip plans for our users. TripHobo.com aims to cater to travellers at every stage of the travel planning process by providing one platform to create personalised travel itineraries and hassle free bookings. Amadeus’ expert advice will enable us to accelerate product development and reach customers even faster.”

In the past, TripHobo has tied-up with Expedia, Zomato, Skyscanner and Booking.com. It’s the first brand to offer essential options like flight bookings and flight comparison while planning a personalised trip. It has successfully raised USD 450K and then USD 4 million from Kalaari Capital till now.

Furthermore, Amadeus Next mentors, nurtures and partners with travel startups in the Asia-Pacific region. It supports new businesses in the following ways:

• Technology:  Access to Amadeus’s technology and solutions to build the startup’s Minimal Viable Product.
• Expertise: Learn from Amadeus’s experts for business growth and development
• Reach: Build connections with the right network to test, validate and pilot new businesses
• Funding: Introduction to investors and venture capital around the world

TravHQ in association with Amadeus & FICCI is offering startups an opportunity to be a part of Amadeus Next. We will be hosting the second Travel Startup Knockdown next month. The winner will not only get a chance to be a part of Amadeus Next but will have other opportunities in terms of media recognition, networking and potential investor access. You can find more details about the event here.

To learn more about Amadeus Next, read: Bart Bellers, Senior Advisor, Corporate Strategy, Amadeus APAC talks about Amadeus Next

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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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