As knowledge partners for this year’s OTM Forum, we are back with a round-up of exciting panels and discussion. OTM Forum is a knowledge-sharing initiative that brings together India and Asia’s most influential travel leaders on one stage.

We are curating a panel on Conversational AI and Chatbots in Travel: Benefits & Best Practices featuring Aakrit Vaish, Co-Founder at Haptik and Chetan Kumar, Strategic Partnership, WhatsApp.

Another panel, we’re hosting is Holidays and Experiences: The next great untapped market in online travel? The panel includes some of the leading names in India’s Holidays, Tours & Activities segment. On the panel, we’ll have Anirudh Gupta, Co-Founder & CEO, Tripoto, Chitra Gurnani, CEO, Thrillophilia, Vaibhav Sisinty, Head of Marketing – India, Klook and Rupendra Yadav who is the Chief Business Officer – Holidays at MakeMyTrip.

The forum is being organized in Mumbai from 3rd to 5th February at Bombay Exhibition Centre.

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There isn’t a single day when the tech community doesn’t talk about the upcoming wave of bots. Chat has emerged as a popular medium for brands to communicate with their customers which is clearly indicated by the investors’ interest in chat based concierge services. Now brands are exploring the possibility of speeding up the process by introducing bots and artificial intelligence in the mix. In India, Tripoto made the first move in this direction and introduced Tripoto.Ai. The product received positive feedback on Product Hunt as well.

Thousands of travellers share their travel experiences everyday on Tripoto allowing millions to easily plan their trips. They are aiming to use the diverse perspective of travellers in their community to make Tripoto.Ai the best and fastest learning AI system in travel.

(L to R) Tripoto Founders Anirudh Gupta and Michael Lyngdoh

We spoke with Michael Lyngdoh, Co-Founder of Tripoto to learn more about Tripoto.Ai and the future of chat bots in travel. Here is an excerpt from the conversation:

What was the idea behind Tripoto.Ai?

The intention was to serve a larger audience and also create hooks for users to engage more deeply with our application. While itineraries serve a large number of customers we noticed that a lot of our users wanted to get answers to specific questions that they had in mind. We have a large and ever-growing user generated content/data set available to us. We realised that a self-learning AI based engine that uses our UGC would be the best way to answer these questions. We wanted to keep it Ai based because it scales up easily, answers instantly and is available 24*7. An AI based system also utilizes our advantage of having a huge data source.

We have seen a shift towards chat as a medium for providing services? What do you think is the reason for this shift?

Chat based applications are widely used today for communication with WhatsApp and WeChat leading the way. Users are very comfortable using chat as a medium to interact and this behavioural shift is driving the use of chat as a medium for providing services.

Do you think AI can match the level of human service?

AI can match the level of a human but it will take time for the system to learn and a lot of data. Till then AI can answer basic to medium level difficulty questions reasonably well and respond to 80% queries. The remaining 20% can be fed by humans. This leads to ease of scaling, instant responses for most queries and 24*7 availability.

How do you plan to take it further? Once out of beta, do you see it attracting enough users to become the prime choice of your users for trip planning?

We are currently integrating the AI into every part of our application while continuously making it smarter. The Tripoto AI will become your online travel persona which knows you, travels with you, helps you record and share your memories and plans personalised holidays with you. The AI system will act as a gateway to lead the users to other parts of the Tripoto Application – Publishing, Search, Itineraries, Hotels etc.

It is rumoured that Facebook will open up the Messenger to third party developers soon. What opportunities do you see there?

I think it’s a great distribution opportunity for us. Microsoft has already opened up its platform. We look forward to distributing our service on all major chat applications as possible.

It will be interesting to see how other travel brands react to this development. With an increase in number of such services, it won’t be a surprise if a large number of apps start featuring chat as the prime consumer facing interface.

You can check out Tripoto.Ai here.

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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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Tripoto, the global community for travellers, has launched a new AI based travel concierge called Tripoto.Ai. The service is in beta phase at this moment and it responds to a wide range of queries covering destinations, hotels, activities, getaways and lot more. While the feature has been introduced only a few days back, it responds quite sensibly for most queries.

We have recently seen a rise in number of travel companies providing service over chat. We recently learned about Scouterr which provides travel bookings and advice with the help of travel agents available on chat. Hotel giant Marriott International also introduced the feature of chat based room service requests in their mobile app. This trend is particularly catching up because younger travellers are much used to the chat platforms and are very comfortable adopting that.

Tripoto claims that over 5,000 people have already used the new Tripoto.Ai. The system utilises advanced natural language processing with machine learning algorithms. This allows it to self-learn over time from the queries it has received. The content comes from the Tripoto community as well as 3^rd party APIs. They claim to have around 250,000 itineraries which provides a good database for the kind of queries Tripoto.Ai could receive over chat.

I tried spending some time trying to put together a travel plan for the long weekend later this month. I managed to get (or the system managed to give) relevant data for all but one query which is pretty impressive for a start. Unlike manually operated chat based services, you don’t have to wait for the responses as they come instantaneously. Considering the fact that it is still a beta, we can safely assume that the final version will continue to impress us.

You can try out the new AI based chat concierge at tripoto.com/travel-assistant.

Source: Inc42

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India is witnessing a sudden boom in travel startups for the past few years. A few contributory factors can be the wide availability of internet, smartphone penetration and, more importantly, the exponentially growing number of inbound and outbound travellers. We learn about new travel startups everyday and some of them really push the envelope of innovation.

To identify and support such innovations, we announced our Startup Knockdown series of events recently. The first event in the series will be hosted in Mumbai next month in association with OTM Mumbai and the second event will be hosted in New Delhi in association with FICCI and Amadeus. Not only will the startups get to showcase their product in front of leading industry professionals but will also have other opportunities to give their business a boost.

While we hunt for the next Uber or Airbnb, check out some travel startups that have been making news in India:

#1 Tripoto

Founded by Anirudh Gupta and Michael Lyngdog in 2013, Tripoto offers travel itineraries for travellers and holiday makers. It has a huge collection of photos, reviews and recommendations shared by travellers who have explored the different corners of the world and are ready to communicate their travel experiences with others. Also, users have the liberty to add attractive trips in their wishlist.

Language: English

#2 iTraveller

Launched by Shiju Radhakrishnan in 2012, iTraveller provides 3,50,000+ trips for 450+ destinations at highly competitive rates compared to other online travel booking sites. It offers packages at extremely cheap rates simply because of very few intermediates. It allows travellers to discover, plan and book tickets instantly by connecting them with the native destinations suppliers.

Language: English

#3 goMowgli

Founded by Sunil Abhilash, Anil Alur, and Karan Cariappa in 2013, goMowgli claims to be India’s first hop-on and hop-off bus for travellers. Through this service, travellers can engage in innumerable activities, stay wherever they want with absolute freedom. The interesting feature of goMowgli is that the bus passes it offers is valid till 60 days from the date of first travel. This allows travellers to make changes in their travel itineraries at the last minute with no complications.

Language: English, German, French, Spanish

#4 SeekSherpa

Launched by Dhruv Raj Gupta and Sukhmani Singh in 2014, SeekSherpa lets travellers feel as comfortable as locals in destinations. Its platform allows locals to post their experiences. Travellers can easily book their experiences and post travel-related questions directing them to locals of their choice. Also, the website features many categories such as shopping, photograph and nightlife tours.

Language: English

#5 Guiddoo

Founded by Vineet Budki, Nidhi Varma, Darshan Sharma and Prashant Choudhary in 2013, Guiddoo is one-stop shop for travellers willing to indulge in tours, activities, audio-visual travelling, restaurants, spas and shopping. Its mobile app helps the users to enrich their travel experiences. Also, the app allows users to take pictures of point of interests and share it on their social channels.

Language: English

#6 Routofy

Launched by IIT graduates Abhishek Aggarwal and Ronak Gupta last year, Routofy is quite different from other online travel portals. It can search for flights, trains and buses all at once between any two destinations. Direct and indirect connections at cheap rates are displayed to the users from the favourite providers. This unique portal has already received great response from the Indian travel industry and was financially backed last year by the founders of Snapdeal.

Language: English

#7 Nearify

Founded by Mayank Kumar, Saurav Singh and Vivek Srivastava in 2012, Nearify is an event discovery platform that can be used by the travellers in their favourite destinations. It accumulates information of concerts, music festivals, parties, workshops, shows and meet-ups and categorises them according to traveller’s current location, genre of entertainment etc.

Language: English

#8 PressPlay

Launched by two friends Anand Sinha and George Abraham in 2013, PressPlay offers travel entertainment service to tourers. Interested travellers can stream or download movies, music for free under 2 minutes when connected to its hotspot. In buses, the company provides its app on fully-charged tablets for INR 100. Travellers can do away with the boredom they usually experience while travelling anywhere.

Language: English

#9 Byond Travel

Founded by Vikram Ahuja last year, Byond Travel offers 100+ unforgettable travel experiences from 40+ countries. It provides wildlife adventures, houseboat explorations, treks to Himalayas, deep-sea diving in Sri Lanka and many other activities guided by travel adventurers and experts. Byond Travel packages range from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 1.5 lakh. It has a remarkable collection of travel experiences in its Lime Diaries collective.

Language: English

#10 Padhaaro

Founded by Ish Jindal in 2012, Padhaaro is an on-demand marketplace that connects foreign travellers with Indian locals. It assists travellers right from the time they plan their trips to the time they arrive at the destination. They can book tours and local experiences through it while being on-the-go. This startup believes in improving India’s image in the eyes of the international travellers.

Language: English

Are you a travel startup looking to leave a mark?

If you have an amazing product for the travel industry, don’t miss the chance to showcase at the Startup Knockdown events. Send your pitch deck to editor@travhq.com. Follow the links for more details- Startup Knockdown Mumbai | Startup Knockdown Delhi.

For any queries, drop us a mail at the above email ID or reach us through our social media accounts Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn.

The post Our pick of India’s 10 coolest travel startups that stole the limelight appeared first on TravHQ.

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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