Alitrip, the online travel marketplace, has a significant foothold in the Chinese market. It has focused on signing up travel agencies to reach more customers with its products and services. Distinguishing itself from other brands, it plans to drive a C2B marketplace and thereby transform it into a consumer-driven business.

Sherri Wu at WIT Singapore 2015

Sherri Wu, the Chief Strategy Officer of Alitrip, attended WIT 2015 to share her knowledge and experience of the travel industry and Alitrip. She pointed out that today most of the Chinese travellers are young, affluent, educated and independent by nature. They are ready to spend a sufficient amount of money at international destinations. Last year, Chinese tourists had spent a whopping sum of US$164 billion overseas. This clearly shows that money is not the limiting factor anymore for the modern Chinese traveller. As most of them are digital natives, they embrace technology and rely on mobile devices for their travel bookings. As a matter of fact, 70% of their travel bookings come from mobile devices alone.

Most of the businesses, especially startups, neglect storing data. Alitrip has realized its importance. It has accumulated a large amount of data over the last 16 years. With the help of this data, Alitrip wishes to create and design the best products and services according to the customer..

Social websites like Facebook, Twitter, G+ are being used extensively by many brands to reach to their customers. According to Sherri, the content on social media should be converted from user-generated content (UGC) to professional-generated content (PGC). This professional guide will be viewed as a more reliable and useful source for strategically bringing supply and demand together.

China’s Singles Day sale is believed to be biggest online shopping festival in the world. Alitrip celebrated this occasion for the first time in 2014. Giving exclusive offers to its customers, its total sales reached USD 9.3 billion in the 24-hour time period. The company had sold goods worth USD 1 billion in 17 minutes only, and touched the USD 2 billion mark in just above an hour. Its record-breaking achievement on a single day grabbed the attention of international audience.

Future of AliTrip:

Alitrip aims to further develop products and services that better meet the needs of customers. It plans to make travel a ‘natural extension’ for its customers. As described by Sherri Wu, the brand believes on ‘Innovation, Innovation and Innovation!’. Sherri quoted:

“Now the customer doesn’t even have to pay at check-in or checkout; Alitrip does it behind the scenes. It saves customers time and saves hotels front desk labor.”

Alitrip does a form of re-conciliation with the hotels through bank accounts. This is very convenient for the customers. Additionally, they have pushed out the online credit-based visa application for mainland Chinese residents to promote the enhanced offering.

Alitrip is an independent business unit of Alibaba – a giant Chinese e-commerce company and was created in October, 2014.

For more stories from TravelRave, click here.

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Smartphones are increasingly becoming the device of choice for people, even more so when we are talking about travellers. Thanks to the increasing number of mobile devices and their processing capabilities, we are observing a big strategic shift in industry towards mobile. Brands have to sell where the customers are and online advertising companies like Criteo have to keep a sharp eye on the industry trends to offer the best to their clients.

Daniele Beccari during his session at WIT Conference

Criteo recently published a research report for travel industry after analysing more than 1 billion bookings generated online since 2014. During the recently concluded WIT Conference in Singapore, Daniele Beccari, Head of Travel, Criteo shared some useful results they derived after analysing the data.

According to the report, share of mobile devices has now risen to 23 percent of bookings as compared to 12 percent last year. the fraction of users searching and browsing on mobiles is higher but for complicated travel bookings, desktops dominate. The rate of adoption is much higher in case of Southeast Asia as compared to Europe and Middle East.

More people book hotels and accommodation on mobile phones as compared to Rail or Airline tickets. The car rental segment is growing fast on mobile as well seeing a growth from 18 percent to 25 percent.

This trend has been observed because airline bookings usually add up to higher amount and people prefer mobile devices for smaller amounts and this holds true for most markets except Japan where the average booking values are almost same across all the devices. This to some extent, is because of the easy adoption of technology in that region. The car rental segment is catching up on mobile as most of the rental companies are relying heavily on their mobile app.

People tend to book long travel plans using desktop and mobiles account for small fraction of bookings there. But according to Criteo, 21 percent of bookings aren’t correctly measured by advertisers as the click is made on one device while the transaction is completed on the other. Of course the trend is different in case of last minute bookings where mobile devices dominate the scene.

Travel marketers need to track the users across multiple devices to offer relevant information to them and facilitate the booking process. In-app tracking can also help generate meaningful data and drive more bookings from the app only.

The full report can be found here.

‘The Mobile Opportunity’ session was conducted during WIT Conference 2015 which was organised as a part of TravelRave. You can read rest of the stories from TravelRave here.

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We are so used to having internet on our mobile devices that we feel helpless without it. While travelling outside country borders, it becomes a major problem as roaming costs can be sky high. During the WIT Bootcamp, we came across a startup Rimoto which is trying to solve this by offering users free access to some useful apps while you are travelling.

Shashin Shah, one of the co-founders of Rimoto presented the idea during the Start-up pitch during WIT Bootcamp and won during the final round on October 21. Here is a short video of Shashin introducing Rimoto to the TravHQ community.

To provide the service, Rimoto partners with various mobile operators and buys data in bulk to offer free access to partner apps through VPN. The apps are mostly services like restaurant reservation, cabs and ticket booking that people primarily need while travelling. Users can also choose to have internet access for more apps like Facebook and Whatsapp if they choose to pay for a premium plan.

Shashin presenting Rimoto during WIT Bootcamp

You can know more about Rimoto on their website here. To read other stories from TravelRave, you can click here.

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From a mattress in an apartment to a $20 billion company, Airbnb has grown at a crazy pace and is termed as one of the biggest disruptors in travel industry. It is world’s largest accommodation company and is still experiencing strong growth all across the globe. On October 20, during the WIT Conference, Julian Persaud, Regional Director, APAC, Airbnb shared his views on the role of Asia in growth of Airbnb. Here are some pointers we picked from ‘Coffee with Julian Persaud’.

Julian sharing Airbnb’s plans for Asian market

Key to success in China

Commenting on the growth the company in China, he said that one of the many reasons Airbnb picked up in China is because the modern Chinese travellers have a different state of mind. The trend has shifted from group travellers to independent travellers. Another contributor is the welcoming nature of hosts as most of them are older and don’t travel much anymore but appreciate young people coming to them and sharing their stories.

Data science and advertising

Persaud comes with years of experience of working with Google but when asked about the preferable advertising option, he stated that there is no bias towards Google. The marketing strategy includes a mix of different platforms and they favour whatever works best for them. Data science plays a very important role in the whole process to understand the impact of each channel. He also emphasised on the importance of innovative offline activities like they did in Korea by associating with Korean popstar G-dragon. Such activities drive word of mouth marketing and help a brand gain traction.

Learning from hotels

It was very obvious that the point will come up and Airbnb will be compared to the hotels. According to Persaud, Airbnb isn’t a substitute for hotels. Airbnb is more about experiences than just being a provider for accommodation. People prefer hotels for short stays and Airbnb for relatively longer stays but the line between the two is blurred.

Talking about Airbnb for Business, he said that 10% of the users are business travellers and most of them are people who have to stay for weeks. He said that they have a lot to learn from the hotels, especially the large hotel chains, on maintaining quality and being a better host.

Building around Airbnb

During the conversation, he talked about many startups that have been built around Airbnb and similar businesses. There are startups that will help control the appliances remotely to reduce electricity wastage or clear the wardrobe for guests. Persaud expressed that it is great to see such innovations and while Airbnb isn’t investing in these startups, things might change in future.

Experimenting for Indian market

Talking about the plans for Indian market, he said that Airbnb has a strong focus on India. Airbnb surely sees the local players like Stayzilla and TG Stays as strong competition but Julian said that competition is good as it prepares the market and they are still experimenting in India.

You can find all our other stories from TravelRave here.

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With WIT Singapore, 2015 taking place at Marina Bay, Singapore, we managed to pull out a few interesting key points from Chan Park’s Key address. Chan Park is the General Manager (Southeast Asia) of Uber. He is actively involved in the expansion the car-rental brand through numerous operations linked to government relations.

Chan Park sharing the Uber story

During his session, he highlighted many interesting elements of Uber and its story over the years. Here are a few of them:

#1- Uber’s presence in the Asian market

Chan Park stated that the growth of Uber in the Asian market has been ‘incredible’. The brand has observed phenomenal increase in the number of cabs and the demand for them. For this car-rental service, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are the fastest growing markets in Asia. Marketing in India was altogether a different experience. For example, the average pick-up time for cabs in other countries is mostly 3-4 minutes but in India it turns out to be 35-40 minutes. Over the last few years the company has reduced the average fare of its cabs by 15-20% of the original cost. With the increase in demand of Uber cabs, there will be more trips daily. This will turn into an opportunity for Uber drivers to earn more per day.

#2- The roles of the Governments and locals

Governments of different countries have their own set of goals and agenda. Uber attempts to align its goals with the goals of these governments. For example, with the plans of creating a mobile environment that is safe and smart, Uber has observed that Singapore focuses on lesser cars and reduction of car parking space in its area. Interestingly, 12% of the real estate of Singapore is allotted to car parks. In the same manner, they have also noticed that different countries have their own set of rules and regulations for car-pooling. In order to expand globally, Uber will be required to adhere to the laws of the land.

Persuading the governments in the right manner is essential too. Uber makes it clear to them that they are for safety, customer protection, formalizing and regulating appropriately within the transport industry of the country. Fortunately, things have been mostly favourable for the brand till date.

#3- Uber for Business

Understanding the difference between regular travellers and business travellers, the brand has extended its service. ‘Uber For Business’ provides reliable rides for employees with rides up to 40% cheaper than regular taxis.

After enrolling through its website, businesses can set rules and policies mentioning where and when their employees can take the ride. For later reference, trip info for every ride will be available. The feature makes the management of business rides much easier.

#4- Goals of Uber

During his speech, Chan Park stated that Uber attempts to reach the following goals: Bringing down the pick-up time and fulfil the customer requests. As mentioned earlier, the pick-up time in most countries is 3-4 minutes but for India it reaches 35-40 minutes. In India, they might face a big challenge in reducing pick-up time.

#5- A glimpse into the life of Chan Park and his link with Uber

Chan Park has been an avid Mathematician. For a short period of time, he worked as a currency trader. He claims that his analytical, creative and quick problem solving skills have helped him become an important part of Uber culture. He elaborates that the company does not really take cultural background into consideration for accepting employees. Most of the present employees of Uber are bankers and consultants. People just need to have strong analytical skills and they can be a part of this global brand.

You can find more stories from TravelRave here.

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The day 1 of WIT saw participation from a large number of business leaders and innovative startups. Amongst many business leaders Bobby Healy, the Chief Technology Officer of CarTrawler, attended the event. Bobby Healy is a technology entrepreneur mastering the art of booking engine software. He joined CarTrawler in 2005 and is playing an important role in the development of the company.

Bobby Healy, CTO, CarTrawler during his session at WIT Bootcamp

During his session, he brought to light many interesting observations. Here are some of them:

#1- Car Rental Brands have huge scope in European Markets

Car rental services have been growing at a faster pace in Asian markets, clearly highlighted by the 400% annual growth of CarTrawler in China in last 3 years. On the other hand, European markets are yet to experience the same. As stated by Bobby Healy, this continent is a “sweet spot” for car rental brands where customers are ready to experiment with the products & services and suppliers have less control over the distribution network. Thus Intermediators can interfere & bring significant changes in the market. In American markets lack of fragmentation is the biggest obstacle for car rentals.

#2- Data Analysis is must to understand the consumers

One of the reasons behind CarTrawler’s success in the market is their huge database. They have huge world-wide data set of all airlines. Through the advanced systems, CarTrawler not only keeps a track of its bookings but analyses the decision-making behaviour of customers. This helps the brand to determine the optimum price points, select reliable suppliers and define the right products for the customers. Thus, accumulating and reading the data is extremely essential to understand the customer behaviour and needs.

#3- Website should be a complete source of information

Website is always a first point of contact for all the consumers. Ensuring rich content with a simplified navigation can help in easily influencing the psyche of the users. Over the years, CarTrawler has leveraged this and ensured that their website becomes a comprehensive source of information with a smooth journey. This track of the navigation can help in understanding the consumer behaviour and give a clarity on the loopholes and consumer demands.

#4- International car-rental brands dominate the market

Over the years, international brands have been capturing the markets because of their efficient global supply chain system. With 1500 car rental agents and efficient team across different countries, CarTrawler has been able to function smoothly and thus has been the choice of majority of travellers. Whereas all the domestic players, because of less reach and consumer understanding, are still struggling to achieve the seamless operations.

#5- Essentials of business development

Bobby Healy stated that any form of business should initially begin as a B2B business. Simultaneously, it should also have a B2C plan. This is highly required for understanding the needs and demands of the customers. Every business endeavour should be coupled with the brand’s core business values and goals. Networking is important but it should be done in such a manner that the firms do not compete with its B2B partners while attempting to obtain B2C solutions.

You can find more stories from TravelRave here.

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GrabTaxi has grown into a big name in the industry from a small Malaysian startup in a short period of time. In Southeast Asia, it is considered to be a strong rival for Uber. Cheryl Goh is the Group Vice President of Marketing at GrabTaxi and has been associated with it for 2.5 years. She shared the story of GrabTaxi’s growth during her session at WIT Bootcamp. Here are some takeaways that will help future entrepreneurs in their journey:

Cheryl Goh shared what she learned building the GrabTaxi brand

#1- Tailor around the customer

To grow business successfully, it is very important to tailor the product around the needs of customers. GrabTaxi changed the picture of taxi business in Malaysia because it was necessary. The cab drivers there didn’t follow the standard practices and would often haggle on prices. GrabTaxi worked hard to change the way they work which eventually resulted in their success in the region.

Startups today don’t just need a good product. They need a good product that has been built around the needs of the customer.

#2- To build global, go hyperlocal

In Malaysia, the major issue with cabs was unreliability while in Singapore, efficiency was an issue. GrabTaxi had to take different approaches for the two markets to achieve the same result, fast and reliable cab service.

As travel brands cover wide geography, it is very important for them to study the new markets thoroughly and strategize accordingly. This is important not only while building the product but also while marketing it.

#3- Try to exceed expectations

Cheryl shared how in Malaysia they call drivers who have got advanced bookings for mornings to make sure the customers get their cab on time as a large number of people use GrabTaxi to book cabs to airport. They keep putting in similar efforts to ensure that they can deliver the best to their customers.

It is very important to have a team that believes strongly in the product and is ready to put in all the efforts required.

#4- Adapt to the needs

Along with the cab service, GrabTaxi introduced premium sedan cars, bikes and package delivery services. While it appears that the additions will eat into the primary business, they found their relevance at different spots in the life cycle of a typical user.

For travel startups, it is important to diversify according to the needs of customers.

#5- Make people believe in the cause

GrabTaxi started off with a mission to make public transport safe, efficient, fast and reliable. These were genuine problems faced by the customers and addressing these issues helped them gain the goodwill of customers.

Your business shouldn’t be about profits and monetization opportunities from day one. If you are solving a real problem, people will believe in you and will receive your product well.

You can find more stories of other sessions as well as all the other activities at TravelRave here.

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We are reporting live on Day 2 of WIT 2015, fresh after Lorraine Sileo’s coffee chat with WIT’s founder, Yeoh Siew Hoon. Lorraine who is the SVP, Research at Phocuswright shared opinions and key findings from their recent study on the Asian Travel Industry:

• Major hospitality brands are the ones that are least reliant on OTAs. The focus for them is to drive direct bookings. For instance, Marriott’s recent social media campaign was around creating awareness on making direct hotel bookings.
• OTAs represent 20% or less of supplier distributions for most hotel chains globally. However in APAC, trends are completely different as OTAs are driving growth streak in APAC towering over supplier websites and online travel market.

Lorraine Sileo during the session at WIT Bootcamp

• OTAs dominate hotel bookings in APAC accounting for about 69% bookings in 2014. In emerging markets such as India, OTAs account for 60% bookings.
• India & ANZ will be the most dominant markets in-terms of Online Travel Penetration with about 44% projected penetration by 2017.
• Global OTAs account for only 19% share in Asia Pacific with local OTAs taking the major pie at 81%.
• 7 out of 10 hotel bookings in ASIA are going through OTA, on the other hand 3 out of 10 are for airlines.
• No non-specific e-commerce giant has been able to succeed in Travel. (Recent reference: Amazon shutting down their travel vertical).
• China will lead Asia on Mobile travel in gross bookings with projected sales of over 40 Billion USD by 2017 followed by Japan & India.

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Yesterday, TravelRave kicked off with the WIT Bootcamp and it was quite a day. Successful entrepreneurs sharing their stories to budding entrepreneurs presenting their ideas, there was a little bit of everything and like always, it also featured Start-up Pitch in which the selected startups presented their idea to panel of mentors and investors. The winning team of the startup pitch stands to win prize sponsored by Abacus Ventures.

Here are some of the startups that presented during the WIT Bootcamp that caught our attention:

#1. 42Race

42Race is a platform that would help you plan ‘running vacations’. It focuses on people who travel for marathons across the world and offers one stop portal for the resources they would need. At this point they are focusing on China but plan to expand to other countries soon. They try to bring down the costs for travellers by utilising the volumes and offering customised itineraries tailored around the needs of marathon runners. Website

Zhou Mi, Co-Founder, 42Race

#2. Rimoto

Rimoto tries to address the issue of roaming costs and offers local app based services that are essential to a traveller. These may include cab services, hotel booking, local discovery and other similar services. This works with the help of Rimoto app which will keep running in background and allow partner services to work for free through VPN. Rimoto isn’t available for public yet and will be launched soon. Website

Shashin Shah, Co-Founder, Rimoto

#3. TripBolt

The team at TripBolt plans to bring all the stages of a traveller’s cycle in one place. It is an aggregator for the travel search engines and will offer content to inspire people, help them plan and then eventually book, all in one place. TripBolt isn’t available to public yet and will be launched soon. Website

Hendric Tay, Co-Founder – Tripbolt

#4. Wellobox

Wellobox is a service that offers incentives to hosts of homestays like AirBnb to enhance the experience of guests. They can offer curated local discounts and offers for the guests which in turn will fetch them better reviews and thus drive more guests. Website

Stuart Blitz, Wellobox

#5. Your Local Cousin

Your Local Cousin helps travellers by offering them with a local expert who will connect with them via Skype and create itineraries suitable to them for a small fee. The start up aims to help the travellers when they need information or recommendations at a destination. Website

Kunal Jain, Co-Founder, Your Local Cousin

#6. Kaicar

While self drive car rental is a relatively new concept in India, there are too many rental services in many other countries. Kaicar aggregates multiple car rental providers in one place so that travellers can easily find suitable vehicle from a provider that suits them. The providers get to list at their own prices and pay a small commission on the booking while the customers get to pick the best deals from the ones listed. Kaicar

Kai, Founder & CEO, Kaicar

42Race, Rimoto and Wellobox have been selected to battle it out in the finals of startup pitch on October 21, 2015 during the WIT Conference. To stay updated about all the activities at TravelRave in real time, follow us on Twitter. You can click here for all the other stories from TravelRave.

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In a cracking session hosted by Turochas “T” Faud, CEO, Homeaway startup founders from across the region shared their thoughts & experience of fund raising, branding and other aspects of a successful startup.

On Fund Raising Process

Karl Loo whose Malaysian startup, ServisHero launched in June early this year is backed by YTL said that there is an abundance of fund raising opportunities in this region. In particular, there is a strong appetite from non-institutional investors such as conglomerate family owned businesses who are keen to invest in a high-tech innovative startups.

According to Tom Lokenvitz, “It is less about the money but more about the relationship you build with the investors. While everyone wants to raise money quickly and build business, it is really important to know who is going to invest in your business and when the challenges arise, whether an investor stands by you”.

Donggun Lee, founder of Seoul startup, MyRealTrip said, “The most difficult funding is that first round of funding when your startup is niche and perhaps the market is not ready for you. Our first investor invested in us not for the market but for the team. What I learnt from funding is that market is very important for your business”.

From L to R – Sara Axelrod, (COO, Local Measure), Tom Lokenvitz ( Founder, Smove), Donggun Lee, CEO & Co-founder, (MyRealTrip, South Korea)

Importance of Branding for your startup

• Focus on branding, creative and visual elements of your company to establish brand presence. While establishing a new company, get involved with as many relevant-events where you meet early advocates of your product as that gives you an early exposure & feedback.
• Think about how as a startup you can differentiate yourself and build reputation at an early stage.
• To build brand awareness, focus on improving the quality of different elements in your business. Example, if you are a company providing travel experiences – Try to improve the quality of tour guides on the reputation, security front etc.

Karl Loo, CEO & Founder, ServisHero, Malaysia

The above story is a part of our coverage from TravelRave2015, being organised in YourSingapore from October 19 2015 to October 23 2015. You can find more stories from TravelRave here.

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