Mobile apps iTraveller, Trip38 and Headout cater to the two main segments of travellers – business and holidayer – with their unique offerings.
Today, travel has become far more convenient thanks to the Internet and smartphones. But there’s still a long way to go in how technology can provide a traveller the perfect experience, feel some people. And this is where three Indian start-ups are keen to make a difference. Mobile apps iTraveller, Trip38 and Headout cater to the two main segments of travellers – business and holidayer – with their unique offerings. Currently on expansion mode, all the three have offices in Bangalore and have successfully raised funding to make travel experiences more meaningful and fun.
Niranjan Gupta, Markish R and Seshadri Krishnan came up with the idea of providing travellers a mobile app that would allow them to store their tickets and local guides in one place. Trip38 works anywhere in the world and Krishnan says their aim is to be a global mobile app in the next two years. Trip38 is designed as a smart travel management app for the global business traveller and they have tied up with 450,000 hotels around the world. Their content includes information about more than 100 leading airlines, duty-free information and more than 180,000 sightseeing options in more than 30,000 cities around the world. Says Seshadri, “We are all passionate about travel, technology and entrepreneurship (not necessarily in the order!) and aim to do something fundamentally different to create a world-class product for the global consumer from India.”
On the other hand, iTraveller stemmed from Shiju Radhakrishnan’s personal travel experience. “While booking a trip to Himachal, I found it absurdly difficult to get a holiday package. That was way back in 2011. Himachal is a popular tourist destination, so if there are so many problems, viz, getting the right hotels, local transport, sightseeing etc for such a destination, then how difficult would it be for other destinations? This inspired me to create a single platform for holiday-goers where they can customise the entire package based on their choice and preferences,” explains Radhakrishnan whose partners now include Nishanth Kumar and Chitra Parija.
iTraveller is aimed more at travellers who want the freedom to create their itineraries and put together a customised package while going on vacation. “We want to offer this at the most competitive price. We want our users to have happy experience and create and cherish happy memories of their holidays,” adds Radhakrishnan who says that iTraveller is the only technology platform, which allows users to do three aspects of holiday creation at a single platform – discover, plan and book.
If you are looking for a quick and simple play to plan a trip, then in three taps and 60 seconds, Headout is the app for you. Initially starting off in Bangalore as Tourlandish, the company moved to New York as Headout and expanded from there. Founders Suren Sultania, Vikram Jit Singh and Varun Khona developed Headout aimed at those who don’t pre-book activities and events while going on a holiday.What makes Headout unique is that they are tapping into the market of tours, activities, attraction tickets, events and other local experiences that haven’t been brought into the digital age.
“The inspiration for Headout came about on a trip to Europe. We hopped across a bunch of European hotspots and in every single place surfaced the same questions: what’s the best way to have fun here?” says Varun Khona. “When we were back in India, we figured ‘helping the world experience the world around them better’ is a pretty exciting premise to work on. However, our collective understanding was that the idea will be far more relevant in western markets and major urban tourist hotspots. We took perhaps the most brave/foolish (depending on how this turns out) decision to pack up our life here and move to the US. We had enough money for a plane ticket and a few weeks stay. But we are young and crazy and decided to go ahead anyway!” Travellers from more than 65 countries are now using Headout which is currently live in New York and Las Vegas.
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