India's 10 Best Travel Tech Companies to watch in 2020

India’s 10 Best Travel Tech Companies To Watch-2020
2020 | VOLUME-02 | ISSUE-01
pg 16
MOST
INNOVATIVE
TRAVEL TECH 2020
Sandesh Reddy
Co-founder & Head of
Finance & Strategy
Purav Shah
Co-founder & CEO
pg 08
Your Go-To Place for Everything Travel

Then and Now:
The Metamorphosis
of the Travel Industry
Editor
Shambhavi Mhetre
t’s an undeniable fact that
Itechnology has changed the way a
person lives his life. From buying
property online, selling utensils,
videoconferencing to perform a
surgery to marketing content,
everything can be done through a
single touch. While all this
technological advancement has
leveraged the entire world, travel and
tourism is no exception.
Before getting into the future of how
travel experience is on the spree to
adopt changes, let us rewind our
memories back to the generation of our
forefathers. At that time, people had
little or no knowledge about a place.
They had to travel and then explore
their likes and dislike. The percentage
of people frequently travelling was
considerably low.
There is no harm to say that a person’s
world can be expanded with the
expansion of his knowledge. Speaking
about travelling, today, we can first
explore our options, take a virtual tour
and then set out on the journey. From
booking hotels and accommodations,
booking flight tickets to planning an
entire itinerary, travelling has become
an easy and fun task.
Currently, the travel and tourism
industry has opened up the entire world
for travellers to explore and experience
beautiful destinations to make
wonderful lifetime memories.
However, this wouldn’t be entirely
possible without the advancement in
technology.
Let’s say you want to book a tour. A
few decades ago, you had to go to a
travel agent then convey your
requirements and accordingly he would
provide you with the best package.
But, today, there are various operating
and booking systems that assist you in
booking a tour through a reliable travel
agent to fulfil your travel needs.
Another classic example is that of the
usage of maps. In the olden times,
people used the maps while travelling.
But, today, we have got online maps.
Online maps have actually been a

EDITOR’s
NOTE
blessing in disguise. Just mark the
places you want to visit and voila, you
are already at your destination!
In India, there are many companies
who are well established as well as
emerging with some innovative tech
ideas to provide seamless user
experience to the tourists. There are
various platforms which help users
select the right package and destination
according to their budget, the climatic
conditions, travel duration and other
aspects.
Apart from online assistance in
planning the tour, there are various
platforms that ensure the safety of
tourists. These online portals or
platforms provide quick assistance and
one-click call to the emergency
department. In our edition of India's
10 Best Travel Tech Companies To
Watch-2020, we have showcased some
extraordinary ideas.
On the cover, we have QuaQua whose
aim is to deliver real and immersive
travel experiences through storytelling,
that inspires people to travel. Apart
from this, we have featured Gabbit
Trans System whose system helps
tourists to get various tourism services
that are available nearby to the tourist’s
location; Holidify has been simplifying
travel planning for people across the
globe through a full-stack online
platform; India Assist works on
improving the travel experience of
people visiting India by providing an
on-call ‘Assistance & Distress
management’ service.
Along with this, we are happy to
feature Pay4Biz, a travel technology
startup, that allows B2B retailers to
book travel tickets along with
recharges, money transfer and utility
payments all under a single panel.
Technogram helps its customers
generate leads while creating customer
engagement which ensures that a longlasting
bond is formed.
We have also featured an interview
with Mayank Kukreja and Anish
Khadiya, the co-founders of ITILITE.
We would also like to mention Rodeo
Travel Technologies, Trivo and
Travelstop for providing exceptional
customer services and leading the
travel industry ahead.
In this edition, we have also included
an article - Virtual Reality: The
Future of Travel and Tourism written
by one of our writers.
Happy Reading!
Shambhavi Mhetre

Cover Story
08
Your Go-To Place for Everything Travel
CONTENTS
SPECIAL PROFILE
16
INDIA ASSIST
Most Innovative
Travel Tech 2020

22
38
EXPLORE OUTING
A Preferred Name within Travel
and Tourism Space
TECHNOGRAM
Spearheading Online Travel
Businesses towards Success
INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS
28
HOLIDIFY
Bringing Global Travel
Experiences to your Fingertips
24
ITILITE
Making Business Trips Easy
and Cost-Effective
PAY4BIZ
A Preferred Platform
for B2B Retailers
30
Article
34
TIME TRAVEL
Virtual Reality:
The Future of
Travel and Tourism

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal
Managing Editor
Publishing Control Team
Shambhavi Mhetre
Shruti, Rahul
Quality Assurance Team Darshan, Abhishaj, Sneha
Contributing Writer Vishal Muktewar
Art & Design Head
Associate Designer
Art & Picture Editor
Co-designer
Amol Kamble
Poonam Mahajan
Priyanka Rajage
Deepanjali Jena
Business Development Manager Megha Mishra
Business Development Lead Tejshwini Whaval
Sr. Business Development Executive Ashwini, Sarika
Technical Head Pratiksha Patil
Technical Specialist
Amar Sawant
Digital Marketing Manager Prashant Chevale
SME-SMO Executive Uma
Circulation Manager Tanaji
sales@insightssuccess.com
February, 2020
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RNI NUMBER: MAHENG/2018/75953

Sandesh Reddy
Co-founder & Head of
Finance & Strategy
Purav Shah
Co-founder & CEO

COVER STORY
Your Go-To Place for Everything Travel
Are you a carefree
backpacker, with
wanderlust
coursing through your
veins? Have the tantalising
mountains, the peaceful
rivers, the mystifying meadows
and the sunny sands called out to
you? Has your venturing spirit
spoken to you of an approaching
voyage to lands unknown? If yes, then you
are in the right place reading the right article.
India’s 10 Best Travel Tech Companies To Watch, 2020
is an edition that aims to exhibit innovative organizations and
their game-changing platforms, solutions and services which are driving the travel and tourism
industry to new heights. Among these companies, one emerging player set to take the travel and
tourism industry by storm, is QuaQua, a content first travel platform. It is has a few renowned
patents to its name. It also uses AI for seamless user experience.
QuaQua is the world’s first end-to-end travel platform that incorporates the entire life-cycle of a
traveller at a single place – from inspiration, to planning, booking, on the ground support and
post-travel memories. The company’s objective is to deliver real and immersive travel
experiences through storytelling, that inspire people to travel.
QuaQua aims to bridge the gap between METADATA (curated and non-redundant information
related to each POI), CONTENT (immersive visual stories augmented with QuaQua features),
BOOKINGS (Personalized and curated visual itineraries and facilitation) and COMMUNITY

b) Planning:
• City Pages: Applying metadata, content, booking
and community for each city in the world
• Associate network: Creating a network of
vloggers, videographers and bloggers
• Customizable Itineraries: Creating customizable
itineraries for each city for a period of between 1-7
days
c) Booking:
• Metasearch: Introducing first ever metasearch
engine for Flights, Attractions and Activities
• Hyper Integration: $ 8.31 Tn travel ecosystem in
one place – One stop shop for all travel needs
d) Profile :
• Personalization: Provide intelligent feedback and
suggestions at content, information, itinerary and
transaction level.
Next in line for them is packages. They plan to introduce
“
We strive to translate
worlds travel
experiences into
captivating 360 videos
and AR/VR stories to
provide real and
immersive end to end
travel experiences.
“

metasearch for hotels, packages and be the first website to
have comparison model of holiday packages.
QuaQua is inherently a B2B2C model. While the company
integrates the best of content, information, ratings, bookings
and the likes for our consumers, we act as an integrator for
the travel ecosystem. Its B2B network includes flight,
events, attraction and activities.
QuaQua has already created the world’s first metasearch
engine for attractions, activities and experiences. “We are
proud to have industry leaders such as Skyscanner,
Ticketmaster, GetYourGuide, Musement, and Viator
(TripAdvisor company) as our partners,” the co-founders
express.
Addressing the Industry’s Shortcomings
Sharing their understanding of the current problems in the
travel and tourism industry, team QuaQua states that, 43%
travellers admit that they pay higher prices of flight/hotels
due to delay in decision making and they face a fragmented
experience due to disjoint platforms for different travel
offerings. The team believes that it takes 45 days in
planning an end to end vacation and it takes 38 touch points
on different websites during a booking journey, this is
global industry average.
According to the team, other problems which create barriers
between travellers and a quality experience are, being
misguided through social media; unauthenticated reviews;
obsolete and redundant data; monotonous planning process;
non-personalized information; lack of AI engine leading to
wrong recommendations of information; non-curated
information; inadequate or exaggerated travel marketing;
absence of better security infrastructure for travellers; and
absence of reliable information systems.
QuaQua offers a plethora of solutions to tackle these
limitations and barriers. It enables travelers to see the
destination before planning their travel, the VR and AR
technologies enables the travelers to decide whether a
particular destination matches their preferences or not.
Through its city highlights section curated by the locals, the
uniqueness of the destinations is correctly communicated.
While the betterment of the infrastructure is addressed by
the governments, QuaQua tries to cater to end to end
requirements of the travellers leaving them with no
ambiguity right from what they can expect from a
destination, places to stay and eat with the precautions to
be taken while on travel to any destination.
QuaQua relies on various online information systems,
information from its associates and locals, extensive data
analytics to provide the most accurate and real time
information about a destination on its platform.
Beholding a Transformative Future
QuaQua is a content first platform aiming to deliver real
and immersive travel experiences through storytelling, that
inspire people to travel. The company intends to focus on a
smooth traveller journey that rightfully starts from the
planning research phase and ends with the community
sharing phase.
The company meticulously creates, curates and integrates
engaging travel experiences that would inspire people to
travel, virtually first and physically later. And what more,
unlike any other travel platform out there, it leverages
Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality to bring immersive,
o
interactive, informative 360 stories on mobile, web, VR
o
glasses and even 360 domes.
“Our AI based personalization engine coupled with
patented dynamic story telling will help us scale faster than
any other success story one has encountered in this
industry,” state the co-founders. In the next 1 year, QuaQua
shall be amongst the top 3 content-based travel platform
and top 3 360-degree travel content consumption platform.
The users are also benefited by the 2D and 360-degree
travel content as it is free for consumption. The company’s
metasearch engine for experiences and activities is the only
one out there and with the first mover advantage, it intends
to be the top player in this space.
To learn more about
QuaQua, its platform
and offerings, visit:
www.quaqua.com

Harish Khatri
Founder
Moqierish Tak
Co-founder
16 | February 2020
www.insightssuccess.in

India Assist
MOST INNOVATIVE TRAVEL TECH 2020
India is an exotic travel destination, one of UNESCO’s
leading heritage sites which includes the world-famous
Taj Mahal. It is a nation with tremendous diversity of
terrain, culture and history. Every facet of its being has
thousands of stories to tell. It intrigues and fascinates
travellers from world over.
Millions of foreign tourists come to India every year.
According to a report by FICCI, India’s inbound tourism
will touch Rs 35 trillion by 2029! Yet, many travelers still
remain concerned about the safety aspects, about the
plausible travel experience the country has to offer.
India Assist, a mobile application startup has come up with
solutions to revolutionize the way people travel. It works on
improving the travel experience of people visiting India by
providing an on-call ‘Assistance & Distress management’
service.
Inside the App: India Assist
India Assist’s core product offers assistance and distress
management service via a subscription-based phone app. It
assists its users with services that include verified
information and personalized assistance through its onground
team in medical emergencies, theft, loss, altercation,
and transit.
The App has a Meet and Greet Service feature, wherein it
provides tourists a pick and drop service from various
public transport places to their point of destination. The
company’s on-ground team escort travelers to ensure safe
travel even at odd hours. By constantly working with its
team, India Assist ensures that its staff is compassionate. Its
‘Help First’ motto ingrained within every member ensures
that the subscriber is put at ease and comforted.
The App experience is a B2C model which is downloaded
and used directly by the foreign traveller for an enriching
and incredible experience during their visit to our country
by means of providing assistance through human
interaction (over call and in person).
However, the stakeholders of this product are part of the
B2B model. It is relevant to the entire travel trade universe
in India as all service providers, whether they are airlines,
hotels, travel agents, will want the inbound traveler to feel
safe and secure in the country and will want to deliver the
best travel experience to their clients.
United with a Purpose
India Assist was founded in 2017, however, its inception
happened way back in 2014, when its Founder, Harish
Khatri was traveling to the USA. Harish interacted with
many people who were extremely intrigued and excited
about India, but had doubts about the country’s safety
aspects. Everyone wanted to visit India but were unsure and
uncertain of navigating within the complex country.
Harish and Co-Founder of India Assist, Moqierish Tak
both being avid travelers, connected due to their common
experience and love for Travel and Sports. They identified a
serious gap in the travel and tourism landscape, that of
security and active on-ground assistance for travellers
which is lacking almost everywhere and is a global issue.
Harish and Moqierish understood how the lack of security
www.insightssuccess.in
17 | February 2020

and active assistance restricted tourists from enjoying their
travel within the country. They also recognized that no such
assistance existed at the moment, and finding relevant
information was a long and tedious process.
With a desire to make assistance easily available to inbound
travelers in India, and guide tourists through verified
information, both left their successful careers in Sports &
Events, to provide tourists in India a unique and convenient
experience. They conceptualized and launched India Assist
with a vision to ‘bridge the gap and enhance the Indian
Experience for travelers.’
Conquering Challenges along the Way
The road to becoming one of the most sought after travel
app wasn’t without hurdles for India Assist. For the
company, its biggest challenge was not having a template to
follow while developing the App and its service-end.
Without an investor on-board, it was difficult for the
company and to meet its expectations vs the cost. However,
the team was determined not to compromise. In the words
of Harish, “We were determined that we will not
compromise and give a half-baked product to our
customers. Thankfully once investors started believing in
our vision and product, things eased out. It took us almost 2
years to perfect the technology that we now work with, and
we are constantly upgrading it for a better user
experience.”
Aiding the Travel Industry
According to India Assist, the major challenges faced by the
Travel and Tourist Industry in India are at two levels. First,
the perception of foreigners about India regarding security
and safety threats, crimes against women, unreliable
transportation, etc. Two, the lack of verified assistance and
verified information.
By providing verified assistance and information, India
Assist is filling the tourism gap. It hopes that once
foreigners start receiving appropriate assistance, they will
view India as a responsible tourism destination.
Empathy lies at the core of India Assist. It is a guiding force
behind the development of the company’s product. Every
service, action and initiative is focused towards benefiting
the tourist in terms of making their life easy while they
travel.
Envisioning the Future
India Assist has successfully launched on both Google Play
store and the Apple App store and have the services
18 | February 2020
“
India Assist helps
you travel carefree
by providing active
on-ground
assistance and
distress
management,
channelized
through our mobile
application
“
www.insightssuccess.in

currently available in Delhi NCR. The company will soon
make its services available in Jaipur and Agra, but do not
envisage its market at a city or country level. It considers the
planet as its market. The company has used this as an
underlying framework for developing its product which will
have global usage. It states that it took three years to develop
world-class technology. This product can be offered in any
part of the world to any customer. The company is planning
to implement the product in a few countries by the end of
2020.
India Assist constantly works on adding more value-added
services to its product basket. It intends to add a variety of
hyperlocal services on a city level that will showcase the
unique flavor and the offerings of the city itself.
An Inspiring Message
According to the company, all stakeholders like airlines,
hotels, travel agents, OTAs, Government authorities, etc.
need to support the cause of assistance to travelers. India
Assist aims to collaborate with all segments of the travel
industry to take care of their customers whenever they need
any assistance, and enhance the India experience for
everyone.
The start-up team, led by the two founders Harish and
Moqierish, have a motivational message for the Indian
Travel and Tourism Industry by saying, “Let us together
make India a great and safe destination to travel.”
www.insightssuccess.in
19 | February 2020

Explore Outing
A Preferred Name within Travel and Tourism Space
There was a time when people
had to travel according to the
travel company’s itinerary.
This meant missing out on plenty of
unexplored sites which only locals
could suggest. But, as time progressed,
people started shifting towards
experiential travel. They wanted to
experience the local culture and
explore the hidden gems. They no
more want to be dependent on age old
fashioned travel planners.
As people are moving from generic
travel planning to personalized travel
experience, there are many challenges
for both, the travellers as well as travel
companies and planners. Ranging from
travel safety to getting in touch with
the locals, travellers these days need
everything organized. Catering to the
current needs of the travel
communities including the travellers
and the travel companies, Explore
Outing of Gabbit Trans System is
leading the travel and tourism sphere.
The aim of Explore Outing is to enrich
tourism experience by solving
problems in tourism sector using
technology & collaboration as the
bridge. Experience is the current
driving force of the tourism arena.
Tourists and travellers are always
looking to explore different places and
to-do things as per their choice.
As people want to have a personalized
experience, there are three major
factors that need to be considered. This
starts from tourist’s personal choice,
tourism knowledge and information on
tourist safety. Fortunately, there are
both, private as well as government
service providers in India who are
endlessly working towards providing
seamless travel experience.
While these providers are leveraging
the overall experience, Gabbit Systems
under its brand name Explore Outing is
using technology as a networkbackbone.
The system helps tourists to
get various tourism services available
in and nearby to a place which they can
access using the system.
On the Go Services
With a smooth and user-friendly
mobile application, Explore Outing
offers services to both B2B and B2C.
When it comes to B2C, the primary
clients, tourists use the app for
acquiring information on various
tourism services available in and
around that place, book services as per
their choice, interact with nearby
tourists, emergency response etc. Apart
from the basic services, tourists are
also provided vital information like
road and weather status, crowd and
queue information at various
attractions, etc. The application also
provides the users with alerts, warnings
and safety messages based on their
location.
Speaking about B2B, the SME tourism
service providers generally lack behind
when it comes to technology. Which in
turn makes it difficult for them to have
an online booking system. Explore
Outing provides a simple solution
which brings them online while
marketing their offerings to nearby
tourists.
The Driving Force of Explore Outing
Vipul Jain, the Founder and CEO of
Explore Outing is a passionate traveller
with 25 years experience in corporate
management, technology and
engineering. He is responsible for the
strategy and planning of all the
processes at Explore Outing.
On the other hand, Vikal
Kulshreshtha, the Director - Tourism
& Hospitality has an extensive 23
years of experience in travel and
tourism. He has a BHM degree from
IHM, Jaipur and a Masters in Travel
and Tourism. He owned and operated a
travel company for 25 years. Currently,
he is responsible for the execution of
tie-ups in the travel and tourism
industry.
Ladder to Success
With the motto of organizing the
unorganized sector, Explore Outing
started its journey by providing
tourism experience. It did so by
22 | February 2020
www.insightssuccess.in

India’s
1
Best
Travel
Tech Companies To Watch-2020
Vipul Jain
Founder and CEO
Vikal Kulshreshtha
Director
What’s Ahead for Explore Outing?
Vipul says, “Last year, the travel and tourism industry in
India grew at 6.7% (and is expected to grow by 8.5% in the
current year). It contributed to about 9.2% of the country’s
GDP. We are seeing a shift in the tourist choice - from just
travel to ‘experiential travel’. This means tourists now want
to experience the place, local art & culture, market etc.”
This is exactly where Explore Outing is focusing on, where
the company is bringing local providers to mainstream
tourism. This not only helps tourists in getting ‘experience’
but also the local economy.
Explore Outings’ product is already well-established in one
state in association with the tourism industry and
government. It further will work on growing with different
states and partnering with tourism stakeholders. In the end,
Vipul adds, “The tourism problems that we are addressing
are of global nature, very soon we will be going to the
International market.”
reaching out to the local (small & big) providers and
explaining their need to be a part of the system. The
company had to face a few obstacles on the path to provide
a simple and easy-to-use system to the travel and tourism
sector.
The major concern for Explore Outing was the issue of the
safety of the tourist. Tourist safety issues are usually
ignored. Most people understand its importance but don’t
own it. For many people, solution means a call to a pre-fed
phone number or sharing location via an app. But all these
systems are catering to an individual after the incidence
which is of no use.
Here, Explore Outing has been solving the problems with a
wide network of tourism components and stakeholder in
addition to tourism knowledge and location-based
technology. The company provides a proactive and preincidence
system that keeps on monitoring situation, send
timely alerts and warnings, and help during an emergency.
www.insightssuccess.in
“
We provide a proactive
and pre-incidence
system that keeps on
monitoring situation,
send timely alerts and
warnings, and help
during an emergency.
“
23 | February 2020

itilite
MAKING BUSINESS TRIPS EASY AND COST-EFFECTIVE
n our professional life, whether we prefer it or not, we
Ihave to travel for our work purposes. So, why not
invest in something which makes our life and our
company’s work easy?
With the aim to reduce organizations’ business travel
expenditure, ITILITE, an integrated AI-powered SaaSbased
travel platform provides an unbeatable solution.
Through a unique model of employee incentivization, its
goal is to make the corporate booking experiences
seamless.
In this interview, founders, Mayank Kukreja and Anish
Khadiya, have made an effort to showcase the endless
amount of work and dedication put in by the team at
ITILITE to bring a change in the way business travels
work.
What type of offerings does ITILITE deliver? Is it
limited to a B2B model?
ITILITE was formed with the aim to bring business travel
online and to streamline the entire business travel
ecosystem through an offering that balances technology
innovation & human intervention.
Through its intelligent platform that functions on consumerfocused
touch points ITILITE learns employee preferences
and creates personalized recommendations. On the one
hand, companies use ITILITE's platform to encourage the
cost-consciousness of employees during business travel,
while on the other hand employees get to keep a part of the
savings as personal rewards by saving money for the
company. Thus, through a mutually beneficial,
technologically driven and cost-effective approach,
ITILITE strives to make the business travel experience a
coherent and enjoyable one for companies and employees
alike.
About the Leaders
Mayank Kukreja is the Co-founder and
Chief Executive Ofcer at ITILITE, and an
alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad.
Prior to co-founding ITILITE, Mayank worked
with McKinsey and Myntra where his role
revolved across strategy, operations, sales,
product development and pricing.
On the other hand, Anish Khadiya, also the
Co-Founder and Chief Business Ofcer
at ITILITE, and an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur
and IIM Lucknow. Anish has spent more than
14 years gaining professional experience
across sectors including time spent at
McKinsey & Myntra.
Travelling has been a key aspect of their
professional lives, and ITILITE is the result of
personal experience with corporate travel,
and the state thereof. At one point, Mayank
and Anish were travelling for almost 200 days
in a year for their respective projects. They
realized, planning a business trip was an
ofine, time-consuming process every single
time.
That is when an idea started evolving: A new
approach to business travel that helps
companies save on travel costs while creating
a convenient and rewarding experience for
employees.
24 | February 2020
www.insightssuccess.in

INTERVIEW WITH
INSIGHTSSUCCESS
Anish Khadiya
Co-Founder
“
OUR TEAMS
ENSURE
IN-DEPTH
ANALYSIS
OF THE DATA,
LEADING
TO ACTIONABLE
INSIGHTS FOR
ORGANIZATIONS
TO PUT INTO
EFFECT
PERIODICALLY
Mayank Kukreja
Co-founder
“
www.insightssuccess.in
25 | February 2020

ITILITE has a 3-pronged business model aimed at the
finance team, the admin teams, and the end customers.
What are the challenges your company faces? How do
you overcome such challenges?
One of the biggest challenges that we face is the balancing
act between organizations and end-users. Travel, even
business travel, is a service-based industry. ITILITE aims to
create a great business travel experience; from booking to
the actual travel, and post-travel processes.
In this context, our biggest challenge is to live up to
customer expectations in terms of our clients, as well as the
end-user. This implies that we need to deliver excellence
B2B as well as B2C. The ITILITE offering is not a onetime
exercise. With every trip, every booking, and every
process, the need for excellence is paramount. Hence, the
challenge is to deliver the best experience with every
experience that the client has.
To deliver on all fronts, we ensure a dynamic development
strategy which is customer-sourced. Our customer success
teams are in touch with the client, to ensure all feedback is
received, and acted upon wherever possible, to make the
platform deliver on user expectations, thereby making
adoption easier and more beneficial to the organization. Our
rewards model also drives adoption and positive
experiences by ensuring that the user gains as well as the
organization when adhering to company policy, or picking a
budget-friendly travel option.
Our policy of being customer-first has let us not only
deliver great experiences, but also sets us apart as a player
that impacts the business ecosystem, and not only as one
that delivers a travel package.
What is your opinion about the current scenario of the
Travel and Tourism industry and your role with respect
to it?
The current travel & tourism industry is just that: travel &
tourism.
In this setup, business travel forms one added offering
wherein the services are catering to business travel
requirements. It has been seen in multiple industries, a
consumer service cannot efficiently cater to a business
requirement. While the B2C sector is doing well, despite
multiple problems of funds, carriers shutting down, and
more, the business travel sector is sadly underserved.
This is due to a few reasons:
• The tedious and offline business travel booking process
• Massively fragmented market
• Focus on ‘cheapest tickets’ over long-term value
• Lack of strong technology innovation in the space
ITILITE is built for corporate, and by business travellers.
Therefore, it addresses various issues unresolved by the
incumbent travel management models. We are building the
first smart, cost-efficient and employee-friendly platform in
a market which is currently dominated globally by offline
processes and clunky systems. Specifically, we fill 3 gaps in
the market
• Cost Reduction
• Employee Productivity
• Company Control & Insights
Through this approach, we break the clutter of the travel
industry which focuses purely on lowest cost per ticket and
deliver long-lasting organization-level value. By rewarding
employees to choose smarter options, we ensure
behavioural change aligned to policy compliance, while
maintaining happiness quotient.
By delivering periodic insights to organizations, we drive
growth on a real-time basis. Through a digitally hosted
platform, we provide support to the overall budgeting
processes by creating a seamless, trackable experience at all
levels.
How do you envision the future of your company?
In the coming year, we aim to grow our clientele to 500
businesses. We will also be establishing an international
presence to support our multi-country customers and then to
serve the increasing demand we are seeing from those
countries. With support from our multinational customers,
we see it as a natural progression in our growth journey. As
we grow our market share, we will also forge partnerships
with other technology startups and companies that will
allow us to offer a seamless experience to our customers.
26 | February 2020
www.insightssuccess.in

Holidify
Bringing Global Travel Experiences to your Fingertips
When it comes to travelling,
today’s generation are no
less than any professional
travel planner. With the entire world’s
knowledge on their fingertips, people
now have become independent. From
planning a vacation with the family to
travelling solo, people are more
inclined towards experiential travel.
While there are many websites and
mobile application which help you to
plan your travel, Holidify stands out
due to its simple, quick and
personalized interface.
Holidify stands for simplifying travel
planning for people across the
globe(the vision) by building a fullstack
online platform that makes all
types of travel-related information and
products accessible at one place(the
mission).
With this, Rohit Shroff and Kovid
Kapoor, the Co-Founders of Holidify
provide us with an overview of the
company’s interesting journey
throughout the years.
What type of offerings does Holidify
deliver? Is it limited to a B2B
model?
Holidify runs www.holidify.com (the
website) and Trip Planner (Android
App). It has in-depth coverage on
1000+ destinations worldwide through
editorial content around ‘what’, ‘when’
and ‘how’ on any destination.
Apart from that, we help travellers to
connect to the trusted travel agents for
the holiday packages. Also, you can
find the right stay option for your
vacation and exciting experiences and
activities on Holidify. We have tied-up
with top players in the industry, like
Airbnb and Booking.com, to facilitate
the same.
No, Holidify is a consumer-facing
internet company. It’s an open platform
and you need not pay anything to use
it.
What are the challenges your
company faces? How do you
overcome such challenges?
Travel, as an industry, is very
competitive globally. You can see
travel booking websites leaving no
stone unturned to increase their market
share by leveraging on deep discounts.
When it comes to travel discovery and
planning, it is at a juncture where both
offline (travel agents, friends and
families, magazines) and online
ecosystems(websites, social media
influencers, blogs) co-exist with no
clear advantage of one over the other.
In such a scenario, it is quite
challenging(yet exciting) to position
your product in the market.
Having said that, travel comes with its
own virtue of limitless avenues of
growth, be it geographically, or in
terms of business transactions. There
has been a recent upsurge in DIY(Do It
Yourself) travel, where millennials are
going a step ahead of the mainstream
tourist destinations and looking for offbeat
places and new vacations ideas.
Holidify, as an online travel planning
platform, is an ‘enabler’ that could
provide authentically all the
information you require for planning
your next vacation as a free
independent traveller.
Also, as internet penetration is
growing, a platform like Holidify is
successful in filling the knowledge gap
around anything related to travel to a
much larger audience. Today, if you
want to plan your trip to Europe you
can do it all by yourself and need not
necessarily depend on travel agents,
which was the case a few years back.
What according to you are a few
major problems faced by Travel and
Tourism companies? How does
Holidify help solve such issues?
Cut-throat competition, building
credibility and ensuring sustainable
growth are the top problems(or
challenges you may say) companies in
this industry are facing.
At our core, we strongly believe in
‘users first’ philosophy. We want to
build a platform where the majority of
the content is by actual travellers. This
is how you build credibility. Growing
the business metrics and achieving
scales by heavily leveraging on
technology, instead of increasing
reliance on human resources, is
instrumental to have sustainable
growth.
What is your opinion about the
current scenario of the Travel and
Tourism industry and your role with
respect to it?
Travel and tourism contribute to more
than 10% of global economic
activities. One out of every five new
jobs were created by this industry over
the last 6 years. This gives the essence
of how important the travel and
tourism industry is. People are
travelling more often. Almost 1.5
billion international trips happened in
the past year.
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India’s
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Talking about the short term plans, we are foreseeing to hit
20 million monthly users very soon. In tandem to that, we
are working on new channels of revenue to fuel our growth.
By 2022, we want to be the #1 online travel planning
platform globally by achieving the scale of more than 100
Mn people using and engaging on Holidify every month.
Rohit Shroff
Co-founder
Holidify stands for travel discovery and planning. We see
our role, as a platform, to make all the stages of travelinspiration,
discovery, planning, booking, reviews-engaging
and easy for everyone, everywhere.
How do you motivate your team to think out-of-the-box
in terms of creating innovative solutions?
We have a team of 18 people and collectively we have
travelled to more than 30 countries. This brings in a lot of
travel experience on the table. As a company, we encourage
our team members to travel more often.
Also, there’s no better way to create a solution than to put
yourself in the shoes of your customer/user. Whatever we
do, we ask ourselves a question about how it is going to
help someone travelling or planning to travel!
The combination of the two forces-travel experience and
customer empathy-brings in fresh ideas from the team that
could be transformed into practical solutions.
How do you envision the future of your company?
Holidify is at the cusp of becoming a full-stack, global
travel planning platform. Last year was amazing for us. We
extended our in-depth coverage on foreign destinations,
primarily the South East Asia region. While we grew to
double of what we were the previous year, the traction on
foreign destinations was even more exciting.
www.insightssuccess.in
About the Leaders
Rohit Shroff, an IIT Bombay graduate and the Co-
Founder of Holidify, leads the product and content strategy
at Holidify. He is an avid traveller himself and wants to
solve every single pain point faced by travellers around the
world through innovation and technology. While Kovid
Kapoor, a computer engineer from IIT Bombay, also the
Co-Founder, heads the technology and product
development at Holidify. His passion for building products
that could provide a seamless experience to its users by
leveraging cutting-edge technologies has been pivotal in
Holidify’s growth to 9 Million monthly users.
Rohit and Kovid came up with Holidify in 2014. With the
idea of building an online platform that would let people get
travel inspiration and discover new holiday destinations, the
duo bootstrapped to build the product and launched it. Since
its launch, Holidify is now India’s #1 online travel planning
platform with more than 9 million visitors using it every
month.
“
We help you break out of the
monotony of the same
vacation spots you have
known for years and open in
front of you, a world of
possibilities. With our
interactive map interface and
powerful filters, you can plan
your vacation like never
before.
“
29 | February 2020

The travel and tourism industry
has evolved exponentially over
the past few years. Also, It has
been observed that there is a 30 percent
growth in the industry, making it one
of the most profitable for investing.
However, a large chunk of people from
metros and mini-metros have been
contributing significantly to this rising
demand.
Tier 2 and 3 markets are driving the
travel growth story. After the boom of
the digital world, tremendous
opportunities have been opened to
upscale the market and help customers
reap its many benefits. One company
with an agenda of providing online
travel technology at a single platform
with competitive rates, specifically
designed for this market is Pay4Biz.
Pay4Biz is a travel technology startup,
working towards building an easy to
use platform. It allows B2B retailers to
book travel tickets along with
recharges, money transfer and utility
payments all under a single panel.
The Inception Story
Before taking on the market, the
Pay4Biz team set to identify the
industry gaps. With thorough market
research, they realized that many
service providers in a similar space.
But most of them lacked somewhere in
technology while others lacked in postsales
support. Hence, the team started
on their venture to build a solution for
the client's customers. This would help
Pay4Biz
A Preferred Platform for B2B Retailers
the clients to provide their customers
right from getting them onboard to
resolving their queries. It is for this
reason, Pay4Biz claims today that they
have an exceptional network of
retailers and white label partners across
India within a short span of time.
Tailored-made Services
Pay4Biz works towards its vision of
creating business opportunities for
people from all sectors in PAN India
along with promoting digitization in
rural and niche markets. Its B2B
platform offers various niche and
caters to the metros along with Tier 2
and Tier 3 cities PAN India.
The company supports the Agenda of
Ease of Doing Business for Everyone
and therefore, always works towards
building solutions (Platform) which is
easy to understand and use.
Leading with A Burning Desire
For some people, it takes time to find
their passion. For them, taking the first
step towards their career help them
realize what their real calling is. Mr.
Ali Shaikh, Founder of Pay4Biz, is
one such business leader who
discovered his passion in the Online
Travel Industry after working as an
Online Sales Asst. Manager in a
company.
He realized that there were few things
that need to be improved and
improvised according to the clients’
and market’s requirements and needed
a few fix-ups. Mr. Shaikh wanted to
build a platform that is customercentric
rather than profit-centric and its
then that the idea of starting his own
venture, Pay4Biz was born.
Out-of-the-Box thinking
At Pay4Biz, its expert staff is
committed to deliver the quality
product even when the odds seem not
in their favor. Learning from mistakes
is encouraged as it allows the team to
experiment and help to bring value
each day.
Mr. Shaikh, himself stated that he
wasn’t capable of handling a team at
the beginning. However, he learned
through constant exploration and
diverse ways, which has helped him to
become a renowned industry leader he
is today. In his own words, “We are
cool in our approach, we encourage
people putting forward their
suggestions for the betterment of
product and organization. There is no
boss and employee thing. We are all a
Team at the end of the day. And that’s
how we motivate ourselves and each
other. We make mistakes, we find
solutions, we fix them, we learn new
ways, we unleash our potentials and
that motivates us”
Continuous Innovation
According to Pay4Biz, the B2B
marketplace in Tier 2 and 3 is
unstructured and cluttered. Also,
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India’s
1
Best
Travel
Tech Companies To Watch-2020
needs of the consumer then you cannot question the time or
the circumstances, the industry is facing.”
A Promising Future
Pay4Biz desires to continuously develop innovative
solutions that will uplift the online travel industry. It has
already built a calendar for 2020-21 which will focus on
product development.
Mr. Ali Shaikh
Founder
The company is planning to grow its team to provide realtime
resolutions to the queries along with a smoother
operational experience. This will not only elevate the
people working in the industry but will help them to serve
their customers with the best tools at their disposal.
Visit www.pay4biz.com to know more.
building trust and confidence in a market that’s unaddressed
is difficult. It makes it even worse as the digitalization is
still at a nascent stage. However, Pay4Biz is working
towards building and educating these markets and
encouraging the people to start the business with minimum
investment.
Mr. Shaikh has confidence that with Pay4Biz, the shortage
of optimum technology in the market will soon be fulfilled.
He says, “I have a strong faith that we will get there soon
and moreover if you believe your product is answering the
www.insightssuccess.in
“
“We believe a
person is a lot
more capable
than what he or
she thinks of.”
“
31 | February 2020

Virtual
Real y
The Future of Travel and Tourism
34 | February 2020
www.insightssuccess.in

Time Travel
Ever felt like looking at the world from
the top of Mt. Everest and the very
next moment diving deep into the
Great Barrier Reef? But, this is far beyond
reality. It burns the pockets to travel from one
place to another and even if you are wealthy
enough to afford it, you will be exhausted after
a point. However, today, as the world has been
taken over by technological advancement,
travel and tourism has been performing like
never before.
With the rise in use of augmented reality and
virtual reality (AR/VR), the entire universe is
revolutionizing. It was not long ago when AR
gained popularity in India. Since then, AR and
VR are being used in various domains
including healthcare, finance and military. But,
the most affirmative impact has been seen in
the travel and tourism sphere.
What’s AR and VR?
Before we get into the interesting changes
brought by AR and VR technology, let us
understand what AR and VR actually are.
According to Google, Augmented Reality (AR)
is defined as “A technology that superimposes
a computer-generated image on a user's view of
the real world, thus providing a composite
view” and Virtual reality (VR) is “the
computer-generated simulation of a threedimensional
image or environment that can be
interacted with in a seemingly real or physical
way by a person using special electronic
equipment, such as a helmet with a screen
inside or gloves fitted with sensors.”
www.insightssuccess.in
35 | February 2020

VR in Travel and Tourism
Having said that, VR now has made the lives of
tourists extremely easy. Due to the emergence of
virtual tourism, tourists now can explore the locations
through their mobile phones and computers. Imagine
you want to fly over the Statue of Liberty or you want
to lay down in an igloo and witness the beauty of
northern lights. Now, it’s just one touch away!
Basically, VR in travel and tourism is placing people
in heavily managed, artificial environments. To give a
real feel, technology is further enhanced by adding
elements like music, sound effects, floor plans, etc.
Today, the VR technology in the travel and hospitality
space is being used to generate a huge profit to the
companies. VR lets you virtually inspect your
accommodation which helps you choose your stay
better. A very famous example is of Thomas Cook and
Samsung Gear VR where they have tied-up together
to allow their clients to view their locations
worldwide. Thomas Cook’s ‘Try Before you Fly’ is
another example where the campaign helped then
uplift the bookings by 190%. This campaign provided
a virtual tour for its customers like flying in a
helicopter over the Manhattan skyline, scuba diving in
the Red Sea, or visiting the Egyptian pyramids from
one of their stores.
Talking about VR tourism in specific countries,
Australia has been using this technology for a while
now to attract tourists from all over the world. Their
youtube channel provides the user with the thrilling
360° aquatic and coastal experience. From snorkelling
at Great Barrier Reef, swimming with dolphins at
Glenelg to surfing on the Gold Coast, Australia has
taken the travel and tourism industry to a new level.
Another famous location which gets the most number of
visitors is Dubai. It is known to be leading the tourism
market and virtual tours look furthermore exciting. AR
and VR for tourism marketing in Dubai had started way
before it had come to India. Going back to the end of
2017, Burj Khalifa and HTC collaborated to create a
campaign called ‘Mission 828’. In this campaign, the
tourists with the help of VR could jump off from the
world’s tallest tower! Since then, the use of VR has been
attracting a good number of tourists to Dubai.
Apart from experiencing the tourist worthy location, VR
now has been unravelling the secrets from the past.
People now can get a better understanding of mythology
and folklore. Speaking of which, Denmark, which has a
great significance of its nordic culture, is planning on
exhibiting Viking history and Norse mythology through
VR into a permanent theme park. While on the other
hand, China lets you experience a rollercoaster ride that
sends chills down the spine through its specialized VR
technology.
Into the Future
Indeed, numerous travel companies, airlines, hotels and
all the major hospitality departments are taking
advantage of the emerging VR technology. There is no
doubt this technology will provide some relief to the
tourists as it will help them to get a virtual experience
before landing to the location. Perhaps, VR will
encourage people to travel to places even more. It will
eventually help the travel and tourism space increase its
revenue.
So to sum up, we would like to ask you a question. Do
you think virtual reality will take the place of real-life
travel experience?
-Shambhavi Mhetre
36 | February 2020
www.insightssuccess.in

Technogram
Spearheading Online Travel Businesses towards Success
With the advancement in
technology, the tourism
industry around the world
is growing at an astonishing rate. A
recent report from India Brand Equity
Foundation says that the travel and
tourism industry contributed 9.6% to
India’s GDP in 2018.
In the current era, the tourism industry
is not just limited to travel, leisure and
business. Rather, it has vast branches
which include medical tourism,
educational tourism, environmental
tourism and so on. While technology is
helping the tourism industry gain
momentum, it also has its own glitches.
Hence, Technogram Solutions is
lending a helping hand to provide
technological solutions to various
travel websites. Currently, the B2B
market is a cash-driven setup that
makes a great niche to work with. But,
due to the funding issue, people opt for
B2C businesses.
Technogram is helping such B2B
companies to reach out to as many
people as possible. It ensures that end
to end solutions are provided by
enhancing the accessibility and
searchability.
The company ensures that the endusers
receive quick and accurate search
results from the clientele website. A
travel website should be more than just
a tool. Rather it should be a platform
for selling products and services.
The Pillars of Technogram
Ashu Gupta and Sanjay Khurana are
the Co-Founders of Technogram.
Ashu has completed his Masters in
Computer Science and is an IIT
Roorkee alumnus. His career started
from Trilogy and went on to various
well-known travel companies like
Via.com.
Overall, Ashu has an experience of 9
years of which the last 4 years were
dedicated as Engineering Director of
India and Southeast Asian Countries.
Having worked for almost a decade, he
understands the problems faced by the
travel and tourism industry. That is
when he and Sanjay came up with the
idea of providing cost-effective and
scalable technological solutions in the
face of Technogram.
On the other hand, Sanjay has a
Masters degree in Computer Science
and is an IP University alumnus. He
has 9 years of experience in IT out of
which last 6 years was in Jabong with
the last 2 years working as a Principal
Engineer. Through his experience, he
understood how a user navigates and
interacts with the product.
Customer Oriented Services
Technogram provides a wide range of
services to its clients to enhance the
inflow of the website traffic. Apart
from generating leads, it also provides
different tools which enable the endusers
to browse smoothly. This makes
Technogram’s products a one-stopshop
for all the travel requirements.
Ashu mentions, “We believe that a
travel website should be more than just
a tool for e-commerce, rather than a
platform for selling products and
services, a travel website should be
used as a method to create customer
engagement and create a lasting
relationship on a global level.”
The clients of the Technogram can
choose different features and tools
depending on their requirements. Some
of the planned features apart from
basic functionality are:
• Agent Interaction tool
• Google voice to text search
• Best option recommendation based
on search history
• Price prediction
• Self Booking Tool
• Corporate Tool
• Low Fare Search for Corporate
• Payment solutions
• Business Intelligence to make datadriven
decision
• Social media integration to share
experience and make a
recommendation
Furthermore, Technogram also
provides responsive design capabilities
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India’s
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Best
Travel
Tech Companies To Watch-2020
solutions, personalization and handling scalability and
complexity. Such B2B companies face problems as keeping
up with technological updates becomes difficult. With
Technogram’s solutions, most of the complexity is
incorporated in the system so that the client will face
minimum problems.
Future Endeavors
In the tourism industry, customization of services becomes
an essential part. Each customer has their own needs and
requirements. Technogram is keeping its customer
satisfaction level high through constant improvement.
Ashu Gupta and Sanjay Khurana
Co-Founders
that will allow more dynamic aesthetics and integration
with mobile devices. This will enable an engaging, easy to
navigate web experience while emphasizing on the product
and service than the website itself.
Though Technogram’s major clients are from the B2B
industry, the solutions and offers are for all kinds of
business (B2C, B2B, B2E). “Today, our technology is
supporting the business of over more than 2000 cr of
transactions. We believe in a philosophy that response time
should be less than 3 sec and we are successfully able to
achieve this in both flight and hotel product,” adds Ashu.
Technogram’s Contribution
According to Technogram, the travel and tourism industry
is growing 20-30% on a yearly basis. In recent times,
customers are opting for both, domestic and international
travel. In order to cater services to these travelers, agents
need solutions that can help them to answer their queries
quickly.
But, the travel and tourism industry lack technology
initiatives. It also lacks a data-driven approach, customized
www.insightssuccess.in
The company is building a complex rule engine that will
help customization according to customer needs. It is also
on a mission to provide cutting edge strategies and
technology solutions for customers and partners in order to
penetrate into the global market.
“
We have build
scalable and costeffective
Business
tools which will
provide insight about
business to every
user.
“
39 | February 2020