The report further states that most of the growth would come from the increasing penetration of international flight and hotel bookings made through online portals such as Cleartrip, MakeMyTrip, and Yatra.  According to Madhur Singhal, managing director of Praxis Global Alliance, combined packages of flight and hotel bookings are a huge hit among Indian consumers.

Praxis said in its report that the number of hotel rooms booked in India, both online and offline, touched 11.4 million in 2016, while the number of flights stood at 99.9 million.

Increased in user demand continues to be a major contributing factor as Indian consumers are expected to devote almost 4% of their wallet spends on travel, in the next decade.

According to Kapil Goswamy, CMD, Bigbreaks.com (a tours and travel dedicated portal), the Indian travel industry is set to grow from $33 billion in 2015 to $56 billion by 2020. Let us take a look at the top 10 travel startups in India.

Top 10 travel startups in India

1. Tripoto:

This Delhi-based start-up, founded by Anirudh Gupta and Michael Lyngdoh believes in the principle of sharing travel-related information. The online travel portal allows users to create itineraries for their upcoming trips can share it with other travelers.

They may share travel experiences, related content and pictures, itineraries, maps, and reviews.  Tripoto, ranked among the top 10 travel startups in India, it connects travelers from around the world to share and discover travel destinations, especially the newer and lesser traveled parts.  

2. SeekSherpa:

Sukhmani Singh and Dhruv Raj Gupta, founded SeekSherpa in 2014. The couple learned about the importance of researching well in advance before traveling, from varied their travel experiences.

The research is better if you get it from a local resident. It is here that SeekSherpa differs from other travel portals. It connects you with the local people in the city you are heading to.

These “sherpas” are chosen after a thorough background check and offer numerous itineraries (popularly referred to as “micro tours”) from sightseeing, photography tours to heritage walks and food walks to explore a location from the eyes of a local guide, aka Sherpa.

A niche offering, SeekSherpa, caters to the specific needs of travelers who love to mingle with local folk, without a qualm. It surely ranks among the top 10 travel startups in India, for its unique concept (much western, yet Indianized beautifully).

3. goMowgli:

Taken from the iconic character of Mowgli (Jungle Book), the travel start-up works in the concept of hop-off the buses, as you travel. An immensely popular concept in the West, goMowgli allows travelers to get down from a bus, and take another bus.

This works best for backpackers or solo travelers, who want to travel without a fixed plan or do not want to get into the glitches of advanced reservations. The travel start-up goMowgli has a fleet of buses across different states in India. Commuters can buy a pass for a fixed number of days (for instance 7 days or 21 days).

All you have to do is to switch on the GPS feature on your mobile or any hand-held device, and goMowgli will tell you the exact location of the nearest bus. Fast growing in popularity, it may well be counted among the top 10 travel startups in India.

4. Oyo Rooms:

Founded by 21-year-old Ritesh Agarwal, Oyo Rooms, has almost become a household name. The Indian travel startup works in liaison with existing hotels and offers vacant rooms for a cheaper price to their customers.

Oyo has also invested in their own properties which start at a nominal price of ₹999. Another segment called Oyo Premium caters to those that want a more-than-basic experience.

The primary reason Oyo Room properties are so hot is that all properties are located in the city primes thus ensuring that you are always close to the best sightseeing and dining options.  

5. Thrillophilia:

Thrillophilia, a Bengaluru-based start-up, founded in 2009, is an online travel marketplace where travelers can discover, compare and book from more than 2500 tours and activities from around 1000 suppliers. What more, travelers can curate the best tours and genuine suppliers.

The best part about Thrillophilia is that it provides handpicked adventure travel options, especially for off-the-beaten-track packages for sight-seeing, sports, and adventure activities, that include activities like white water rafting, snorkeling, bungee jumping and skydiving.  

6. Nearify:

Founded in 2012, the Nearify app is great for travelers new to the city (such as people traveling for business or medical purpose).

Ranked among the top 10 travel startups in India, Nearify provides users with updated information on the city, major tourist attractions, and events happening around them.

The user just needs to key in the name of the city to find listings of meet-ups, workshops, music concerts and cultural hangout zones in their close vicinity.  

7. Travel Triangle:

Travel Triangle, an initiative by Holiday Triangle Travel Pvt. Ltd, is an online platform that offers personalized and best suitable travel packages to travelers across the world.

With a strong network of more than 450 local travel agents spanning over 15+ countries, Travel Triangle, has a secured place among the top 10 travel startups in India.

It offers customized packages for travelers. A full-fledged online marketplace, Travel Triangle allows customers to connect with various local travel agents, get quotations, and even customize their trips and book travel destinations and packages.  

8. Routofy:

Routofy, an online travel portal, has been created on the philosophy of providing users with a unique and visionary travel experience. It combines flights, trains, buses & cabs to provide users a coordinated travel itinerary for their journey.

Ranked among the top 10 travel startups in India, Routofy’s route-planning services allow people to know ‘how to reach’ any desired destination and choose a suitable route based on price, duration of journey & availability.

The Routofy app allows users to plan and book door-to-door travel in one go. Furthermore, Routofy accompanies travelers on their journey through its unique travel assistance feature, which includes a host of unique facilities such as last-minute cab bookings, web check-in, and transport delay information.

Routofy ensures that if your flight is running late, a subsequent cab booking is adjusted to meet you at the new arrival time.

9. iTraveller:

iTraveller, started in 2011 by Shiju Radhakrishnan along with Sanjay Kumar, Chitra Parija and Nisanth Kumar, is an online travel platform for travelers to explore travel destinations, plan and book their trips in advance.

The Bengaluru-based Indian travel startup receives inquiries from clients, allows them to dynamically create self-serviced customized travel packages.

The users can compare reviews and plan their activities and sightseeing for their trips. Furthermore, iTraveller involves native wholesale suppliers who are responsible for the operational aspects of the business that includes ground handling and fulfillment.

More than 2 lakh trips have been created by users on iTraveller, featuring over 20 travel destinations across the globe and 60+ native wholesale suppliers from across these destinations.  

10. Stayzilla:

This premium online travel portal founded by Yogendra Vasupal provides information on stays across India, for all groups of travelers. This includes all sorts of options from ultra-low-budget rooms to luxury stays. Currently, Stayzilla has more than 17000 options spread across more than 1100 cities.

With a capable market research team that studies traveling trends in India, churns out accommodation options even in the remotest corners.

With a strong network of 17,000 hotels, home stays, and guest houses in more than 1200 cities offering rooms in the budget from 250 per night to 60, 000 per night, Stayzilla is working its way to the top.  

Add to want to add more to the list? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.                        

Mobile customer experiences are gaining importance in every industry, but the mobile travel and hospitality segment has seen significant growth in online bookings. Growth rates between the years 2011 and 2015 reported an increase of 1700%, accounting for 18% of online revenues.

The 2017 Travel and Hospitality Industry Outlook from Deloitte predict that travelers have already felt the real power of mobile for hotel booking, check-in, and getting itinerary updates. Very recently, the SnapTravel app has raised $8 million for the hotel booking service that works over chat.

The users can book rooms via SMS and Facebook messenger. Most travel and hospitality portals in India aim at a striking design with integrated booking functionality and easy site navigation. Many of them offer attractive loyalty programs for returning visitors. The

Desovrani website, for example, is a sure shot winner with its spectacular designs, integrated room booking functionality, and easy navigation. The integrated booking engine shows easy accessibility features such as high-contrast skins, technology support, and keyboard navigation.

While most website developers are crazy about overseas travel destinations and package deals, Nativeroute website steals the show with moment sharing. It includes some of the most widely traveled places in India, presented in a way that seems to have been created by a traveler.

The site with its remarkable design and information content renews interest to explore the unknown in the known premises. Automation for Travel & Hospitality When it comes to effective and efficient marketing, automation is the trump card. Make sure your CRM is set up to respond to the different actions your audience takes on your website.

You must have the automatic follow-up email set up to send once they book a stay. The Chocolate Hotels website is a great example. Also, marketers are making the checkout process much easier by sending guests an email that allows them to check-out directly from their phone.

This is also a great way to ask for a review while everything is still fresh in their mind. Most online portals are automating their internal sales process. If someone submits a contact form on the website asking for more information, this can trigger an internal email to one of your salespeople to reach out and answer their questions while gathering more information about what they are looking for.

This ensures that you deliver both context and personalization as the customers decide on the right hotel for their travels. The New Zealand travel website for Ecotravels is a winner, both in terms of design and online information listing. Its integrated booking system making New Zealand travel through Ecotravels more enjoyable than ever.

The northstarhotel.in website wins with its simplistic layout and delightful designs. Easy site navigation and integrated online booking feature are some of the other things worth mentioning.

The name wildflowersikkim stands true to its name. The booking calendar booking shows availability, allows bookings with a few easy steps, accepts online payments, and lets you manage reservations and bookings, with just a few clicks.  

But, what if the user decides to move on?

Driving direct bookings is one of the biggest challenges in the travel and hospitality industry. Recent reports show numbers of up to 81% of booking abandonments. Well, leaving the booking page does not mean the end of everything. In fact, it makes way for booking retargeting. As a marketer, you can retarget abandoning customers and catch up with cart abandoners on other marketing platforms.

For example, if your customer has shown interest in a booking, but left your booking funnel before sealing the deal, you can redirect their attention back to you on other online marketing platforms through paid search ads, and on-screen prompts Artificial Intelligence for Travel & Hospitality Portals Of late Artificial intelligence has created ripples in online travel applications.

In recent times, chatbots, travel apps, and personal assistants have not just predicted customer choices, but have also influenced pricing applications. Mezi, an AI-powered personal travel assistant has chatbots that automate more than 60% of conversations about flights, hotels, and dining options. Apps like Google Flights have come with “predictive pricing,” which provides consumers with suggestions on when they might find the lowest price.

Closing thoughts: The travel and hospitality industry is growing by leaps and bounds, with newer and better strategies. Thus, brands that keep up with current marketing trends will have a competitive advantage over those that settle for old-fashioned marketing and advertising. It is therefore vital to adjust your marketing strategies to meet changing consumer expectations.

Travel websites today are taking the users to their favorite destinations before they actually start traveling. With more than 140 million US millennial surfing the net for travel-related information, websites are becoming more impactful with video, navigation, modular layout, and social media options. According to a study by Expedia, about 78% of travelers are influenced by informative content from destinations or travel brands and 46% responded to travel brand ads with informative content.

With a forecasted spending of $198 million in online travel sales in the current year (as per Social Media Today research), travel agencies and booking partners are coming up with innovative and interactive websites (not just informative) to make a traveler’s trip-planning process easier. This means that you can also talk to people who have been there. As per Statista, Package Holiday deals will show the maximum growth potential with a market volume of $3,007m in 2018.

As per Webpage FX, more than 55% of travel content watchers online feel inspired every time they browse through travel posts on social media platforms. According to a Phocuswire report (published in May 2018), travel and tourism brands are spending 61% of their marketing budgets on online channels.

Online travel brands like OTAs allocate 73% of their spending to improved digital resources. More and more companies (travel and tourism operators, travel agencies, booking agents, and travel destination reviewers) are re-inventing their content. They have come to terms with the fact that users need more than just information or booking instructions on their sites.

Travel websites today are re-imagined in the light of the online traveler’s preferences for a more guided approach. Some of the hot trends to follow are:  

Compelling user experience and design: Enrich your content with lively imagery and stories. Incorporate compelling creative and stories to breathe in life into the travel destinations. Thousands of tourists may be traveling to Agra Fort in Delhi or Darjeeling in Bengal. Weave in lively stories of travelers sharing their experiences on the site. Nothing is more compelling than reading through the accounts of a traveler who went for a hitchhiking tour in Spiti Valley or a veteran traveler who spent a quiet weekend in Munnar.  

Interactive websites: According to Statista, revenue in the Online Travel Booking segment will amount to US$5,569m in 2018. The same report further points out that online travel content user will amount to 11.4m by 2022, for Package Holiday segment. Booking portals and promotional channels are tying up with travel resource or social media sites to inspire travelers into faster and better decision making. Travel content owners are tapping the huge market potential of the travel segment and coming up with 360-degree videos. Companies like Idaho are giving users an experience of “try before you go” with 360-degree video sights and sounds.

How lovely it feels to zip line through rainforests of Wayanad or kayak through rapids of the Himalayan terrain. On the contrary, you may also use more traditional video to tell stories of what life is like in off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods the of the northeast. The content should speak for itself, not only through words but spoken words, making it livelier and more interactive than ever. Pixel Solutionz specializes in travel websites that take you to the place of travel, painting a vivid imagery of where you want to be. The hotel pages created by them are simply mindblowing.   

Local wonders do better than cooked up stories How often have you wondered if you could get genuine reviews of the travel destinations? Honestly speaking, we all do. Travel content owners today put up stories of local activities that influence travel plans. Travel stories of wildlife tours in Kerala or biking tours in Assam create an impact, which invented stories of the museums and waterfalls fail to create.

Travelers also like to explore the lesser traveled destinations. Borrow from experiences of real-life hitchhikers or travel bloggers who have explored the unseen nooks and corners of the much-traveled destinations. Genuine stories of travel with brilliant imagery never miss a mark. Like what you just read? Feel free to post me any in the comments.