Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

Travelomy is a next-generation travel guide that packs features based on rich content, geo-location and social media in a way that provides practical, useful information to a traveller.

Travelomy is product developed by Ciafo, which is a technology startup based out of Bangalore,  Co-founded by Gurjit Sidhu and Amarpreet Kalkat in April 2010. Both Sidhu and Kalkat have spent the last 10 years building internet products at some of the most admired companies, earlier having graduated from IIM Calcutta and IIM Kozhikode

Travelomy has rich content (currently delivered through 6000+ photos and videos) virtually brings places alive for the traveller even before getting there, geo-location coordinates for all places (currently ~5000) and the user himself ensure that he always knows what exactly is around him, and what is the best way to reach there.

The social media integration enables the traveller to seek and share latest information over the social streams, thereby making sure that he is never out of touch with his social graph.  For the more outdoorsy or adventurous traveller, Travelomy provides activities, where rich information like dynamic route maps, itinerary, gear, tools, expertise level is put together for things like trekking, biking, rock climbing, river rafting etc.

South Asia is the first step for Travelomy and an opportunity to validate its unique concept; it would gradually be expanding globally over the next few quarters.

How Travelomy is different:

While online travel guides have existed for long, Travelomy aims to challenge the status-quo by virtue of the way it leverages web 2.0 technologies to provide simlified travel information. It focuses on four key aspects – rich content, geo-location, social media and activities; and uses them effectively to build a truly valuable information source for the user.

Travelomy also differentiates itself in the way it collects and presents information. Almost all of the content on Travelomy is crowdsourced in a wiki format and can be updated by any user who is signed-in.

Travelomy competes with prominent players like MustseeIndia, TripAdvisor, WikiTravel, LonelyPlanet.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Ezeego, the online travel market place, has tied up with Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd., to provide easy travel bookings and other travel related services. The tie-up enables the OxiCash users and Oxigen retailers across India to transact and buy travel products from Ezeego.  This tie up will certainly boost Ezeego to provide easy travel booking services to the masses of India, ezeego definitely wants to catch up with Makemytrip, Cleartrip and Yatra in the travel booking space.

The association will offer easy transactional service to the customers who do not have credit/debit cards, net banking accounts or cannot get access to PC’s to purchase their travel online or prefer using a cash payment mechanism online.  The tie up will also enable the 25,000 Oxigen web retailers to automatically become Ezeego1′s travel agents.

This gives an option for a walk in customer to purchase their ezeego1 travel tickets by paying cash over-the-counter. OxiCash e-Wallet and OxiCash Card users can now choose from the wide range of holiday packages, flight options and hotels available on Ezeego1 website. The customer will get the option of paying through OxiCash after an easy standard registration and booking process.

According to Neelu Singh, COO, Ezeego1.com, “We have always been pioneers in introducing new services and with Oxigen we found a unique opportunity to strengthen our distribution among the masses that prefer cash as a means to transact. It will enable the customer to have the opportunity to book instantly using the online medium even as he uses the cash mechanism.”

Speaking on the occasion of this tie up, Pramod Saxena, Chairman, Oxigen Services India Private Limited stated, “Oxigen is geared & committed to add value whilst enhancing its bouquet of services that the common man can access. We can now help the Customer who is not computer savvy, nor has a credit card to access online travel services, to transact with ease. This tie up will also make Oxigen web retailers, extension counters, for ezeego1′s Travel Agent network”.

-Deepti, vcBytes.com

HolidayIQ, a bangalore based travel information startup has merged with  Singapore based online travel meta-search engine Wego Pte ltd. Interestingly the combined entity has also raised series B capital from Tiger Global Management.

Wego is meta search engine which allows travelers to search for flights, hotels and packages and crawls leading travel websites (meta search) on a real time basis and shows latest pricing and availability of tickets.

HolidayIQ provides content related to travel, hotels and vacation. HolidayIQ mainly generates revenue from lead generation, and caters the lead to hotels and travel agents. Recently HolidayIQ has been expanding its international travel packages to cater to Indian travelers willing to explore foreign tourist locations.

Monthly Statistics of HolidayIQ -

Unique visitors	390K
Unique visitors	350K
Page views	3.4M
Total visits	560K
Avg visits per visitor	1.6
Avg time on site	9:00

Monthly Statistics of Wego -

Unique visitors (cookies)	970K
Unique visitors (users)	560K
Page views	2.7M
Total visits	1.1M
Avg visits per visitor	1.1
Avg time on site	3:20

Statistics clearly states Wego attracts more visitors than HolidayIQ, but later being more a content player leads in the page views number.

The original promoters of HolidayIQ – Hari Nair and Vinu Krishnan – will continue to retain their stake, and post the merger, there will be no change in management of HolidayIQ. HolidayIQ was funded by Accel Partners(they exited as per the sources), BBCL private treaties.

WeGo was founded in 2005 by former executives from Intercontinental Hotels Group, Yahoo! and had previously raised its Series A round of funding from News Digital Media.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Arzoo , one of India’s leading online travel portals is launching a dedicated website for the convenience of the tourists/visitors of commonwealth games in Delhi, which will sense them as a ready reckoner giving out information related to the games and everything tourists need to know about India, its tourists attractions and essential services. Arzoo.com is amongst the top four online travel portals in India and it is acknowledged by over 200 million people in India and oversees.

The newly launched website, commonwealthgamestravel will provide various types of information to the visitors which will include information on hospitals, hotels, cafés, shopping destinations, chemist, etc in Delhi. It is not only a significant event for sports fraternity but also a huge opportunity for tourists to explore India and is cultural heritage. According to an official estimates, Common Wealth Games 2010 will be visited by around two million foreign tourists and 3.5 million tourists from different part of India.

Arzoo.com boasts of a wide network of over 10,000 PSA’s(Preferred sales agents) and over 100 franchises. The website is also endorsed by their numerous corporate clients. Arzoo.com is equally strong when it comes to serving individual customers. The website is known to provide complete travel solutions, personalized services and dedicated support to several corporate houses as well individual customers.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Karur Vysya Bank has introduced Travel Cards in the market which are powered by enStage Technology prepaid platform. These travel cards are designed for international travelers and are available in three currencies – US Dollars, Euro and Singapore Dollar. These travel cards are valid in all countries expect India, Nepal and Bhutan.

This VISA affiliated travel card can be used at any  merchant that accepts Visa cards, ATM and also purchases over internet. The travel card can be obtained at any of the designated branches of the bank. Both Bank’s customers and non customers can avail this travel card . Karur Vysya Bank now has gift cards and travel cards in its prepaid portfolio.

Karur Vysya Bank chose enStage’s ACCOSA platform for its prepaid card portfolio as it provides the flexibility and configurability that the bank was looking for in order to offer innovative solutions to their customers.

enStage is a leading provider of innovative payment solutions to meet the demands of today’s payment needs while innovating for the future. enStage products offer a range of payment channels to cater to payment needs on the Internet, POS, and mobile devices while facilitating global payments.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com