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

NASSCOM has awarded iXiGO as one of the top 10 emerging companies for 2010 at the Delhi edition of the NASSCOM EMERGOUT Conclave 2010. The winners, chosen from a total of 236 initial applicants, include companies that provide a range of IT services covering healthcare, education and training, banking, travel and social networking.

NASSCOM through its EMERGE 50 initiative has identified 50 Emerging companies which are redefining the benchmark of excellence for the next generation of SMEs. The EMERGE 50 – The League of Ten, have been selected from these shortlisted companies. The purpose of this initiative is to identify and recognize the great potential companies in the making, who can be treated as role models and inspiration to others.

iXiGO.com empowers consumers by providing them the ability to search prices and availability across 100+ travel booking sites for flights (domestic and international), hotels (domestic & international), buses, deals etc. in a few seconds. In just 3 years, iXiGO’s deeply embedded global relationships in the Travel and Internet Industry have helped it successfully establish itself as a credible distribution and media platform for airlines, hotels, online travel agents as well as advertisers looking for consumers with an ability and willingness to transact online.

iXiGO.com is currently India’s fastest growing travel site, registering a growth of over 200% YoY in 2009-10, and generates a total transaction value of almost $4M every month. The company has previously been named a NASSCOM Top 100 Innovator for 2007.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Makemytrip makes a debut in NASDQQ and what a dream run for MMT in the 1st day of listing.  To be sure, the deal was modest – the company sold just $70 million worth of stock, selling 5 million shares at $14 apiece.

Upon listing India’s biggest online travel company surged as much as $10.35 to $24.35 thus making a MakeMyTrip’s stock price jumped 89 percent in the first day of trading. That’s the biggest first-day jump for any U.S. stock since 2007. So seems to be good time ahead for India Companies and MMT certainly leading the way and giving cue to other indian tech companies. Good times ahead for MMT and it reflects in their home page, a snapshot attached below

What is the best way for VC to exit a portfolio company? Undoubtedly it is listing in a Stock Exchange. Indeed good times for investors like SAIF, Helion Venture capital, Seirra Ventures who invested in MMT, returns are staggering.

But someone out is here to spoil their party and i must say what a time to act. The promoters of Cox & Kings, one of the oldest travel companies in the world, have filed a criminal case against Makemytrip. According to Cox & Kings which owns Ezeego1, between 2007 and 2008 the Makemytrip management created the similar looking URLs to deceive customers and eventually lead them to their own site.

Isn’t it an interesting twist in this IPO.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

MagicRooms,a Bangalore based hotel Global Distribution System, has received a Rs 7 crore investment from Nexus Venture Partners. The MagicRooms platform allows you to seamlessly integrate your hotel’s property management system (PMS) with travel agents, travel portals and large corporate customers.

Magicrooms started a year ago is founded by Niranjan Gupta, With his finger always on the pulse of the industry, Niranjan has consistently moved with the times, anticipating trends far ahead of his peers. It was this vision that saw him setting up flightraja.com(now VIA), India’s first online airline ticketing site. Flightraja has since evolved into India’s leading B2B online airline ticketing site.

MagicRooms is an internet-enabled global distribution system for hotel rooms. By integrating with the hotel’s PMS, it allows seamless real-time distribution of room inventory and rates in seconds. End-users include travel portals and websites, travel agents, and corporate houses.

MakemyTrip is also one of their clients.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

90di, a new travel search engine in the already flooded market of online travel sites, stands out because of its unique features. First, it is not a travel agency, it simply searches on various modes of travel and redirects you to the respective booking sites, much similar to ixigo. But the best feature lies in the integration between various modes of travel, bus, train, and flight.

With its simplistic google-like homepage sans any ads (I wonder what their revenue model is), 90 Degree Internet Travel lets you combine all modes of travel between a pair of destinations. The search bar is simple, again like google’s, and one can enter source, destination, dates, and modes of travel in plain English and the powerful parser parses them to generate a list of meaningful search results. Of course you have the form-like search page too.

Another interesting feature is the ‘near search’, which lets you search routes to lesser-known destinations, that do not have an airport, or even a railway station. Once you search for such a destination, 90di gives you a list of close by locations to choose from. These are the much-needed features that the founders of 90di used as the USP for their travel site and will definitely take them far and ahead of competitors.

One improvement that can be done in the inter-mode search is to include the transition time. For example, in Bangalore, a one-hour window between landing at BIAL and boarding a train at Majestic is utterly insufficient. Intra-city travel times can be taken into account to not show such a result.

Ashutosh Saxena, vcBytes.com