Make
your own travel itinerary
If
you don’t like escorted group tours or prefer the offbeat track, customised
travel planning is the route for you. Here are some portals that help you plan
your own trips.
There is
nothing new about customised travel planning. After all, practically every
travel service provider, online or otherwise, claims to offer it. The problem
is that by and large, the word ‘customisation’ was taken to mean tweaking a
template itinerary for a tick-in-the-box destination. Those wanting a truly
customised itinerary, say, to offbeat destinations or unique experiences in a
travel hotspot, had to either make individual online bookings or visit a
brick-and-mortar establishment. Then there was the worry that the travel agents
would push only those hotels and services for which they were getting a cut,
irrespective of what you had in mind.
However, over the past few years, the travel industry has been slowly moving towards facilitating a shopping cart experience for those planning a holiday. Part of the reason is that the customer base is becoming increasingly more demanding, having gained exposure from the Internet and lifestyle television channels. Also, as Madhav Pai, chief operating officer, leisure travel (outbound), Thomas Cook (India), puts it, “Word of mouth plays a significant role in the move to customised travel since the ‘brag factor’ on unique experiences is powerful.”
The other part of the equation is that technology is making it possible for the entire industry to scale up and evolve. As a result, today it is possible for a customer to actually build his or her own trip, with or without help from a customer care executive. More significantly, even online travel agents (OTAs) are able to work with customers from the planning stage, instead of either party doing all the thinking and researching.
Consider Expedia.co.in, which launched last year as the Expedia India brand, though the company first came to the country in 2008. The portal has entirely dispensed with pre-packaged tours, which are still the mainstay for most travel agents. Instead, it promises customers complete flexibility to make their own itineraries. Says Vikram Malhi, country head, Expedia India: “In 2008, we were not expecting to find a lot of takers for the do-it-yourself model because
the market was not ready, but we knew there was potential. Today, we clearly see the ‘put things together for me’ segment giving way to the DIY club.” The company conducted a study a couple of years ago, revealing that the Indian travel
market comprises three types of
customers—experimental, recreational and experiential. “Though the number of the recreational and experimental customers was far more, we were sure that the future lies with experiential customers, who want out-of-the-box holidays. Typical packaged deals from travel agents cannot cater to this kind of holiday itineraries, but our build-your-owntrip model easily can,” adds Malhi. No wonder the company has grown 150% year-onyear since its brand launch.
The ace up its sleeve is the option allowing customers to book not just flights, hotels and cars/buses, but also preferred activities and excursions at their holiday destination; Expedia India is the first to offer this facility on such a large scale.
Not to be outdone, the older OTAs are getting their act together to remain competitive and retain customers. Yatra.com, for instance, has recently launched a product that lets clients book customised packages for international destinations completely online. There’s no need to get in touch with a third party at any point. “It’s early days yet but we expect this product—currently in beta—to pick up pace, particularly for shorthaul holidays where the itineraries are not complicated,” says Sharat Dhall, president, Yatra. The portal expects to launch a similar online customisation facility for domestic holiday bookings in the next few weeks.
“There is absolutely no doubt that customised holidays are the way forward. In fact, more than 50% of our holiday sales currently are customised packages and this number could go up to 70% in the next three years,” adds Dhall.
The big names in the travel industry are not the only ones that are thinking out of the box. There are several contenders in the customised travel planning space. Here are three interesting examples.
MyGola.com
This is the site to go to if you are a discerning traveller seeking esoteric travel information, like romantic things to surprise your girlfriend in Chicago or how to plan a World War II trip by retracing Winston Churchill’s steps. Says Prateek Sharma, co-founder, MyGola.com: “Travellers spend months planning, look at 20-30 different websites before they have every part of their trip under control. This is a big pain point, so we started from here.”
The portal’s first product is a pay-as-youplan option, where a customer simply posts a question on the site without the hassle of filling up a form. MyGola then uses its special tech tools to ferret out the most relevant and freshest answer to the query within 24 hours. For subsequent questions, the customer has to pay whatever he likes, even if it is 1. Most users, however, prefer to buy a trip. You can either pay 1,500 to ask unlimited questions about one trip—which can be a two-month long round-the-world trip—or pay 4,950 a year for any number of trips. In both cases, you get a travel researcher to work with you. The proposition is so enticing that MyGola has been doubling its traffic every few months since its launch in 2010.
“Bookings are just a small part of our offering. Just taking away the pain of planning is no longer good enough for us. So we are working on making the entire planning process more enjoyable for our customers,” says Sharma. Coming up shortly is Next.MyGola.com, which will boast plenty of relevant content along with conversations with your friends and other interesting travellers.
Lushescapes.com
If you want a tailor-made luxury escapade, chock-a-block with experiences ranging from yacht sailing or private island rentals to dining suspended 50 m above the ground, this is a great option. “When we started out in 2008, the concept of customised travel planning was new, but we knew that this segment will become crowded over time,” says Abhishek Dadlani, founder and CEO, LushEscapes. His decision to jump in early has paid off well—the business is growing by 30% on an average each year.
Interested customers just have to check out the unique experiences and sample itineraries listed on the site and click on the ‘request a quote’ tab. The company then contacts you to plan your trip. Each suggestion has been created by an in-house travel expert, who would have travelled in person to chalk out the route. This explains why the portal boasts high customer retention: 20% of its customers have taken more than three vacations with LushEscapes in the past five years. The share of the pie is going to get bigger in the coming years. “Customised travel is still in a nascent stage in the country, but as people become more aware of geographies, they are increasingly willing to do things differently,” adds Dadlani.
HelloTravel.com
This portal’s USP is that it saves you the time and effort of contacting multiple travel agents. All you have to do is fill up a short form detailing your travel dates, destinations and itinerary highlights, and submit it. HelloTravel’s team will analyse your requirements and find travel agents—from a network of over 1,500 players—whose expertise will match your travel request. You will be contacted by 2-4 shortlisted travel agents, who will help build your final itinerary. Once you see what you like, compare quotes, pick the one you like, and you are ready to go. The best bit is that HelloTravel does not charge customers a single paisa for this service. The portal has served more than 3 lakh travellers to date and is reportedly posting a 100% year-onyear growth since its launch three years ago. The only glitch is that you can’t book directly on the site.
With the OTAs storming the last bastion of the brick-and-mortar set-ups—customised travel planning—the latter have been forced to innovate and roll out increasingly personalised initiatives themselves. Thomas Cook, for instance, has recently launched ‘48H Holidays’, which lets you take off on a foreign vacation on just two days’ notice. All you need to do is choose from the bouquet of 15 countries, which are either visa-onarrival destinations or involve minimal visa requirements, and leave the rest of the travel planning to the company. The destinations that are on the list include Ireland, Turkey, Mexico, Mauritius, Maldives, Cyprus, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Macau, Jordan, Seychelles, Ecuador, Kenya, Indonesia and Hong Kong.
Says Pai: “The extensive public holidays in the country offer great opportunities for holiday travels. We were keen on leveraging this potential with affordable offers, even for last-minute planners, which is why we launched 48H Holidays.” Apart from tapping the growing number of Indians keen on taking shorter, multiple holidays, instead of one long summer vacation trip, this initiative will appeal to India’s corporate and SME segment. The latter shows high potential for a leisure break, say, with a spouse, intertwined with corporate travel. “Given the rather quick turnaround of overseas business meetings, our 48H Holidays is a product that comes in handy,” adds Pai.
No matter what spin the industry puts on the word customisation, the consensus is that Indian travellers today want to be in control of their holiday planning, and all these websites are empowering them. An optimistic Sharma foresees a lot of action in this space in the future because “travel planning is the last big unsolved problem in travel”. In a similar vein, Pai sees the traditional off-the-shelf holiday package no longer cutting ice with the India traveller, a whole lot more confident and discerning than his parents. “The first-time traveller may require the handholding and comfort of a packaged, escorted tour, but with exposure and experience comes confidence to charter your own course. So the shift to personalised travel is a natural corollary and we expect a percolation of the customisation trend to the tier 2 and 3 regional markets in the next three years,” he adds.
However, over the past few years, the travel industry has been slowly moving towards facilitating a shopping cart experience for those planning a holiday. Part of the reason is that the customer base is becoming increasingly more demanding, having gained exposure from the Internet and lifestyle television channels. Also, as Madhav Pai, chief operating officer, leisure travel (outbound), Thomas Cook (India), puts it, “Word of mouth plays a significant role in the move to customised travel since the ‘brag factor’ on unique experiences is powerful.”
The other part of the equation is that technology is making it possible for the entire industry to scale up and evolve. As a result, today it is possible for a customer to actually build his or her own trip, with or without help from a customer care executive. More significantly, even online travel agents (OTAs) are able to work with customers from the planning stage, instead of either party doing all the thinking and researching.
Consider Expedia.co.in, which launched last year as the Expedia India brand, though the company first came to the country in 2008. The portal has entirely dispensed with pre-packaged tours, which are still the mainstay for most travel agents. Instead, it promises customers complete flexibility to make their own itineraries. Says Vikram Malhi, country head, Expedia India: “In 2008, we were not expecting to find a lot of takers for the do-it-yourself model because
the market was not ready, but we knew there was potential. Today, we clearly see the ‘put things together for me’ segment giving way to the DIY club.” The company conducted a study a couple of years ago, revealing that the Indian travel
market comprises three types of
customers—experimental, recreational and experiential. “Though the number of the recreational and experimental customers was far more, we were sure that the future lies with experiential customers, who want out-of-the-box holidays. Typical packaged deals from travel agents cannot cater to this kind of holiday itineraries, but our build-your-owntrip model easily can,” adds Malhi. No wonder the company has grown 150% year-onyear since its brand launch.
The ace up its sleeve is the option allowing customers to book not just flights, hotels and cars/buses, but also preferred activities and excursions at their holiday destination; Expedia India is the first to offer this facility on such a large scale.
Not to be outdone, the older OTAs are getting their act together to remain competitive and retain customers. Yatra.com, for instance, has recently launched a product that lets clients book customised packages for international destinations completely online. There’s no need to get in touch with a third party at any point. “It’s early days yet but we expect this product—currently in beta—to pick up pace, particularly for shorthaul holidays where the itineraries are not complicated,” says Sharat Dhall, president, Yatra. The portal expects to launch a similar online customisation facility for domestic holiday bookings in the next few weeks.
“There is absolutely no doubt that customised holidays are the way forward. In fact, more than 50% of our holiday sales currently are customised packages and this number could go up to 70% in the next three years,” adds Dhall.
The big names in the travel industry are not the only ones that are thinking out of the box. There are several contenders in the customised travel planning space. Here are three interesting examples.
MyGola.com
This is the site to go to if you are a discerning traveller seeking esoteric travel information, like romantic things to surprise your girlfriend in Chicago or how to plan a World War II trip by retracing Winston Churchill’s steps. Says Prateek Sharma, co-founder, MyGola.com: “Travellers spend months planning, look at 20-30 different websites before they have every part of their trip under control. This is a big pain point, so we started from here.”
The portal’s first product is a pay-as-youplan option, where a customer simply posts a question on the site without the hassle of filling up a form. MyGola then uses its special tech tools to ferret out the most relevant and freshest answer to the query within 24 hours. For subsequent questions, the customer has to pay whatever he likes, even if it is 1. Most users, however, prefer to buy a trip. You can either pay 1,500 to ask unlimited questions about one trip—which can be a two-month long round-the-world trip—or pay 4,950 a year for any number of trips. In both cases, you get a travel researcher to work with you. The proposition is so enticing that MyGola has been doubling its traffic every few months since its launch in 2010.
“Bookings are just a small part of our offering. Just taking away the pain of planning is no longer good enough for us. So we are working on making the entire planning process more enjoyable for our customers,” says Sharma. Coming up shortly is Next.MyGola.com, which will boast plenty of relevant content along with conversations with your friends and other interesting travellers.
Lushescapes.com
If you want a tailor-made luxury escapade, chock-a-block with experiences ranging from yacht sailing or private island rentals to dining suspended 50 m above the ground, this is a great option. “When we started out in 2008, the concept of customised travel planning was new, but we knew that this segment will become crowded over time,” says Abhishek Dadlani, founder and CEO, LushEscapes. His decision to jump in early has paid off well—the business is growing by 30% on an average each year.
Interested customers just have to check out the unique experiences and sample itineraries listed on the site and click on the ‘request a quote’ tab. The company then contacts you to plan your trip. Each suggestion has been created by an in-house travel expert, who would have travelled in person to chalk out the route. This explains why the portal boasts high customer retention: 20% of its customers have taken more than three vacations with LushEscapes in the past five years. The share of the pie is going to get bigger in the coming years. “Customised travel is still in a nascent stage in the country, but as people become more aware of geographies, they are increasingly willing to do things differently,” adds Dadlani.
HelloTravel.com
This portal’s USP is that it saves you the time and effort of contacting multiple travel agents. All you have to do is fill up a short form detailing your travel dates, destinations and itinerary highlights, and submit it. HelloTravel’s team will analyse your requirements and find travel agents—from a network of over 1,500 players—whose expertise will match your travel request. You will be contacted by 2-4 shortlisted travel agents, who will help build your final itinerary. Once you see what you like, compare quotes, pick the one you like, and you are ready to go. The best bit is that HelloTravel does not charge customers a single paisa for this service. The portal has served more than 3 lakh travellers to date and is reportedly posting a 100% year-onyear growth since its launch three years ago. The only glitch is that you can’t book directly on the site.
With the OTAs storming the last bastion of the brick-and-mortar set-ups—customised travel planning—the latter have been forced to innovate and roll out increasingly personalised initiatives themselves. Thomas Cook, for instance, has recently launched ‘48H Holidays’, which lets you take off on a foreign vacation on just two days’ notice. All you need to do is choose from the bouquet of 15 countries, which are either visa-onarrival destinations or involve minimal visa requirements, and leave the rest of the travel planning to the company. The destinations that are on the list include Ireland, Turkey, Mexico, Mauritius, Maldives, Cyprus, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Macau, Jordan, Seychelles, Ecuador, Kenya, Indonesia and Hong Kong.
Says Pai: “The extensive public holidays in the country offer great opportunities for holiday travels. We were keen on leveraging this potential with affordable offers, even for last-minute planners, which is why we launched 48H Holidays.” Apart from tapping the growing number of Indians keen on taking shorter, multiple holidays, instead of one long summer vacation trip, this initiative will appeal to India’s corporate and SME segment. The latter shows high potential for a leisure break, say, with a spouse, intertwined with corporate travel. “Given the rather quick turnaround of overseas business meetings, our 48H Holidays is a product that comes in handy,” adds Pai.
No matter what spin the industry puts on the word customisation, the consensus is that Indian travellers today want to be in control of their holiday planning, and all these websites are empowering them. An optimistic Sharma foresees a lot of action in this space in the future because “travel planning is the last big unsolved problem in travel”. In a similar vein, Pai sees the traditional off-the-shelf holiday package no longer cutting ice with the India traveller, a whole lot more confident and discerning than his parents. “The first-time traveller may require the handholding and comfort of a packaged, escorted tour, but with exposure and experience comes confidence to charter your own course. So the shift to personalised travel is a natural corollary and we expect a percolation of the customisation trend to the tier 2 and 3 regional markets in the next three years,” he adds.
Pick your mode of planning
Regular travel agents
• Visit an agency or its website.
• Check out packaged tour options. These will mainly cater to popular or emerging tourist hot spots.
• Call up to tweak existing itinerary to suit your budget or time considerations.
• Visit the agency to pay up.
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