TBM Staff - Mumbai Anticipating the impact of technology, 16 years ago, TravelBiz Monitor introduced an industry-first live news portal, with hourly online reporting on travel, tourism, aviation and hospitality industries. Since then, we have created a niche for ourselves by providing analytical stories and statistical information to the travel trade on a regular basis. To keep this momentum going, the Editorial team has decided to showcase new-age technology products and services every month that have the potential to disrupt the market further. Moreover, the time now is also appropriate as the on-going pandemic has further widened the scope of using technology.
For this unique initiative, TravelBiz Monitor has partnered with ‘Start-up Mentor Board’, a visionary platform with credentials in business, technology, e-commerce, digital market place, payment solutions and IT infrastructure, to highlight the stories of new-age technology ideas. Start-up Mentor Board has been set-up as an initiative to mentor and guide the travel technology driven start–ups and facilitate collaboration in the larger travel ecosystem.
Website – https://startupmentorboard.vgmrtechsolutions.com
The Board is spearheaded by well-known thought leader Ashish Kumar, who is also the Co-Chairman of FICCI Travel Technology Committee. It comprises Bharti Maan, who has led start-ups to scale rapidly; Patrick Richards, an experienced travel industry leader in the UK; Chetan Kapoor, an analyst with deep understanding of the travel and tourism business and trends; Kartik Sharma, an artificial intelligence practitioner; Karthik Venkataraman, a digital transformation & an e-commerce visionary; Jure Bratkic, who led innovative solutions in the USA and Kyasha Bhoola, with expertise and advanced insight into the travel industry across Africa.
*One can register for the SMB Program at
https://startupmentorboard.vgmrtechsolutions.com/form.html
Startup Name: AUGTRAVELER
Core Team: Pankaj Manchanda
Sumit Gupta
Manish Upa
Founding year: 2018
Company Website: www.augtraveler.com
Description: Augtraveler is an award-winning DPIIT on-boarded Start-up in the Heritage and Culture Travel and Experiences space. The platform uses new age technologies of Augmented Reality (AR), Geo Fencing, Multimedia and Analytics to enhance the visitor experiences at the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and other Cultural, Natural and Spiritual trails of Bharat, and promote Swadesh Darshan. The project mandate is to further sensitize the masses of the rich tangible and intangible heritage of Bharat which ironically lacks authentic and accurate interpretation, despite its richness and value. For this, the team is being supported by globally renowned knowledge partners.
The platform further builds on evolving curated self-guided AR and Geo location-based trails, which connects the travellers directly with the ‘host communities’ in the vicinity of the sites – ensuring tourism dollars reach them and therefore facilitating in evolution of a sustainable livelihood model for the ‘host communities’. The communities are also provided a ‘curated online marketplace’ where they can push the authentic crafts, cuisines and related services as well as GI tagged products of Bharat. The essence is to evolve a sustainable livelihood model for them whilst promoting and therefore preserving the intangible cultural heritage of a region. This spoke is aligned with Government initiatives such as ODOP and Vocal for Local.
Augtraveler also has a school outreach program where we have evolved multidisciplinary activity books along with the App evolve our World Heritage Sites as knowledge dissemination zones.
The Augtraveler project vision is committed to evolve a responsible and sustainable tourism model and is aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals of 4, 8, 11, and 13.
