Disha Shah Ghosh - Mumbai Arun Bagaria, Co-Founder & CEO, TravClan talks to Disha Shah Ghosh about their platform, supporting the travel trade with varied content, and marketing collaterals.
Q. The travel tech space has seen an influx of a large number of players in the past five years. What does TravClan bring to the table that is different from its peers?
TravClan is a global B2B Travel Tech Platform that aims to enhance the way travel agents sell and provide exceptional travel experiences worldwide. The platform empowers travel agents to sell travel online while offering comprehensive end-to-end on-ground travel services. What sets TravClan apart is its distinction as the world’s first tech-enabled global destination management company, with a local on-ground presence in more than 18 destinations worldwide. This ensures that customers have delightful experiences at every step of their journey.
TravClan functions as a comprehensive one-stop shop, enabling travel agents to instantly book complete holidays, including flights, hotels, activities, sightseeing, and transfers all within the platform. Additionally, agents can distribute ancillary financial products like insurance and forex cards to their customers, simplifying the travel planning process.
Unlike others, our approach is to assist travel agents in improving their business rather than completely changing it. Given our experience and understanding of how the travel industry works, our product is designed to seamlessly integrate into the lives of travel agents, making their work easier and more efficient.
Q. Which are some of your digital tools that aid smaller agents from the feeder markets of India?
Travel agents, especially smaller travel agents who are just starting up, need help attracting new customers. As a B2B company we offer a free-to-use repository of marketing posters and videos that agents can download with their own logo and branding details. These digital assets help agents in getting leads through social media, Facebook ads etc.
In today’s day and age building an online presence is the first step to scaling your business. In addition to social media marketing assistance we also help agents with lifetime free travel websites to help them build an online presence. These websites are customisable with add-ons such as flights API, etc.
Additionally, we have an inhouse team of experts that host weekly webinars for travel agents to learn about destinations, marketing and other important developments that can help them scale their businesses.
Q. What kind of revenue growth have you witnessed in the past one year?
In 2023, TravClan experienced 400% y-o-y growth in revenue along with 250% year-on-year growth in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) during the same period. Over 65% of its revenue is generated from the Hotels & Holiday segment unlike other platforms that rely on flight bookings. This allows TravClan to provide a comprehensive range of services, offering accommodations, holiday packages, and activities, ensuring a seamless and holistic travel experience.
TravClan empowered travel agents by enabling them to create personalized travel websites, with over 2,000 websites already built on the platform. The target is to continue growing and reach USD 10 million Annual Revenue Runrate by the year-end.
Q. Tell us about your plan for scaling operations.
With a team of over 200 dedicated professionals spread across eight offices in India, Singapore, and Dubai, TravClan has established an extensive global network of suppliers and nurtured strong relationships with airlines, hotels, and government tourism authorities. As we grow we aim to expand and strengthen this network by-
• Focusing on improving on-ground travel experiences by building a technology enabled network of suppliers across the world that deliver exceptional experiences. We have a bigger team of experts who interact with service providers on ground to onboard the best from the industry.
• Global Expansion ¬– Target to expand travel offerings to 25+ countries and work with travel agents in 5+ markets in India, South East Asia & Middle East
Q. What is your outreach strategy towards the travel trade?
As a B2B service provider, our primary goal is to establish trust within the close-knit community of the travel and trade industry. To achieve this, we offer various services that cater to the day-to-day challenges faced by travel agents, such as free travel websites, marketing posters, invoice generating tools and other features. These unique selling points help us attract new agents.
Our aim is to onboard new agents effectively, and to support this process, we have a dedicated team of account managers who guide and assist agents in making the most of the services provided by TravClan. Additionally, our on-ground team actively engages with agents in different cities, specifically targeting travel agents from Tier-I and II cities, to expand our network and provide them with the necessary support.
