Tag Archives: personalisation

EaseMyTrip is on an aggressive expansion spree.

Rikant Pittie assumes the role as CEO of EaseMyTrip

EaseMyTrip.com has appointed Rikant Pittie as its CEO and Co-founder. In his new role, Pittie will lead the company’s strategic initiatives, drive innovation, and enhance customer experiences to further strengthen EaseMyTrip’s position in the industry.

Rikant Pittie co-founded EaseMyTrip in 2008 and has been instrumental in its growth and success over the years. With over 16 years of experience in the travel and tourism industry, he has a deep understanding of market trends and customer needs. Under his leadership, EaseMyTrip has achieved significant growth, reflecting its commitment to a customer-first approach.

Speaking on this development, “The travel industry is at a transformative juncture where technology and personalisation are redefining how people explore the world. At EaseMyTrip, our mission goes beyond simply offering an enhanced travel experience. It is about setting new benchmarks. We are dedicated to pioneering innovative solutions that empower travellers globally. I am both honoured and thrilled to take on this role and look forward to continuing the company’s journey.”

The Funding team of Holiday Tribe after raising seed funding.

Holiday Tribe raises INR 5.4 crores from Powerhouse Ventures and GSF

Travel-tech startup Holiday Tribe has raised INR 5.4 crore in seed funding. The investment round was led by Powerhouse Ventures and GSF with participation from notable investors including Dinesh Agarwal and Dinesh Gulati of India Mart, Murugavel Janakiraman of BharatMatrimony.com and actor Gaurav Kapur.

The investment will be directed towards strengthening the brand’s tech capabilities, supply network and brand building initiatives. Headquartered in Gurgaon, Holiday Tribe was founded by ex-MakeMyTrip executives Anshu Sharma and Chirag Goyal in 2023.

Anshu Sharma and Chirag Goyal, co-founders of Holiday Tribe, said in a joint statement, “Travel witnessed significant growth in the post-Covid era. People want to holiday with family and loved ones, and explore newer destinations more than ever. Holiday Tribe was established to meet this growing demand while addressing a key market gap – the lack of accuracy and agility in curating customized solutions for customers.

We continue to work towards narrowing this gap with the implementation of robust back-end technology to provide timely solutions, in line with customer preferences. This influx of capital will further our brand building efforts through better integration of latest technology, expanding our supply network and exploring newer destinations. We are excited to embark on this journey with our partners at Powerhouse Ventures and GSF, and are optimistic of emerging as a leisure travel partner of choice for avid travellers.”

Powerhouse Ventures is a Singapore-based VC fund with a focus on technology companies emerging from India and the US.

Kshitij Golwalkar, General Partner, Powerhouse Ventures, said, “Partnering with Holiday Tribe has provided us an opportunity to foray into the dynamic category of travel and hospitality. With sound tech integration and optimal human intervention, the brand is poised to change leisure travel in India. Fuelled by the unwavering grit and vision of the brand’s founders, we look forward to driving operational excellence and customer success for Holiday Tribe.”

Rajesh Sawhney, Founder, at early stage VC firm GSF, added, “From the first time we met Anshu and Chirag, we understood this is a uniquely talented team who are bringing together their deep experience in the travel industry to build India’s leading customised holiday travel operator. Today’s holiday maker has unparalleled access to information on the latest trending experiences both in India and abroad, and expects a high degree of personalisation for their travels. Tailormade customer delight on every day of their trip – from flights and hotels to food and entertainment – has become the expectation that Holiday Tribe caters to.”

Holiday Tribe has also been a part of GSF’s Founders Academy S23 cohort – a three month mentorship programme for founders.

The brand offers customisable holiday experiences across destinations, catering to family and friends, couples and honeymooners, adventure-seekers and to those looking to explore newer or unexplored destinations.

With an extensive supply network of more than 100,000 hotels across the globe and partnering with more than 10 tourism boards, Anshu and Chirag are confident of the brand’s growth story. 2024 has been the year of the travel boom with an unprecedented rise in the number of Indian travellers exploring destinations worldwide.

 

92% Indian travel decision-makers focusing on green strategies in 2024: Amadeus

ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) decision-makers call for increased investment, more widespread technology adoption, and C-suite buy-in.

Travelers are increasingly demanding that travel experiences align with their values and expectations when it comes to sustainability. Against this backdrop, Amadeus commissioned research among 80 senior sustainability decision-makers across India and seven segments of the travel industry to gain insight on ESG ambitions, priorities, and challenges.

The study revealed optimism for the global travel industry about hitting the UNWTO-proposed goal to reach net zero by 2050. 79% of ESG decision-makers believe the industry can reach its target. Of that 79%, 43% believe it is possible to reach without any adjustments, while 36% believe it is possible, but progress needs to be accelerated urgently.

Key to this is a focus on action. 92% of those surveyed have a step-by-step strategy in place to help them achieve environmental sustainability objectives or are planning to implement one in 2024.

95% of respondents are either currently active or plan to be actively involved in social sustainability initiatives that impact beyond their organization. This commitment was matched by increased investment, with 58% of respondents anticipating investing more in 2024 than last year.

Despite the optimism, the study identified barriers to delivering on environment, social and governance initiatives:
• 41% cited cost as the biggest barrier for environmental commitments, followed by C-suite buy-in (40%), and then lack of technology and knowledge (26%).
• For social initiatives, the biggest barriers include lack of knowledge (35%) and C-suite buy-in (34%), and lack of technology (30%).
• For governance initiatives, the barriers highlighted include lack of knowledge (40%), complex legal obligations (31%), and not enough guidance from industry bodies (29%).

Notably, the study highlighted a clear and recognised role for technology to help the industry reach its ambitions. 91% of respondents indicated technology is important to help organisations achieve environmental sustainability objectives, with 89% saying the same for social objectives.
• 34% of respondents highlighted technology solutions that help remove CO2 from the atmosphere as the technology with the highest potential to accelerate environmental sustainability.
• 31% said access to data to allow for true personalisation across all stages of the travel process, from inspiration, on-trip, destination and post-trip would be important.
• 30% said more advanced search capabilities allowing travellers to understand the different environmental impact of available travel choices had the most potential.

“As the travel industry continues to navigate the complexity of delivering on ESG targets, I’m encouraged by the optimism and the commitments being put in place – from investments to strategic planning to technological solutions. At Amadeus, we’re working to embed ESG at the core of our business, supporting travel players on their journey to becoming more efficient and enabling travelers to make more informed choices. Together, we can make travel more sustainable,” says Jackson Pek, SVP and Group General Counsel, Amadeus.

“We are pleased to see the growing emphasis on ESG investments within the Indian travel industry. Surveys like these are crucial benchmarks for assessing our industry’s progress and identifying areas for improvement. At Amadeus, we look forward to continue supporting our customers and partners across the region on their ESG journeys, fostering sustainability through innovation and collaboration,” says Mani Ganeshan, SVP – Travel Distribution Engineering and Center Head – Amadeus Labs India.

 

Air India deploys AI-powered agent ‘Maharaja’ to answer customer queries

Air India has become the world’s first airline to have successfully deployed a Generative AI virtual agent, called ‘Maharaja’, powered by Azure OpenAI service. It has successfully answered over half a million customer queries since its pilot launch in March 2023, and it today manages over 6,000 queries a day in four languages.

Air India’s Maharaja AI Agent manages an extensive spectrum of customer queries across 1,300 areas related to flight status, baggage allowances, packing restrictions, check-in, frequent flyer awards, airport lounge access, flight changes, refunds and more.

To meet the needs of guests around the world, Maharaja speaks four languages: Hindi, English, French, and German. Of the 6,000-plus questions received each day, over 80% are successfully answered in seconds. About 15% of customer queries today require additional assistance, and Maharaja recognises this automatically and orchestrates a seamless handoff to Air India’s contact centre agents.

Dr. Satya Ramaswamy, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Air India, said, “We are dedicated to providing the best possible service and experience to our valued guests across channels. We also want to be very responsive to their changing preferences. After the emergence of Large Language Model driven Generative AI capabilities, we are increasingly seeing a definitive shift in guest preferences to use chat interactions to get the information and support they need quickly and directly as compared to browsing several web pages.”

“We have used several patent-pending innovations in our AI agent Maharaja with a combination of traditional machine learning techniques and the latest in Generative AI to provide a pleasing and effective experience for our customers. Many more innovations are in the pipeline and will be made live in the months to come.”

“We are pleased to see Air India’s successful deployment of their AI-powered agent, Maharaja, and the use of Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to provide a personalized and relevant customer experience. We believe that this is the beginning of a new era of customer service, and we look forward to seeing more organizations use the power of Generative AI and our AI-optimised Azure cloud to provide a seamless and efficient customer experience,” said Marco Casalaina,
Vice President, AI Platform, Microsoft.

Leveraging the generative AI technology to the full extent, Air India uses ChatGPT to analyse even some complex questions it may not be able to immediately answer to improve customer experience in later interactions. This has allowed Air India’s newest customer service channel to progressively learn and improve, becoming more attuned to natural language. Air India has employed a strategy that involves blending of multiple traditional machine learning techniques alongside Generative AI to provide a compelling consumer-grade experience. Air India has also established safeguards to prevent biased or harmful language from infiltrating its conversational AI system.

Unlike rule-based or keyword-based chatbots, Generative AI solutions understand the intent and context of a user’s query and generate a natural and coherent reply. This enhances user experience and satisfaction, while reducing the need for human intervention. It also helps to automate repetitive and mundane tasks, such as booking, cancellation, confirmation, etc., and free up bandwidth for human agents to focus on more complex and value-adding interactions.

In the coming months, Air India plans to launch a host of sophisticated features, driven by patent-pending technologies. This includes a novel user experience that changes the way customers interact with AI agents with a combination of textual and graphical interactions that can potentially further speed up customer interactions. Some of these innovations have been incubated for more than 2 years. Air India also plans to enhance the current AI agent with data-driven deep-personalisation capabilities that will elevate the technology to that of a reliable personal assistant for all air travel needs. The capabilities of the AI agent will include travel inspiration and effortless booking experiences. Support for more Indian languages is also in the works.

MoT working on key areas for digitalisation & traveller engagement: Jt. Secretary

M R Synrem, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India while highlighting the importance of India’s G20 Presidency said that Indian travel and tourism sector is providing an unparalleled opportunity to highlight its tourism offerings and success stories on the global stage. “The Tourism Track meetings under the G20 focused on key areas like sustainable development, digitalizstion and promotion of inclusive growth,” he added.

Addressing ‘FICCI’s 5th Digital Travel, Hospitality & Innovation Summit 2023’, Synrem stated that the Ministry of Tourism is working on key identified priority areas with major focus on digitalisation. “The National Integrated Database of Hospitality Industry (NIDHI) is one of the initiatives towards Atmanirbhar Bharat using technology to empower our businesses. ‘NIDHI’ is not just a database but poised to become a major gateway to opportunities in the hospitality industry.

Speaking on the initiatives of the government, Synrem said that the Ministry is developing platforms for personalisation and traveler engagement. “Today, digital technology allows us to collect and analyse data to create personalized experience. The Ministry will soon introduce several new initiatives with the existing helpline number ‘1363’ to address safety and security concerns of the travelers. We are working towards digitalization in the travel and tourism industry,” he noted.

Synrem further stated that post COVID, India has adopted technology in almost every sector. “Digital technology and innovation have revolutionised the travel and tourism industry and providing numerous benefits and enhancing the overall experience of travelers,” he added.

Dipak Deva, Chairperson, FICCI Tourism & Culture Committee & MD, Travel Corporation of India Ltd said that in this dynamic world marked by unprecedented technological advancements, the digital transformation journey is not an option but a necessity. “In this context, the travel and hospitality industry where the experience is everything, this transformation is especially critical,” he emphasised.

 

Ashish Kumar, Co-Chairperson, FICCI Travel Technology & Digital Committee said, “The travel industry is an extended arm and the largest segment of e-commerce sector. It is important to understand that everyone is now a consumer, not just a customer.”

Booking.com sees uptick in bookings for alternate accommodation

Launches Hindi as it’s 46th language

Online booking platform, Booking.com has seen an uptick in demand for alternate accommodation options in India, alongside 11-12℅ growth in listing of such properties on its platform, globally.

Santosh Kumar, Country Head – Indian Sub-continent & Indonesia, Booking.com, said, “Accommodation in general is a fairly complex distribution channel, globally, including in India. While airlines are distributed via the GDS, accommodation is a big puzzle because there are millions of options available. Today we have roughly 29 million listings, and that supply has gone up, and almost 7 million bookings are coming from the alternate accommodation space, which is only growing. For an important market like India, it is key that we provide our domestic customers the breadth of choice and availability of supply in that space.”

Kumar spoke about flexibility of booking and the design personalisation of their website and app are their key selling points.

Booking.com has been in India almost for a decade, and has grown it’s presence in India with a push of regionalisation. This year, Hindi has been launched as Booking.com’s 46th launguage. “It is important we talk to our audience in their language, and the travel trade is using Hindi on the extranet for bookings. We have opened a Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, and it’s workforce will go up to 500 in the coming months”

Building brand awareness is their area of focus in India, and partnership with ICC is important.

Leisure continues to be a big draw for Booking.com, and Indians continue to be confident for travel, especially for leisure as per Booking.com’s Travel Confidence Index. “There is recessionary pressure, but people are trying to book in advance to take advantage of deals.”

Kumar said that China has finally opened up for travel, however flight capacity is no where close to pre-Covid levels, and that only further shifts the perspective to India from an APAC view point. Terming India as their priority market, he said the importance of India is evident from the presence of international destinations, airlines, attractions and experiences here to tap the market.