How this Startup Is Using Tech to Innovate For the $38 Billion B2B Holiday Package Sourcing Industry

Travel is an experiential business, and experiences require personalization. In a world where most things are customizable and available on-demand, and social media guides what the next best (or unique) experience could be – themodern traveller expects a lot more from his or her holiday. Today's traveller's demands from his/her agent have evolved significantly – from being focused on price and time – to being focused on tailor-made solutions with personalization, transparency, smooth transaction and high service levels.

In the absence of seamless access to global suppliers, and product availability with instant customization, these demands of the new-age travellers have become a major challenge – not only for smaller travel agents but for OTAs(Online Travel Agency) as well – despitethe latter's access to cutting edge tools, systems and data. Recently, one of India's major OTAs statedpublicly that due to these challenges, Indian holiday package industry ends up generatingonly queries online and processing them offline.

"The holiday package industry works on an inefficient hybrid system currently, where holiday packages are sourced and delivered by non-standardized and manual processes," says Vikas Khadaria, Founder and CEO, Travsie. "This results in significant operational challenges, and heavy reliance on emails and phone calls between agents and suppliers – whichinevitably results in delays, drop in service levels, travel agents' dependency on middlemen, and non-competitive price points due to middleman commissions."

As per a RedSeer report, travel agents still command a 50% market share, and this market share is expected to become $65 billion by 2027. The ability to interact and customize with the end customer gives offline travel agents a considerable edge over OTAs – and this advantage is likely to remain.Travel agents will continue to be a dominant part of the traveland holiday ecosystem for the foreseeable future. However, as Vikas mentions, thechallenges they face will continue, unless scalable technology is used for seamless supplier-agent integration on a common platform. Only then canthe issues with customization, operations, seamless booking and high-quality service be resolved.

The report also talks about agents complaining that not many travel booking portals are offering package booking options. They generally have to build relationships with DMCs and hotels to design customized packages for their customers, which is a resource and time heavy process.

"India is soon going to be ahome to nearly 300 thousand travel agents – big, small and aspiring. They find it difficult to network with right suppliers at various destinations, since the global suppliers also work on emails and phone. There was a great need for a scalable tech platform to fill this critical need-gap," says Vikas.

"When we were developing Travsie, we were initially surprised that there had been no previous attempt to enable sourcing integration between agents and suppliers. The B2B holiday package sourcing space was completely vacant," he adds.

That is perhaps why Vikas, who had more than 12 years of experience in the holiday travel business, bootstrapped and built a system with his passionate team of co-founders to provide a seamless platform and channel for agents and suppliers.

Travsie is the result of that concentrated, inspired and dedicated effort which adds value to the existing edge thattravel agents have over OTAs. Travsie does this through technology, direct access to content from supplier's market place and by letting agents book highly customizable, integrated holiday packages with real-time prices from Travsie's market place. Functioning as a channel platform, Travsie not only streamlines holiday sourcing, services and transactions between global suppliers and agents, it also comes packed with a host of integrated, full stack, ease-of-business and value add features for agents and suppliers that drive efficiencies, revenues and growth," he added.

With launch of Travsie'sHoliday APIs and Holiday Search Engine – a first for the holiday industry – travelagents & their customers can directly access, customize and buy listed holiday packages from supplier's market place in less than two minutes. Travsie's tech is also developed to channelize service directly between agents and suppliers which makes the business scalable for everyone in the ecosystem.

In fact, Travsie is continually evolving its technology as it incorporates data learning and feedback from its users. A recent example is the "Bid Karo" campaign, a unique bidding system that lets transporters give their best price on confirmed bookings based on vehicle availability. So far this dynamic pricing option was only available on for flights and hotels since transport suppliers primarily worked offline in India.

"What we have built is robust and we are innovating every day. So far competition is concerned in this segment," Vikas says."Travsie is not just a traditional market place that connects buyers and sellers. Apart from addressing the challenges faced on both demand and supply side related to integration of products, and intangible services of holiday industry, the platform is geared to generate demand and deliver real-time supply to unorganized travel agents market."

As we introduce newer transaction types, Travsie will expand market participation that will help smaller agents grow and profit by leveraging a pan-India network of travel agents & suppliers on Travsie platform, while creating opportunities for bigger established companies as well," he adds

Detailing out Travsie's evolution he mentions adding newer value adds transaction types, and expanded market participation that will help companies grow and profit. With more than 5000 agents and global suppliers already on the platform, the company is bullish on expanding further – and on-boarding 30,000-plus holiday sales agents from tier II, III and IV cities in India.

"Our vision is to democratize travel business. We want that tier IV city travel agent to have the same access to technology, content and pricing from suppliers' that big OTAs have – and once successful in India, we want to make that model global." he concludes.