HYDERABAD:
From chasing polar bears in the Arctic, a summer sojourn in freezing Antarctica, to a peaceful escape, ringing in World Yoga Day in serene Bhutan, all these and much more are on offer for the wanderlust Indian.
Travel startup are seeking out the discerning Indian traveller, offering them customised experiences at a premium.
With a potential of 50 million outbound tourists from India by 2020, players such as Footprint Holidays, Thrillophilia and new entrant Byond Travel are serving a niche market for the evolving Indian tourist. "The large and ultrahigh net individuals (HNIs) are an underserved segment. While we do plain vanilla holidays as well, nearly 35% of our market share comes from the luxury travel segment. Most of the other travel sites only borrow or buy technology," says G Viswanathan, CEO, Footprint Holidays.
Curated holiday packages don't come cheap; in fact, they can cost up to Rs 4 lakh per person on an average, around 10x the industry average. "Indians are willing to splurge on living in the best hotels across the world and often plan tours based on the property," adds Viswanathan. Unlike the online travel agents, these startup charge a premium on the range of services offered and ease of transaction. "Experiential holidays are a differentiator in the space and while these focus on tailoring an experience, we focus on the do-it-yourself model, where the planning can be done without a single phone call," says Amit Taneja, chief revenue officer at Cleartrip.
"Typically, planned holidays using our offering on small world or weekend getaways constitute 45% of the bookings. These bookings show approximately 15% difference in ticket-size as the customers value the experience more than economy," says Taneja, adding that the portal will look at introducing a common platform to make content-supported planning easier.
The number of Indians looking beyond Switzerland or Mussorie as vacation destinations has been on the rise, while many prefer travelling with interest groups focused on activities such as golfing, biking or local music and culture.
"There has been a clear shift to activity-focused vacations and there is no clear leader in the Asian market for the category. Activity segment can be high adventure such as hot air ballooning, low adventure or in the luxury space, a dinner on a yacht. Typically, we get multiple last-minute bookings, after people reach a destination and are looking to explore activities," says Chitra Gurnani Daga, CEO and co-founder of Thrillophilia. The travel site which works on a marketplace model for various tour and holiday operators raised an angel round in 2013 and is in the market to raise a subsequent round. Kyron-incubated Byond Travel focuses on delivering experiences along with a technologybased concierge service to users.
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