ON THE ROADA few brave startups are making a place for themselves in India’s big-gun dominated travel

and tourism market by tapping into niche opportunities

Deep Kalra’s MakeMyTrip based

in Gurgaon was founded in

year 2000 and is one of the

few startups of that time to

have survived the boom and the bust

over the decade. Looking back, one of

the prime reasons for the online travel

portal to weather the storms is the fact

that it had the first-mover advantage in

the segment.

The company went on to get listed and

successfully set up offices in different

parts of the world. Today, with others like

Cleartrip, Expedia, Travel Guru, Yatra,

etc., MakeMyTrip holds a large market

share in the internet travel planning

market in India. The moral of this success

story truly is to dig your heels deep into

sectoral gaps and hang in there till you

don’t emerge a winner. A slew of startups

in the travel industry are doing just that.

Finding the creviceBengaluru-based Chitra Gurnani Daga,

and Abhishek Daga, both 28-years-old,

are avid trekkers. “During one of the

treks, it started to rain and the company

organizing the trek was not prepared for

it,” says Chitra Daga, CEO, Thrilliophilia,

talking of the lack of professionalism

with the existing players in the market—

which led her and Abhishek Daga to

co-found the Bengaluru-based travel

website in 2009.

Bengaluru-based Ish Jindal, 23,

along with Saurabh Jain, 29, too found

a unique gap in the travel services which

they wanted to plug with their website,

Padhaaro in January 2012. Jindal,

Co-Founder, noticed that international

tourists in India rarely get an opportu-

nity to connect with the local people

EXPERIENTIAL BREAK: (left to right) Chitra Gurnani Daga and Abhishek Daga

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because of language barriers, mindsets

and cultural differences. “Many locals

want foreign tourists to experience their

culture but the latter do not know whom

to trust,” notes Jindal.

Down south, 42-year old Pradeep

Murthy launched Wayanad-based Muddy

Boots in 2009 with a focus on North

Kerala and Coorg and put in a seed capi-

tal of `1 lakh. “I did my engineering in

Calicut and over the years would go trek-

king in North Kerala. At best, there were

only individual guides and no organized

professional operators were available,”

he says. Also, he wanted to change the

notion in peoples’ mind that adventure

is risky and suited only to young blood.

Out of the boxA common observation among found-

ers of all the three travel and adventure

startups is that tourists look for out of the

ordinary experiences. Sameer Guglani,

Founder of The Morpheus, an acceler-

ator says, “Companies have to look at

niche segments within the travel indus-

try now.”

Daga and Abhishek’s Thrilophillia

essentially checks the quality of services

provided by partners and keeps auditing

them. “There is a checklist that has over a

100 things,” Daga says. “We curate activi-

ties that customers can choose,” she adds.

After targeting individual customers for

six months, the co-founders realized this

model was a long haul.

For faster revenues and scale, in early

2010 they shifted their focus to corpo-

rate clients but continued to service indi-

viduals. Thrillophilia currently provides

about 1500 pan-Indian experiences

tagged as ‘experiential holidays that

create value during a trip.’

“We even have military guides and

experienced members of the team help-

ing out to maintain the highest level of

professionalism,” claims Abhishek. “We

are priced slightly higher compared to

a few competitors but are reasonable

for the quality of service we provide,”

Daga affirms.

Thrillophillia has executed outbound

trips for about 300 corporate clients so

far including Cisco, Google, and TCS

among others.

Similarly, the Padhaaro founders

decided to kill two birds with one stone

and designed their model in such a way

that both sides benefit from it.

Apart from creating a network of

locals who tourists can trust, they saw

they could also help the locals incentivize

their skill sets and talents in their inter-

actions with tourists.

Padhaaro, as it stands currently, has a

‘greeter’ model and a ‘freemium’ model

for foreign tourists to interact with locals.

The greeter model is free for users and

is based on the idea of connecting inter-

national tourists to locals for an indig-

enous flavor of a particular locale. The

LOCAL FARE : (left to right) Ish Jindal and Saurabh Jain

TRAVEL HIGHS

Ü THE TRAVEL AND TOURISM SECTOR WILL GROW AT A CAGR OF 12 PER CENT FROM THE ESTI-MATED `2.2 LAKH CRORE IN THE YEAR 2013 TO `6.8 LAKH CRORE BY 2023.

Source: KPMG, December 2013

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freemium model is an expert-led model

wherein people with a unique skill-be it

a mehendi designer or a local folk music

artist, can interact with tourists. “We

haven’t tied up with any businesses, only

with individuals,” mentions Jindal.

Aulia Nastiti, a tourist from Indonesia

says, “I only had friends in Delhi and Pune

and knew no one in the rest of the coun-

try. However, in each city, I always had

meaningful experiences. The Padhaaro

greeters who are residents of the city

warmheartedly accompanied us as we

wandered around the city.”

Padhaaro has served 150 tourists

like Nastiti, and has greeters in 20 cities

across India.

Muddy Boots’ advantage point is in

creating activity plans that large tour

planners are often unable to do, Murthy

points out. “The company focuses on

outdoor activities and provides options

of varying levels of challenge. It could be

a simple walk in the woods, an outdoor

camp or a trekking holiday,” Murthy says.

Interestingly, Muddy Boots has

cornered the hospitality sector too in

the region and partners with resorts to

provide activity options for hotel guests,

besides working with families, schools

and corporates. A third angle to its model

is a partnership with tour operators in

the UK to design activity holidays for

foreign travelers.

Muddy Boots activities are priced

between `1,500 to `1,700 excluding

transport, per person per day. Murthy

tells us he is looking to expand to

Rajasthan soon.

Investors go on a tripThese models have garnered investor

attention. Thrillophilia raised invest-

ment in September 2013 to the tune

of $200,000 from Hyderabad Angels,

iLabs Venture Capital Fund, Navlok

Ventures and Centre for Innovation,

Incubation and Entrepreneurship at IIM

Ahmedabad. Padhaaro instead went

through the accelerator program at The

Morpheus and received `5 lakh from

them in September 2013 as well.

The main source of revenue for

Padhaaro is the freemium model, intro-

duced only a few months ago. The

company keeps 30 percent of the amount

charged by locals from tourists.

“We are currently focusing on the

greeter model,” says Jindal of Padhaaro

says. To ensure that greeters are reliable

and trustworthy, Padhaaro conducts an

interview and a senior greeter in a city

meets new greeters. “It is important for

us to build a brand tourists can trust,”

Jindal says.

Now a 30-member team, Thrillophilia

was set up with startup capital of `25

lakh. The company broke even in the first

20-24 months and profits thereafter have

been reinvested into the business. The

founders plan to expand to Bhutan, Sri

Lanka and Nepal in the near future.

Raghu Bhathina of Hyderabad Angels

says, “There is an inherent need for

outdoor experiences, so the market is

definitely big.”

The challenge says Bhathina is that

it’s mostly an offline business and many

of the companies Thrillophilia looks

to partner with may not be online.

“An online and offline combination is

needed,” he says.

Guglani too reiterates the pitfalls

of being in the travel trade. He says,

“Differentiation is important and build-

ing a brand that customers trust at the

same time does not happen easily.”

As far as marketing goes Guglani says,

“You can’t defeat a MakeMyTrip when it

comes to spending. So companies need

to focus on good quality content, do-it

-yourself travel planning solutions and

on community building.”

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FOR NATURE: Pradeep Murthy

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