Bridging the online-offline gap

An online marketplace to compare and buy the best holiday packages from unlimited tour operators, TripShelf, a one-of-a-kind online travel aggregator, is all set to help the offline agents reach the digital customer.

While unbiased online aggregators are prevalent in other industries in India, TripShelf brings this concept to the tourism industry and helps operators boost their digital presence. TripShelf launched its services in April 2016 and presently offers more than 600 packages from 60 tour operators available for consumers to compare and buy. “We propose to take this number to a 1,000 packages across 100 operators by the end of the year,” says Jai Raj Gupta, Founder, TripShelf and Owner of Shaadionline.com.

He further adds, “TripShelf is an online marketplace for leisure travellers to discover, compare and buy the best holiday packages from unlimited tour operators each listed under their own brand name. We are a marketplace aggregator and not an OTA or niche service provider. By offering travel operators their own branding and a low-cost lead acquisition/conversion model, we hope to get more and more operators on our website.”

Value Creation

Bridging the gap between leisure travellers and holiday experts, the platform keeps the users in a close loop with agents and agents have the benefit of a superior servicing team for handling enquiries. “TripShelf fuels the agents’ business by providing superior digital marketing expertise, search friendly content, standardised information and qualified leads.” says Co- founder Dhruv Raj Gupta ( ex- Google).

Discussing the business model, Gupta says, “Our revenue model requires suppliers whose services are being booked to pay a small percentage to TripShelf. So as long as we can drive traffic and consumers to enquire, it’s a win-win situation for all. Currently the website has more than 10,000 traveler visits a day, generating more than 300 leads a day, with each lead going to individual operators only.”

Conversion Metrics for Agents

For tour operators, Tripshelf offers digital marketing expertise that can exponentially help grow their business, coupled with the use of superior technology to help tighten the conversion funnel. “Top performing agents are seeing a 8-10 per cent conversion rate on enquiries, which is a solid number.” says Co-founder Sukhmani Singh (ex-AT Kearney).

“There are more than 5,500 registered travel operators in India, who've spent decades in giving people excellent holidays, often with service and price better than OTAs, and customers can't find them. This is due to lack of financial muscle, lack of technological capabilities and lack of digital marketing expertise and now TripShelf is sure to help them,” concludes Gupta.

Viewpoint

The portal has already created a niche for itself, and received appreciation from the travel trade. Pranshu Sharma, AGM-Business Development, Bonton Holidays, says, “We have received great response for our products via TripShelf since they provide us potential leads for our own packages. So this is definitely a two-fold advantage for us - leads and marketing of our products. We couldn’t have asked for more!”

Our revenue model requires suppliers whose services are being booked to pay a as we can drive traffic and consumers to enquire, it’s a win- win situation for all. Dhruv Raj Gupta Co-founder, TripShelf

Pran Dasan, Country Head & Regional Manager, flydubai, says, “As a travel industry insider, I am impressed with TripShelf and the team. Tour operators can finally focus on their core offering, and leave the customer acquisition to TripShelf!