TRAVEL MEMORIES START WITH TRIPMOBA
ZAKI DELGADO, WHO HAILS FROM THE PROMINENT DELGADO CLAN, GREW up outside the country but would always yearn for the warmth of the Philippines.
Indeed, he has seen the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, roamed the different states of America and has enjoyed the four seasons of Canada but at the end of the day, it was the charm of the Philippines that captivated him the most.
“I grew up abroad, but we would often travel to the Philippines, and something about the country captivated me. There was always an unmistakable warmth, charm and familiarity that I closely associated with the Philippines,” Delgado tells STARweek.
He knew that there was so much within the Philippines that many Filipinos have not seen, a reality that drove him to put up tripmoba.com, a leading Philippine-focused online travel engine that allows customers to book flights and hotels, purchase unique travel experiences and share their trip online with others in just one userinterface.
He wanted to share with his fellow Filipinos this passion for travel and the charm and magnificence that the Philippines has to offer.
“We have so much within our own borders many of us have not seen. Part of my dream and vision is to have tripmoba.com enable and allow more and more Filipinos to discover our own backyard,” he says.
For Delgado, traveling is about living a new story, an experience and, in the process, creating the best memories one can have.
“Traveling taps into that basic human curiosity each of us naturally has. I love learning and it makes going to different places all the more memorable for me. Even if it is somewhere I go regularly, there is always something new – a new story, a new memory, a new experience to be had,” Delgado adds.
With this in mind, Delgado started conceptualizing and planning tripmoba.com, with the aim of making it the goto site for Philippine online travel.
“We started working on this several years ago. We’ve had our first full year of operations last year. But we really started this because of our passion for travel. We are part of a very young team and we’re very passionate,” Delgado says.
He was aware that some travelers found it difficult to research on places to go in the country, prepare for their trips and make their bookings.
“They find it hard to research, book stuff. We had a passion for travel so we wanted to create something in the technology space,” he says.
And so tripmoba.com came to be. The company is part of the Transnational Diversified Group, an Asiabased conglomerate of more than 30 subsidiaries in diverse industries such as logistics, ship management, travel and tourism as well as information and communications technology.
With a year of full operations, tripmoba.com now has over 150,000 Facebook fans.
“Reception has been quite good. We’re happy that tripmoba has taken off,” Delgado says.
Booking volume in the first quarter of the year was thrice the volume the company had a year ago, Delgado notes.
The site primarily targets young, upscale professionals in the Philippines, valueconscious and leisure-driven travelers who turn to trips as the best way to unwind.
“Committed to giving travelers an easy and stress-free booking experience, tripmoba. offers the convenience of planning an entire trip from beginning to end, combined with the best localized customer service,” the company says in a separate profile on the site.
With the site, users can search for the price and availability of flights and hotels, as well as make instant reservations and pay online. Tickets and vouchers can be received via email, while the site provides the ultimate insider experience with editor and member-driven guides.
A unique offering is that throughout their travels, customers will have constant access to their itinerary as well as extensive list of restaurants, hotspots and other activities to try.
“This constant engagement with customers is a key aspect of what makes tripmoba.com special: offering well-selected travel experiences that people will remember, talk about and share,” according to the profile.
To make this possible, tripmoba.com has tie-ups with travel agencies and tour operators.
And if travelers have lastminute changes, they can simply communicate with tripmoba. customer service.
Lara Torres-Santos, tripmoba. strategic marketer, says that to those who have no idea what to do, the site offers a guide section, which loops in the entire travel experience.
In the end, Delgado says, tripmoba.com offers travelers a seamless experience that begins not upon landing but even during the booking and research process.
“We really want to make traveling to and from the Philippines easier at the root of it all, we want to have our customers have a great travel experience, a great travel story to tell their friends,” he says.
Now, with a little help from tripmoba.com, you too can start writing your own memorable travel story.