Nine experts, one platform
Nine travel specialists in nine off-beat regions of India have come together to offer quality solutions to agents, and named it ‘India B2B’. TI Infotech offers solutions to the travel industry to help enhance the traveller’s booking experience with produc
Nine domestic tour operators who were destination experts in their right have come together to form a consortium in offer B2B solutions to the travel trade. Named ‘India B2B’, the platform was formally launched in January this year. Gopesh Sharma, CEO, Discover Gujarat, who has been chosen as the spokesperson for the new company, says, “We have known each other for a long time, as friends and as fellow tour operators who helped each other when it came to destinations that we were familiar with.”
The first seed for this thought was sown in 2006 and a few of the partners were already discussing coming together. It took shape in the form of ‘ East India Tour Experts’ two years ago that had only three members. As the discussions progressed, a few more people joined in and now India B2B has nine experts in nine different destinations of India plus Bhutan.
The idea is to pass on a query to the person who is expert in that particular region. “The beauty of this platform is that people can get in touch with any of is directly. There’s no profit-sharing nor any financial involvement between us. The only thing we are invested in is commitment. We have the right infrastructure in place on ground, we own our own fleet, we are destination experts, so why not come together and offer a bouquet of destinations to people who are in search for the right connect and the right solutions,” Sharma says.
A lot of the ready packages are on the India B2B website but their main strength lies in customisation as per the agent requirement. “All of us have our own transport fleet in place, which means we are all invested in this. We have anything from 200 to 60 vehicles to even 10 vehicles of our own according to the size of the company, and we have been operating in our areas for more than two decades,” Sharma adds.
Initially, India B2B is promoting itself only through trade fairs such as TTF Chennai, TTF Bengaluru, IITT Mumbai, SATTE and OTM Mumbai. After that, they might try something else to connect to agents, specially in TierII and -III cities where these trade fairs are not organised, through one-on-one meetings or roadshows.
TI Infotech offers comprehensive tour management solutions, DMC solutions, online travel booking engines, travel CRM, mobile Apps, corporate self booking tool, responsive e-commerce portals etc. to the travel agencies and online travel agents alike. “Our company likes to give attention and contributes to every idea or challenge for our customers that can be solved by a robust and a cutting-edge technology. We believe in innovation. Our products have a constant roadmap for new innovations and sales channel, helping travel management companies to tap into new markets and consumer segments,” says, Meenu Sachdeva, Co-founder and Managing Director, TI Infotech.
The company has introduced Travel Cloud Suite to automate the travel business processes, starting from content acquisition and all the way through distribution, informs Sachdeva. The Travel Assist offered by the company is a comprehensive tours management software that enables an organisation to efficiently manage the complete tour cycle from product planning to profitable operations to accounting to MIS suite for all levels of the tour/ DMC business. This application enables a tour company to manage operations for all business segments; FIT, GIT, series departures, charters and excursion management.
Sachdeva elaborates that companies are now collecting actionable insights with their existing data and business intelligence forms a key part to track and monitor important components of a travel business. “The traveller today is more tech-savvy and expects all information in real time along with booking flexibility on the move and thus mobile Apps and mobile compatible sites are necessary to facilitate such flexibility. Currently, companies are also evaluating new and advanced payment solutions that help in simplifying the processes, reinforce program compliance and offer protection against fraud,” she adds.
We have the right infrastructure in place on ground, and we own our
TI Infotech’s focus this year is both national and international market and thus the company would be participating in all key domestic and international travel events. Apart from this, the company’s major focus will be around online marketing and social media activities. The company hopes to gather new business leads along with networking with industry peers, meeting existing clients at ATM 2017.