Startup Village-incubated company iTraveller has been selected as one among the 30 global innovators for the year at the prestigious Travel Innovation Summit (TIS) in the US city of Los Angeles, bringing yet another laurel to India's first PPP technology business incubator.
iTraveller will be showcased in the event, to be held during November 11-13. The selected global innovators will demonstrate applications, technologies and solutions with the potential to transform the way travel business is conducted. From India, MakeMyTrip was showcased for the same event last year.
"I owe my success largely to Startup Village which has been a great enabler," said Shiju Radhakrishnan, Co-founder and CEO of iTraveller. The company has been founded by a team of four - Chitra Parija, Nisanth Kumar and Sanjay Kumar, besides Shiju.
iTraveller is a cloud-based supply chain automation platform for holiday planning. Its seamless integration of end-to-end processes is designed to automate the manual tasks involved in vacation planning businesses. Travellers get to plan their customised holidays, whereas the fulfillment of the services from suppliers, who are also fully automated on iTraveller, ensures quality end-user experiences.
iTraveller helps automate the process of holiday planning and booking by bundling various components (hotels + transportation + sightseeing + activities), allowing the end users to do the same online, without extensive manual support. It also empowers them to get the best prices due to the effect of bundling.
For the hotels, tour operators and travel agents, it helps reduce the manpower dependency in creating itineraries and completing the booking related operations. It provides an end-to-end automated platform to help them digitise the entire sales and back-office operations.
"The USP of iTraveller lies in capturing all these variables in a seamless manner with the help of technology, thereby automating and organising the vacation planning processes," pointed out Shiju.
The system's dynamic inventory management helps integrate all the stakeholders in the supply chain - travellers, travel agents, tour operators and hotels.
"It is a great honour for both iTraveller and Startup Village. I hope this will help in creating a richer ecosystem of technology-driven and automation-enabled travel fraternity," said Sanjay Vijayakumar, chairman of the Kochi-based Startup Village.
"We are keen to offer the opportunity and expertise to those who are willing to innovate and have entrepreneurial impulses," he added.
The Bengaluru-based iTraveller was shortlisted after three rounds of interviews. Its business model was first evaluated by PhoCusWright in Singapore, followed by a jury in the US.
TIS is considered to be 'the travel event of the year' by all the stakeholders in the hospitality industry, such as travel companies, investors, research firms and even media. The US-based PhoCusWright Research, which organises the event, is a globally reputed name whoseresearch reports serve as a benchmark for marketing and sales team across global travel companies.
A world class event, TIS serves as a platform to showcase the next wave of market-changing innovation in travel, presenting fresh ideas and offering new partners and investment opportunities. There are no "speakers" or "presenters" at the Summit. The innovators showcase their technologies and tools through onstage walkthroughs.
Launched in September 2011, iTraveller had won the most promising startup award from S. Gopalakrishnan, the Chief Mentor of Startup Village and one of the co-founders of Infosys.
The short-listing of iTraveller comes close on the heels of an invitation to Rohildev N, the 23-year-old founder of the robotics startup RHL Vision Technologies that was incubated at Startup Village, as a speaker at the World Mobile Congress at Barcelona (Spain) in February. He was invited to talk about his company's product, 'Fin', a wearable smart ring that can turn your palm into a gesture interface to control multiple devices.
Also, Sijo Kuruvilla George, the CEO of Startup Village, has been invited to take part in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), a prestigious professional exchange programme conducted by the US Department of State to foster professional ties and mutual understanding with other countries.
