Today, nearly more than half of the population count on online, be it an e-shopping or booking a fancy trip. We became so much dependent on it that we do virtual shopping till we drop. Many online sites mushroomed and rat-racing to have a win-win situation.
The article what I bring you today is utterly dedicated to the Monday haters who are waiting for the weekend. Fridays are the most expected days to party or plan for a perfect trip or even do nothing but just binge watching. So, here I bring the ideal travel platform called “PickYourTrail” to the people who are looking for a long relaxing vacation especially people want to travel outside the country from the nerve-racking professional life.
About PickYourTrail
PickYourTrail is a travel based DIY platform that enables travelers to plan, create, customize and book personalized international vacations like honeymoons and family vacations.
Inception and Founders
Hari Ganapathy and Srinath Shankar co-founded Chennai-based PickYourTrail in January 2014.
Both the co-founders’ appetite to travel across the world and Amsterdam experience made them start the company by making Indians adore the travel experience with some memories and know the culture of the place they visit, and not leaving the countries like a tourist. The team also insist that they started the company out of passion and not the desire to start it.
Travelers can customize their vacation
The startup uses sophisticated statical learning algorithms and Machine Learning to make it simple for its users. The travel plan is set in two categories.
- Logistics: Users can directly include the number of cities they want to travel and places to visit.
- Customizing: Users can customize the travel plan like where what, and when to see the cities.
PickYourTrail looks out for some metadata details from its users like what are the likes and preferences in the travel. The algorithms they use help the company set up the itinerary based on their preferences by optimizing the basis of cost and time.
The startup also began to use AI in its CRM to support the customers and ease them by guiding the salesperson when to call the customer.
No domestic Travel plans
PickYourTravel is out-and-out international travel experience. The company initiated a unique venture to seek a larger market and stayed away from domestic travel plans.
The company pressed on continuing with the international travels and no second thought on the domestic travel plan. It strives to change the customer behavior and make it easy for them to travel out from India at a reasonable price.
A successful journey so far…
The travel platform has plan trips to around 3000 cities across more than 14 countries alone its self-service platform. Countries include Bali, Maldives, Australia, Dubai, Europe, New Zealand, South Africa, and more to name.
They filter destinations according to Family specials, Beach lovers, Adrenaline junkies, and for the newlyweds.
PickYourTrail has raised $3M and with total revenue of $1.2M. The company competes with TravelTriangle, TripHobo, and Tripfactory.
Surprisingly for Pickyourtrail, the success and recognition came mostly through word of mouth without disbursing on paid online or offline marketing. The company’s stronger vision and technology created a niche in the international travel market to grow deeper.
In Travel Tech 2017, Google names PickYourTrail as a benchmark for customer delight. The online portal got praised by Google and BCG for its model.
