Emerging destinations & tech-tools are on rise: TravClan

“We are getting a lot of queries for stay in Phi Phi, earlier popular with day trips, and also Chiang Mai, Bintan and Koh Samui. I remember 5 years back, there was very little awareness about such destinations.” – Chirag Agrawal

With outbound tourism surging in 2024, Chirag Agrawal, Co-Founder of TravClan, shares exclusive travel insights, emerging traveler trends, and tech updates with T3.

Travel Trends

“The usual one contributes to the majority like Thailand, Singapore, Bali, Malaysia, Maldives, Dubai has been on the charts for a while. But now people are asking for newer destinations like Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, where people are going for one- and multi-country trips. People are also moving towards southern parts of Africa. We are getting a lot of queries for stay in Phi Phi, earlier popular with day trips, and also Chiang Mai, Bintan and Koh Samui. I remember 5 years back, there was very little awareness about such destinations. This year we have done better from a long-haul perspective as well. Europe has done well, with a lot lesser visa issues compared to 2023.” 

He also added that a lot of tourism is taking place for both FITs and MICE in places like Vietnam and Cambodia, along with well-explored destinations like Thailand. Another trend Agrawal highlighted is that people are spending more time during travel. Instead of a 4-night trip to Thailand, people are now spending 5-6 nights. 

On the domestic front, according to Agrawal, people are traveling to the seven sister states, particularly Assam and Meghalaya. In the south, Kerala has been a hot favorite. He further noted, “We are seeing people combining Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as a tri-state. With the increase in length of stay, they are spending couple of nights in other states as well.”  “Gujarat, Rajasthan, and specially Kashmir since last 2-3 years has been doing exceedingly well. It has become a 12-month destination now,” added Agrawal. “We see couple of niche tourism opportunities growing as well.” 

Travel Technology

Agrawal revealed that agents are seeking technology-based tools. “We are building a lot of AI-based products, so that travel agents get a lot faster service, more specific outputs. Within tech, artificial intelligence, machine learning, these are a couple of areas where we are working right now, and we are seeing heavy adoption among travel agents for it”, added Agrawal.

He highlighted the OnTrip application saying it’s a revolutionizing feature. The app allows travel agents to move away from operations completely, reducing effort and investment on managing operations, and a lot of travel agents have adapted and moved their business completely to it, as mentioned Agrawal.

When an agent books with TravClan, the trip including driver details, hotel voucher, tickets, any customer support, all is managed on mobile app. “We have been servicing over 20,000 travelers every month. It’s a white-labeled app, a traveller don’t get to know that TravClan is operating it. Agents are seeing increased productivity, better customer satisfaction, and higher repeat.

He expressed that TravClan completed 6th year on 1st October 2024. The thought behind is having agents to grow, allowing TravClan to naturally grow as a company. Second is customer centricity, where TravClan launched TravClan Trust Guarantee. The agent knows what are they entitled to, when something goes wrong during trip, not having to negotiate with TravClan.