Original Title : Travel Another India Media Format : Social media based Website : http://www.travelanotherindia.com Producer : Travel Another India Language : English + language of each destination Location : Tamil Nadu, INDIA Contact : gou@travelanotherindia.com
DESCRIPTION
Travel Another India is a website which aspires to bring this unique experience to the urban traveller, including those with disabilities. While doing so, they ensure that their hosts, who provide this experience, have a sustainable, alternative income option. With their initiative called Journeys without Barriers, they are also identifying groups of people with disabilities to act as hosts. Travel another India emphasize on ‘Responsible Tourism’, ‘creating the experience’, ‘provide an experience and not just a room’ and ‘journeys without Barriers’ for the Host who could be an individual, community or an eco-resort or for the guest or for the hosts and guests with disabilities. Travel Another India is also a marketing channel for established responsible tourism ventures and they are getting marketing commissions. In addition, they do consulting on issues related to Responsible Tourism.
EVALUATION
The Jury observed that the initiative offers an alternative, sustainable income stream to villagers in the country, especially for the agricultural communities, mostly having single point income source. It was also noted that the initiative offers potential to employ local people in the village or in its vicinity and build on skills that they already have, mainly the hospitality which comes by natural to them. The Jury noted that the main value proposition is a choice in responsible destinations offering a unique experience in terms of culture, cuisines and comforts. It was also noted that there were many more successful implementations made by Travel Another India – which work alongside rural communities and ensure that they own, manage & control the travel ventures.
MUST SEE INDIA
Original Title : Must See India Media Format : Internet & Web based Website : http://www.mustseeindia.com Producer : Roam Space Travel Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Language : English Location : Karnataka, INDIA Contact : vikas@mustseeindia.com
DESCRIPTION
The Must See India (MSI), launched by Roam Space Travel Solutions Pvt. Ltd., is a free travel planning site providing information, tools and booking for leisure travel planning in India. MSI aims to create a disruptive online platform that will increase the efficiency and quality of the booking process. The site provides a self-help planning tool leading to automatic filtration easing the burden on sales representative leading to reduction in cost. Quality of consultation is high as it learns from experiences of other travellers. Consultation is more effective as more accurate and specific suggestions are made. The entire booking process speeds up reducing the wait time for revert from sales representative leading to higher customer satisfaction. It also helps in increasing repeat customers.
EVALUATION
The Jury noted that the initiative, since it was launched 3 years ago, garnered significant acceptance as it has registered more than 2.3 million unique visitors per month. It was also noted that the site is visited by outside India visitors also where 4% are from US and 3% are from UK of the total approximately 2.5 million visits per month. The Jury felt that the objective of the site to provide a free trip planning and travel sharing application would make it easy to travel in India.
MY GUEST HOUSE ACCOMODATIONS & PROPERTY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Original Title : Property Management System (PMS ) from MGH Accommodations Pvt. Ltd. Media Format : Internet & Web based Website : http://www.mghworld.net/property_owner.php Producer : MGH Accommodations Pvt. Ltd. Language : English Location : Uttar Pradesh, INDIA Contact : vinay.mohan@myguesthouse.net
DESCRIPTION
The Property Management System from MyGuestHouse Accommodations is a cutting edge technological development for budget hotels and guest houses across the country. With this system, property owners are able to manage their room inventory to provide a “real time” inventory of rooms thus preventing last minute cancellation, mismatch in communication etc, which are major problems in the budget travel space. Thus, MGH is empowering small business in travel to flourish and expand the budget travel industry as a whole, which will be beneficial to both property owners and the end consumer. The initiative ensures that the hoteliers across the country be able to eradicate inefficiencies in the budget travel value chain, thus enhancing customer experience and development of small scale players and business in the travel space, which is very essential for the overall development of the budget travel industry as a whole. The PMS system and the website is available to the hotelier free of cost. Property Owners can access their Cloud based MGH PMS on the site- www.mghworld.net/gms.
EVALUATION
The Jury observed that the novel initiative Property Management System (PMS) fills an existing gap in terms of solving a major problem in budget travel using the power of cloud computing. It was also noted that the PMS has a very well crafted and easy to use user interface that can be easily managed at the level of even the hotel receptionists. The screen display in the application in the form of a tape chart wherein the hotelier easily inputs when a room gets booked or is occupied. This gets updated in real time on the PMS server, thus allowing all Travel Agents, distributors and customers to see the room availability in real time. The Jury also noted that the PMS has significant acceptance and currently it is used by hoteliers and guest house owners in the budget segment across 153 locations in India with around 300+ properties spanning over 100 major travel destinations in the country.