A wholly owned subsidiary of ixigo, Travenues was formed with an aim to bring deep tech to airline ticketing. “Our focus is to solve supply-side problems currently being faced by the aviation industry. Our mission is to help airlines power their own consumer selling experiences through a platform that uses the latest deep tech advancements in UX, engagement, segmentation, targeting, cross-selling, payments, customer service and more,” says Chandramouli Gopalakrishnan, Chief Digital Officer, Travenues.
Travenues has built a GDS agnostic direct selling platform, capable of being deployed at very short notice to more than 50 airlines in the world, informs Gopalakrishnan, adding that they are also in the middle of building platforms for Marketing Automation, AI-powered Customer Conversation and Smart Ancillary Upselling.
Sharing how airline businesses benefit through these solutions, Gopalakrishnan shares that airlines benefit primarily in two ways, “”They can focus on what they do best – flying their planes in the most operationally efficient way and leave the technology-heavy lifting to our platforms, secondly, with these platforms at their disposal, they can now own the customer life cycle of their travellers better, hence leading to more loyalty.”
The focus of the business is innovation. Travenues is primarily built on application of the latest technology to solve age-old problems plaguing the aviation industry. “Through this venture we will bring our learnings on mobile-first consumer experiences, growth marketing, personalisation, AI and voice assistants to airlines across the world,” he states , adding that in a fast-growing mobile-first world, travellers expect airlines to adopt new technology and consumer experiences across pre and post-booking and to develop more agility in upgrading their ability to market. The company’s focus is to equip airlines with the right innovation and inventory.
The future plans include usage of cutting edge technologies of AI/ML, Data Sciences, and most importantly get the aviation industry get more comfortable with the use of technology. Gopalakrishnan believes this will bring them onto a level playing field in the travel tech arena. With regards to strategic expansion, the company is exploring in two directions – a) exposing problem solutions to more airlines (problems seem to be very similar across the globe); and b) picking the right pain-point/problem to solve for airlines.
Gopalakrishnan asserts that this is the right time to disrupt this industry. Updation of outdated technology currently being used in the aviation space is the need of the hour. “Problems that we identify with one airline and solve, are seemingly found across a whole plethora of airlines across the globe – hence our focus is on building reusable platforms,” he points out.
Over the last two years, India has seen frenetic development in the AI/ML area with tech behemoths like Adobe, Microsoft and NASSCOM speeding up innovation by setting up centres of excellence (CoE) in India which operate as labs or accelerators to nurture innovation and foster a thriving AI ecosystem.
The Center of Excellence is the largest deep tech innovation ecosystem in India comprising of startups, innovators, enterprises and the government. We focus on solving real-world challenges utilising technologies like IoT, AI, Data Science, Big Data, AR/VR, Machine Learning, Robotics and through extensive academic research. We are structured to accelerate the implementation of solutions.