It’s crucial to balance innovation & preserve the essence of real travel: Sanjay Mohan, Group CTO, MMT
It is for sure that technology has dramatically changed the way we experience the world, and ‘travelling’ is one such experience. With the onset of metaverse, VR, and AR like technologies, such experiences are also transforming. However, could it someday replace real-life travel with virtual experiences? Sanjay Mohan, Group Chief Technology Officer, MakeMyTrip in an exclusive interview with Express Computer shared his vantage points on the future of travel and tourism industry. Also, the discussion highlighted the essential role of technology behind the successful journey of MMT, one of the most successful Indian startups.
From lifestyle to social interactions and work, a lot has changed today as people have moved to digital. How has this impacted MMT’s business? What have been major transformations from pre-Covid era to post-Covid era for you?
MakeMyTrip was built on a bet on the digital medium and has been at the forefront of digital commerce for almost two decades now. Our endeavour has been to not just stay abreast of the evolution, but rather to stay ahead of it. We have seen multiple existential ups and downs in our business over the span of our existence and have demonstrated the fortitude and resilience to come out of all such crises situations. Also, we have remained India’s most loved and most visited travel site throughout our journey – thanks to the trust that our customers place in our brands.
Covid was just one more and the most recent crisis that came our way. For almost around two quarters, the entire travel industry was nearly decimated with strict travel bans imposed by countries and states. Like always, we saw the opportunity in this crisis too. During the months of Covid-19 lockdown, we focused our attention on building a better MakeMyTrip for our customers – in terms of self-serve flows for post-sales support and also in terms of building out new platforms so as to bolster our offering for the post-Covid world. The self-serve post-sales support also got a boost from similar initiatives from our partner suppliers (airlines, hotel chains, fleet operators) as they upgraded their tech stack and automated most of their post-sales flows as well. We integrated their automation flows tightly within our self-serve use cases. The ultimate beneficiary, of course, was the customer who got the best-in-breed post-sales support from MakeMyTrip.
During Covid, we also successfully built and launched several new offerings such as MyPartner, TripMoney, and MyAffiliate. MyPartner is a platform for travel agents, who now have the entire repertoire of MakeMyTrip’s travel products that they can sell to their customers. TripMoney is a travel fintech initiative encompassing travel insurance, lending, EMI solutions, and foreign exchange trading. MyAffiliate is a B2B2C API (application programming interface)-based capability through which our affiliates such as Amazon Pay, GPay, and PhonePe, etc, can sell our inventory on their sites. We also launched our site in GCC countries, starting with UAE, in Arabic.
In the post-Covid era, as outlined above, we have built a stronger foundation for MakeMyTrip to serve our customers better, while also being ambitious on expanding the bouquet of our offerings beyond the usual B2C space. Post-Covid, MakeMyTrip is a true travel platform, expanding its reach to all channels of customer interaction – covering market segments outside of our popular B2C channel. Of course, we have increased our international presence too.
How are you leveraging artificial intelligence and automation to optimise your business? Do these technologies help you in getting repeat customers?
Most of our new feature offerings are driven by smart insights that we have gathered over the last several years – both on the supply and demand side. Our first AI/ML model appeared in our product some six to seven years ago. We have come a long way since, and AI/ML has become an integral part of our everyday engineering routine.
These AI/ML-driven features are quite popular with our customers. In the flight booking funnel, we have two very popular features – namely, “zero cancellation” and “fare lock”. Both of these are driven by data science models in the backend, where we combine our knowledge of the supply side price fluctuations with the demand side signals. Such features take a lot of anxiety out of customers’ minds and build stickiness and loyalty towards our product. In the train booking use case, we have a feature called “TripGuarantee”, where we refund up to thrice the value of the train ticket in case the ticket does not get confirmed. Customers can use this 3x value to move to a higher travel class/category or book a flight instead. In the case of hotels, we personalise the listing for every customer, so they find the relevant set of hotels on the first page itself. Such features help the customer make smart and correct choices when it comes to buying travel products.
Lately, we’ve been experimenting with incorporating some Generative-AI capabilities into our product flows. In the hotel shopping flow, you can find a crisp summary of reviews from customers “Similar To You” that will help you in zeroing in on a particular hotel. In the holidays shopping funnel, we are trying out a conversational flow (powered by Generative-AI) that will make holiday purchasing more intuitive through its conversational/chat interface. Similarly, in the flights shopping flow, we are trying out a voice-based chat interface. These features have gone live with a small section of our customer base and we will expand the offering as we get more confident with this new technology.
From an automation perspective, our extensive coverage of post-sales, self-serve use cases like automated cancellation, date change, and refund across most top carriers (in India & GCC), and comprehensive real-time flight information, complete/ partial cancellation, an option to raise a ticket for an unpleasant stay, actually provide users a superlative post-booking experience.
Considering the ever-increasing number of online bookings and loads of data being generated, how has the role of a CTO/CIO changed in recent times?
One of the fundamental changes is the shift towards data-driven decision-making. With an abundance of data coming in from multiple sources, it’s critical that one uses advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to extract relevant insights and make informed business decisions. This necessitates a significant emphasis on data management, data governance, and developing a robust data infrastructure to assure data availability, integrity, and security. Furthermore, the responsibility of continually pushing digital transformation and improving the technology infrastructure is fundamental. For me, data ethics is a crucial part of my consideration matrix and the organisation’s approach when it comes to mining information. We do not ask for details that we don’t need.
Cybersecurity is among the most pressing issues today. How are you dealing with it and safeguarding your and your customers’ data?
Safeguarding our customers’ data privacy remains our top priority. We hold customer trust at the core of our operations and it guides our decisions and actions. There is a layered security model that tracks the user sessions end to end, as they traverse through our system. At each layer, we employ the best-in-breed security solution to ensure that our systems remain secure and protected at all times.
Digital is here to stay and now we have a metaverse too. Do you think virtual tours could replace actual travel in the times to come?
While technology continues to revolutionise the travel industry, we must remember that travel is ultimately a transaction in experience. The joy of physically exploring new destinations, engaging with nature, and discovering fresh delights most likely cannot be replaced by technology alone. As we embrace the potential of technology, it is crucial to strike a balance between innovation and preserving the essence of travel itself.
What is your view on the future of travel and tourism industry?
Technology has had a seminal impact on travel, and its effect will be more visible in the coming years, providing people with convenience, safety, and fewer in-person touchpoints. With the advent of technologies like VR, AI, and IoT, travellers will have more tools at their disposal for not just enrich the breadth of their travel experience, but also the depth of it. Like simulating a feeling of being exposed to the arctic winds for a few seconds, even when tightly packed in protective gear. Experiences that are personalised, immersive, and sustainable at the same time.
The future of tourism in India is full of promise too. The industry’s future is poised for incredible advancements in sustainable tourism, driven by technology integration and evolving travel trends. For the present generation of tourists, technology has already brought a revolution of discoverability and convenience — democratising travel by making it more inclusive and diverse, opening newer destinations to many people. And, technology is all geared to aid our future wanderlusts further, fuelling the inner adventurists to take the road less travelled with just a few swipes or voice commands.
