Post Covid, our numbers grew almost 3X from prepandemic: Hari Ganapathy, Pickyourtrail

For many Indians travelling abroad, tour packages from leading travel agents was their go-to plan; this ensured a sense of calmness when travelling outside India. However, with changing times, more awareness and disposal income, the needs of well-travelled Indians changed; who were now looking for travel customized as per their interests. To cater to this rising demand, Pickyourtrail was launched in 2014 and has since become one of India’s biggest online DIY holiday booking platform that empowers users to curate customised holidays. Hari Ganapathy, Co-Founder, Pickyourtrail says, “When we started Pickyourtrail the entire concept of a personalised holiday platform didn't exist. People were still taking package tours, and putting this entire platform together was a challenge. It was complex task to build the tech platform to build because a holiday consists of multiple parts – hotel, transport, trains, date changes, travel to multiple cities etc. Putting everything together and pricing it real time and booking it - with the optimized price and travel time, was the first complexity.” He continues, “Finding customers who were willing to pay travel in a very low-cost margin industry and a value conscious market, delivering a service, and building a brand that people would pay for was also a challenge.”

A defining moment for the travel industry was the Covid-19 pandemic, and when the recovery started international travel was the last to open up. Ganapathy says that this period “defined a lot of what we are today.” However, on a positive note travel has rebounded post the pandemic with the desire to travel, on arrival visa and low-cost connectivity being the tailwinds propelling growth. Ganapathy says, “Post Covid-19, we're almost 3x of our numbers from the pre-pandemic levels. Work-from-home and working from a location other than the office has led to a shift and increase in travel. Another shift has been the increase in luxury travel and experience-led milestone travel such as birthdays, anniversaries etc. The senior segment was very cautious coming out of the pandemic, but in the last couple of years the senior segment has picked up with their so-called revenge travel is happening right now.”

Looking at marketing, Pickyourtrail is present in a category where both online travel platforms and legacy travel agents have a wide foray of products and outspend the DIY holiday booking platform. In this scenario, Pickyourtrail’s marketing strategy has been to drive engagements. As Pickyourtrail focuses predominantly on the holiday outbound holiday space, influencer led activation has worked for its key customer segment aged from 23 years to 32 years. He says, “We have had good success with influencer marketing. Just to give an example, we are larger than the largest brand from a fan following perspective and have collaborated with multiple celebrities and content creators. It's about figuring out the right influencer or celebrity that resonates with your brand. Tourism boards are also looking at the right partnerships to drive top-of-mind awareness. People are increasingly seeking relatability and authenticity and that's something we try and deliver through our content.” He continues, “The second aspect is our overall customer relationship marketing. If you have a good holiday, you end up not just
coming back to the same provider, but also talking about it. Repeat and referral are a large focus area and CRM marketing is critical. Performance marketing is also very important. Having said that, in the coming financial year, we are looking to spend on awareness and brand. You will see a lot more expense coming from us in the coming year”

Pickyourtrail leverages its data from a decision making and conversion perspective. It also tracks the customer sentiment in what the company calls the anxiety score”. Following the belief that “the least anxious customer are the most positive word-of-mouth customer,” Pickyourtrail tries to be part of their customer’s journey - right from booking, before and after the visa process, before departure, and so on - to keep the customer engaged at various points and ensure that anxiety is at minimal levels and the overall satisfaction and experience is maximum. This strategy helped the company retain customer as Ganapathy says, “Close to about 35% of our monthly business comes from our repeat customers and our goal is to take it about to 50- 60% in the coming year.”

While a large part of Pickyourtrail’s is from the metros, an increasing portion of customers come from Tier II and Tier III towns. This can be attributed to increased air connectivity by low-cost carriers from Tier II and Tier III towns such as Pune, Vishakhapatnam, Jaipur, Varanasi, Coimbatore, Trichy to destinations in Southeast Asia and Gulf countries. Ganapathy says, “Currently, the north and west put together combined is about 65% of our revenues, south is 30%. From a metro to non-metro perspective, it is about 75:25 but the 25% is pocket led demand and with more direct flights coming in, we see this number even going to as high as 35% to 40%. We see more demand for long-haul travel from metros and short-haul travel demand from Tier II and Tier III towns.