"Online travel market has come a full circle in India": QuadLabs' Gaurav Chiripal

By Ritesh Gupta

QuadLabs, a travel technology specialist, recently launched the latest version of its flagship product Xchange ERP Solution.

Xchange v10 is being described as an end-to-end platform which enables travel companies to connect with the electronic supply chain and reach out to new markets. Xchange v10 offers extensive B2C, B2B, B2B2C capability and is connected with market leading content. It is offered as a hosted service and introduces a unique pay as you go model making this cutting edge platform accessable without the high infrastructure and set up costs, according to the company.

Providing an insight into the latest development and achievements, QuadLabs Technologies Pvt. Ltd,'s CEO Gaurav Chiripal said, "It feels great to know that my enterprise customers are doing so well, you feel proud to have contributed to the story. Also, we have a strict focus on being an idea driven product company, it is very satisfying to know that in a short span our products are already powering market leaders. It was important for us to enrich our products and continue innovating, at TDS (Travel Distribution Summit India) launched Xchange v10 which is perhaps the only hosted travel ERP application in the world, that was a huge technological challenge, it feels great that my team has delivered a disruptive product to the market which has potential of shaking up the playing field."

Chiripal, who was recently in Mumbai for EyeforTravel's Travel Distribution India Conference, spoke to EyeforTravel's Ritesh Gupta about online travel segment in India, opportunities in this market and much more. Excerpts from an interview:

Considering the rapid growth of online travel segment and changing dynamics in distribution, what sort of opportunities have you witnessed for QuadLabs in India?

I have seen that online travel market has come a full circle in India , we had the skeptics who thought travel could never be sold online and then we had the cowboys who thought brick and mortal businesses would not last.

Look what has happened, the OTAs are opening up stores, they want to "touch" their customers, similarly – the non believers are not dogmatic and are looking at how technology can make their business function better. I think that where the opportunity lies for QuadLabs, we have been at the cutting edge of travel technology, we have served the biggest online travel companies, we have proven that we can deliver and that our technology works. The mid-size travel companies can gain from our improved processes and mature product offering, hence cutting both cost and time to market.

The challenge would be to offer our services at an affordable price point and to standardize the offering, that's the direction we are heading in with Xchange v10 which is based on the SaaS model where QuadLabs builds and maintains the technology platform, the travel companies can just take an account from us and get a feature rich application which 'works' instantly.

Considering the spate of launch of online travel agencies in the last year or so and the likes of Expedia set to enter, how do you assess current opportunities when it comes to offering end-to-end booking process automation system?

I am a firm believer that competition can never be bad, Expedia is coming to India and that can only be a good thing for the travel industry in India. As far as QuadLabs is concerned, our core focus is on delivering world class applications for companies who work with us. Also, there are enough opportunities in the Indian market for multiple players of all sizes to survive. Take an example, wholesalers in India have special relationships with some of their sub-agents, we want to empower these wholesalers with our technology to compete with the best online companies, that's also an opportunity.

I firmly believe that technology is the most important factor in the success of a company in the Online travel market and if your technology is world-class, you can compete with world-class companies, I don't think Yatra (a company we work with) is in any way inferior to an Expedia or Travelocity..

How do you think the needs of clients in India vary from some of the mature markets when it comes to online travel intermediaries?

One thing I can think of is that the very few clients appreciate how important technology is for the success of a venture. I often meet people think of technology as an excess and not as a necessity, that's the biggest challenge for someone like us, we need to counsel our customers to appreciate technology.

Expedia earlier this year launched ExpediaQuickConnect, an offering automates the exchange of booking information -- allowing partners to retrieve bookings and booking updates and inserts them automatically into the CRS/PMS. How do you assess such development from technology perspective?

We already have similar functionality in our system where we pick up booking information and synchronize it into the mid office system.

Could you share info on how XChange ERP as an travel management solution has progressed?

Its been a steady evolution. Being a product company, we have been able to add value to the offering consistently by way of new features, the processes get better everyday.

At TDS India, we launched a hosted edition which is a huge leap in the architecture of the platform, which has gone from being a standalone application which was installed independently for every customer on his own infrastructure to a hosted service where QuadLabs procures, manages and maintains the application on our own farm. This is especially relevant today when SaaS is taking off in every other industry. The travel industry required a service which gave companies all the features required to run a modern day online travel business, yet there are not headaches or overheads of procuring and maintaining expensive infrastructure, constant technology upgrades with required due to changing market requirements and all that. This service allows you to stay ahead of the market without the pain of building and maintaining your own techonology, its best to leave it to the experts. At the functionality front we have introduce new modules for managing packages as well as an improved B2B systems. We have new systems for Air inventory management targeting specially to the charter airlines and consolidators.

How has Desktop Connect, an agent desktop application enabling travel agents to connect to suppliers for realtime fares and availability information, shaped up? How is this offering shaping up in India?

"Desktop Connect" is primarily focused for the matured market. the idea is to provide the content to the last mile agents from suppliers and consolidators who have online and distribution system. India is still at a nascent stage and it will take us another 1-2 years to launch this product in India.

What's on your agenda as far as product developments/ technology solutions for travel industry is concerned?

I am excited about Xchange v10 in the enterprise solutions sphere, we have seen tremendous response to the service since its launch, people are genuinely excited about it. We are going to continue adding features and modules to the platform to ensure that our customers always have the market leading product. We are also working on a unique idea in the Web 2.0 space, that's another service that we are hugely excited about.