97-98% of the people in India are budget travellers: Jitin Bhatia, Explurger

Explurger, an AI powered intuitive social media app that lets users connect and share their moments with friends and family online, was recently launched by actor, philanthropist and Co-Founder, Sonu Sood along with Jitin Bhatia, Founder & CEO. This made-in-India social media app, available on Android and iOS devices, offers a truly global experience that lets users share, connect, chat, and make new friends. Users can create an account for free and immediately start sharing photos and videos with friends and family.

In conversation with Adgully, Jitin Bhatia, Founder & CEO, Explurger, speaks about the marketing strategy, bringing on board Sonu Sood, collaborations with national and international players, and more.

Click here to attend IMAGEXX 2022

How are you planning to create awareness about the App? What is your marketing strategy for Explurger?

We are going all out on a full scale now. We are advertising initially in India with different mediums and amplifying our brand message. There hasn’t been much awareness about Explurger, because so far it has been a beta version. Though we have been growing organically, we now want to go all out, advertise and tell people about this app. Sonu Sood plays a big role in the promotions as he has got more than 50 million followers on social media itself, and quite a number of fan following even outside India. He is highly popular not only for being a Bollywood actor, but also for his philanthropic work especially during the pandemic and the lockdowns. So, I think a lot of people who love and support him and will support this App which has unique features – making both a good combination.

Do you have any plans for collaborating with State Tourism Departments for Explurger?

The social media platform is open for all – individuals, government organisations and travel partners can have their own accounts. Explurger is a platform where people connect with each other. People can come, visit places, and can actually see what are the most exclusive places around them. They can also check the ratings, what kind of stories people are sharing, watch videos about different places, and add those places to their bucket list.

Thus, it is a complete platform where we have individual user accounts, content creators and users coming on board. We have government companies and tourism boards also coming on board because this is the only social media platform for travellers. On the day of our official launch, we increased our server capacity by 10x times as it could not control handle the load of visitors coming on to the platform. We had to increase the server capacity thrice. Thus, we are getting a lot of support.

Different people have different expectations while travelling. Do you have any specific strategy to cater to particular target audiences?

An interesting fact is that 97-98 per cent of the people are budget travellers. Go to any city and you will find that only 2%-3% of the roads have 5-Star hotels, the rest are all budget hotels. Travel has got nothing to do with how much money you have in your pocket. It is all about the attitude of exploring new places. It’s the middle class that loves to travel the most and who are on the lookout for unexplored areas to visit. That’s the market that we are looking at.

Are there any plans to tie up with global players?

We have already got users from abroad and this amplification would happen. I am sure a lot of people living in India have friends and family outside India, so growth can be organic as well. However, right now the focus is to get users from India. Having said that, we already have users from 40-plus countries. We are looking at some key countries, such as Canada, the southern European countries, where we have on organic base of travellers.