Adgully Exclusive | Fueling authentic travel advice: TripAdvisor's Nikhil Ganju

Indians are changing the manner in which travel was planned, traditionally. The behaviour of simply relying blindly on tour operators and travel agents is undergoing a change and people are increasingly searching online for destination and accommodation information, creating their own itineraries and making their own bookings.

In an exclusive chat with Adgully, Nikhil Ganju, Country Manager, TripAdvisor tells us about the online travel industry, growth and much more.

Talking about the size of the industry and TripAdvisor's stand in the same, Nikhil Ganju said, "The size of the internet audience in India is currently estimated to be over 100 million. Approximately 40% of this audience is researching on travel. We have seen the Indian online travel segment grow at a staggering rate of over 80% year-on-year, from a mere $295 million in 2005 to almost $6 billion in 2010. In a little over 3 years TripAdvisor has grown close to 4 million MUU's in India and is among the top 5 travel websites in the country. We are also the leaders in the online travel planning space." Having said that, he believes that, "the headroom for growth is enormous and while the flights segment is saturated, India OTA's have only recently shifted their focus on hotel bookings."

Speaking about the edge that TripAdvisor holds over other portals in the same domain, Ganju said, "TripAdvisor is revolutionizing the way travel has been planned, fuelling authentic travel advice by millions of real travelers. It is the most popular and largest travel community in the world and the leading unbiased travel-planning resource on the web. With more than 50 million unique monthly visitors worldwide and their reviews and opinions from real travelers on more than 1 million hotels, attractions and restaurants, TripAdvisor has the largest and one of the most loyal travel communities on the web."

Elaborating further he said, "At its core, TripAdvisor is a social media site with a huge base of members sharing travel information with each other. We provide trustworthy information for millions of travelers looking for unbiased advice on hotels, restaurants, and attractions worldwide and help them plan the perfect trip. Also, TripAdvisor helps the travelers discover great, independent and boutique hotels and other accommodation options to suit their needs & pocket. There are invaluable nuggets of information for your holiday planning available on our travel forums. We have people designated as Destination Experts who are active members of our travel community and can be accessed on our travel forums, and help travelers get answers to all kinds of travel queries for any particular destination."

TripAdvisor does measurable investments in research and surveys. "Our surveys help us in highlighting upcoming travel/tourism trends as well as unravel the insights of the Indian traveler preferences and behaviour and are also often indicative of key socio-economic changes", said Ganju. Citing an example he said, "For instance, a recent survey we conducted on business travel in India surprisingly revealed that more women enjoyed traveling for work compared to men. Also more women compared to men believed that technology had reduced their work travel needs (considering men traditionally have been thought to be the more tech savvy of the genders)"

Speaking about initiatives taken to further expand the genre, Ganju highlighted that, "TripAdvisor is at the forefront of innovative travel tools like its mobile and iPad apps including the recent launch of Facebook Instant Personalization on the site. Instant Personalization provides travelers with automatic access to their Facebook friend's travel reviews and experiences. Also we plan to aggressively focus on driving more India specific content on the site to make it an increasingly rich resource for Indian travelers."

Nikhil Ganju has over 14 years of experience as a marketing professional, with most of them spent in online businesses in India. Prior to being appointed Country Manager, Nikhil has been heading TripAdvisor India's marketing efforts since the launch of operations in 2008. Before that, he was Marketing Director at Expedia India, an essential part of the very first team at baazee.com, staying with them until the site was acquired by eBay in 2004. He has also worked with Airtel, where he was marketing broadband services and Indiatimes.com, where he was heading Online Shopping. | By Ankita Tanna [ankita(at)adgully.com]