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CYBERCH@TTER
Go
On, See The World
You
must have faced it at some time or other: an urge to travel, for a must
de-stress weekend or that overdue vacation, and not much of a clue about
where to go and even less about where to stay. Papers are full of deals,
some shady, with names that spell group tours, noisy crowds, and no idea
about what the hotels look like or where you might get stranded. That's
where I've found the Internet-and I'm one among a growing crowd-so handy
to scan for airfares and hotel options. Until about a year ago, this was
mostly restricted to overseas destinations and people with globally valid
credit cards, as Indian travel sites were nascent.
Now it's
easy to just walk the mouse through a whole range of pretty nifty service
sites, from traveljini.com,
travelmartindia.com,
and myvaluetravel.com
to specialised Asian sites like asiatravel.com-this
has become a quiet rage with my friends and some colleagues because of
the seamless hotel reservations and airport transfers across Asia (a recent
two-week Thailand vacation for me went without a hitch or over-billing).
Asiatravel
primarily offers hotel deals and confirmed reservations from Dubai to
Philippines across a wide range of locations and classes; payment is direct
to hotel, sometimes with a night's room rent as security. On the other
hand, traveljini and travelmartindia flood the subscriber—there's
a free sign-on—with hotel and roundtrip airfare deals (Mumbai-Kuala
Lumpur, INR 15,700, Book It! New Year's Jam At Alibaug for Rs 1,100 per
person per night!).
The sites
are easy to navigate and are packed with online add-ons that can otherwise
be provided only by a very conscientious travel agent with a huge bunch
of brochures working 24 hours for you. Online is by far the winning proposition
for the convenience it offers to the non-corporate traveller, with an
average turnaround time of 48 hours for hotel reservations and flight
confirmations.
The problems,
though, are not just access to the Internet, but the doubts about using
even a secure line to divulge credit card details. While in the US an
estimated third of the travel business has moved online, in Asia it's
a tenth (people use it to get an idea of what's happening, not so much
to book), and in India, still negligible, about three per cent, according
to Manoj Gursharani of travelmartindia. This will gradually, but
surely, grow as Net-enabled travellers discover the benefit of online
reservations and hotels and service operators discover that to have business
partners on the Net is a sure way of drawing relatively well-heeled clients.
Perhaps add-ons like ideas2travel.com
have will help sway people. There's an airport pick-up service for
about Rs 450 in all major cities of India. If you don't have a relative,
don't know the city and don't trust the cab touts, think about it.
-Sudeep
Chakravarti
| dotWATCH |
| Aptech's
Internet service arm, TringTring (tringtring.com), is eyeing up to
Rs 25 crore in the first-round VC funding. |
| Denmark
could be among the first Scandinavian countries to look for IT professionals;
the government has started discussions with its IT companies for sourcing
Indian professionals. |
| HamaraCD.com,
the custom-CD service from RPG Enterprises, is boosting its service
to the US. Currently, IT has 11,000 tracks on its server for Indian
buyers, available for custom burning for Rs 360 or so. Digital downloads
are next. |
| Intel
Capital, the investment arm of the chip manufacturing major, has put
in funds into parasmoney.com, a personal finance management firm.
Intel had earlier announced IT would invest $100 million (Rs 460 crore)
in Indian companies over 2000-2001. |
| The
Father of the Nation just got a break. TIE, Silicon Valley hotshot
Kanwal Rekhi's outfit, and four associates pooled in $1 million (Rs
4.6 crore) to keep the "official" website of Mohandas Gandhi,
managed by his grandson Tushar. To see what it's like, try mahatma.org.in. |
| There's
downsizing or downsizing-related exodus at these places: India and
NRI-specific portal chaitime.com, go4i.com from The Hindustan Times,
thinkindia.com (the Indian-American portal bought by Rediff), online
store jaldi.com and brandquiver.com, co-promoted by adman Suhel Seth
and recently bought into by Indiatimes. |
(Please send your comments to Sudeep Chakravarti at sudeep@intoday.com)
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Enron
symbolises everything that's wrong with the way reforms were handled by
M/s Rao & Manmohan, says INDIA TODAY Associate Editor