The return trip was extremely eventful to say the least.

Carrying a WL (wait list) ticket, reached the station early! Having been ordered to carry a lot a of stuff back…..had two large bags along. Negotiating with the coolie was smooth (probably because I agreed to his demands).

Went to the center to check on the ticket confirmation, since the lists were not visible anywhere. Pushing through the crowd, managed to ask, nay shout my query in gujarati, promptly came the reply in English (think this is the NRI hangover), handed over the printout & was informed C1- 64.

With coolie, bags in tow walked to the end of the station. The train pulled in right on time….and our man rushed in with the two bags. A thought at the back of my mind resurged, so looked for the list on the door, but of course there was none! The pantry attendants cheerfully told me that the lists were on the other side, since at Ahmadabad the platform was on the other side….No matter that at Baroda & all subsequent stations it was a different side. Read the rest of this entry »

With time hanging on & the wife wanting some time without interference for Divali cleaning, shopping pushed me into visiting Baroda (Nay I refuse to call it Vadodara & there is no MNS there).Since I was travelling alone, decided to travel by train after a long time (7 years). Booking thru the irctc site was easy & with a confirmed ticket was all set!Reached Borivali station on a Saturday afternoon, the crowd waiting for local as well as upcountry was spilling all over.The train came in just 10 minutes late & got in. Even before I could put my bag in the rack & identify the seat, a NRI said, please sit on the other side so that I & my wife can sit together. Mind you this was not a request tone, but wearing a shorts, university T shirt & keds, with pouch hanging screaming (NRI/NRE whatever) gave him the right. Having booked my ticket, specifying a window seat, since the aisle always ensures you get banged into every couple of minutes, I respectfully declined. Immediately the NRI started speaking to his wife in Marathi (whilst I am not a complete marathi manoos, can definitely understand & make myself understood:)) “India will never change”; we should have flown; there are no manners, so on & forth. Finally in disgust, a gentleman commented that you should have flown & if you have a litany of complaints, why have you come back to India!!! Bravo….. Quiet went the couple…. Read the rest of this entry »

Decided on spur of the moment to visit Ambaji close on the gujarat & rajasthan border, a place that we normally visit twice a year, but had not visited since last september.

With vacations coming to an end so tickets being a problem & having travelled by road once earlier from mumbai, decided to drive down the 800 kms one way with a break at Baroda to meet up with old friends. Read the rest of this entry »

Reading about web 2.0 and how it has pushed online travel with funding available so on and so forth, it makes one start wondering on some points such as:

There is a phenomenal growth potential & people have embraced online bookings that have grown by more than 100% etc. Read the rest of this entry »

A writeup about innovative thinking in 2001 after taking on the traveljini challenge…

Writeup on Traveljini

Some Press writeup during the Traveljini.com days.

Estrategy - What does it mean?

It means the basic function that works to persuade customers to behave in a way that improves a product performance.

It is the Business seen from the viewpoint of its final result (from the customer perspective). It means the use of electronic & associated technologies to enable, improve, enhance, transform or invent a business process to create superior value for customers.

Estrategy - How is this done?

This shall be done by building permissible marketing communities that are segment based on needs and wants of specific group of consumers, so that specialized products and services can be developed and promoted to satisfy their needs.

Estrategy - What does it involve?

An integrated marketing approach involving use of direct marketing; CRM activities, alliances, adjacencies and innovative distribution channels.  Constant innovation, product superiority and superior user experience.

Finally, leading to complete Monetization of the Site

At Traveljini this is now divided into the following:

a) CRM Activities

- Registered User Base

- Loyalty Program

b) Alliances

- Site

- Brand

- Service

c) Advertising

- Site

- Newsletters

- Other adjacencies

Three Executives would work on Alliances. This basically covers our initiatives of offering our products and services to closed user groups. This covers a broad spectrum, such as clubs, retail outlets etc. However leveraging our technological strength we identified the following closed user groups.

i) Telephony - to cover GSM; WLL operators

ii) Intranets. All large (more than 100 employees) multi locale have this facility where information, offers, benefits are communicated to their employees.

iii) Financial Institutions

We already populate the travel channels and provide services to Reliance; Spice telecom and are on the intranets of HSBC; NIIT; ICICI Prudential to name a few.

These initiative started some months back has lost steam and we need to get this back on scientifically and make it systems driven and more proactive.

The following needs shall also be covered:

1 Analysis of existing intranets in terms of since when, how frequently changes were done, what worked, what did not etc.

2 Action Plan on complete revamp and revival

3 Data Collation of 500+ companies - proposal; enquiry; initiate; close where possible

A large gathering of Hotel People were gathered to flag off the New distribution Model of Resnet.

One of the oldest aggregators in business, which was bought by Traveljini.com & sold to Kuoni Group in India.