Travelstop – an AI-powered SaaS platform for business travel and automated expense reporting – has launched in seven new markets, to consolidate its presence in Asia.
The startup, which launched in September and has raised $1.2 million in seed funding in 2018 led by SeedPlus, declared its entry into Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam markets. These destinations were chosen for being hotspots for startup and SME growth, making them most in need of business travel management services.
Travelstop is leading its expansion with a mobile-first approach, following the rapid rate of mobile adoption throughout APAC. It released an iPhone app (available in seven languages) that lets business travellers and planners manage trips via smartphones, to maximise convenience. The Android version is slated for release in the next few months.
Travelstop’s primary aim is to soothe some of larger pain points that ail the business travel sector. While business travel makes up a third of the US$1 trillion global annual spend on travel, it remains a fragmented, complex and under-catered segment.
Prashant Kirtane, co-founder and CEO, Travelstop
“Existing business travel tools in Asia have not kept pace with the modern business traveller, and are generally extremely expensive and rigid for small to midsize companies,” said Prashant Kirtane (co-founder and CEO, Travelstop).
“70+% of this business travel is unmanaged travel where the companies do not really have set travel and expense policies nor do not use any preferred tools to book travel and manage expenses,” Kirtane continued.
“We want to help employers keep costs low,
by building an affordable end-to-end solution that allows them to stay in
control and provide visibility and insights around travel and expense
spending — all in a single, easy-to-use interface.”
Travelstop is free to use for a limited period, promising not to mark up prices of its travel inventory or charge booking and transaction fees. Instead, it has a straightforward SaaS pricing model for the services offered.
This grants businesses with access to the platform’s three components – “Travel, Expenses and Insights” for a single fee. Encompassed within this, are local languages and currencies, support for regional tax differences, reporting formats, and payment options. Soon, it will also be able to offer multi-lingual customer service support.
New features added since Travelstop’s initial launch are its “Book for Others” tool, which lets travel managers book trips on an employees behalf, and its customisable “Business Travel Policies” tool, which will encourage adherence to company travel policies and flag any violations automatically.
Travelstop also aims to offer business travellers personalised flight and hotel recommendations, powered by machine learning. The intent is to reduce the overall time business travellers spend when researching and booking for non-leisure trips, while still granting employees flexibility in their planning.
To offer a broader range of choices, Kirtane explained Travelstop’s plans to significantly improve its inventory, expanding beyond hotels to vacation rentals. This will then continue to enhance its machine-learning technology, which powers personalised flight and hotel recommendations for every user within a company.
In the months since its launch, Travelstop has registered almost 900 client companies onto the platform, by promising a large inventory of travel options, on top of its corporate travel management services. Some of these companies include: RedDoorz, Funding Societies, S P Jain School of Global Management, Dot Property, and Bonsey Jaden.
Ultimately, Kirtane envisions making corporate travel a simple and seamless affair. “We are reimagining what a business travel tool should look like from a consumer point of view. We’re deliberately focusing on crafting a simple and familiar user interface that helps employees every step of the way—right from trip planning until reimbursement.”
