Imagine a world where planning your dream holiday is not just hassle-free but also personalized to your preferences.
Welcome to the digital age of travel, where online holiday marketplaces like TravelTriangle are transforming the way, we explore the world.
In a fast-paced world, convenience and customization are key, and the online travel marketplace is booming to cater to these demands. According to Spherical insights, the global online travel market size was valued at USD 354.2 billion in 2021. At a CAGR of 14.8%, the market is expected to rise to USD 1,835.6 billion in 2030.
With such rapid growth, it’s essential to dive deeper into success stories that showcase how platforms like TravelTriangle are revolutionizing the travel industry.
Through this compelling case analysis, I will explore how TravelTriangle has emerged as a game-changer in the online holiday marketplace. I’ll uncover how their innovative approach to travel planning has not only simplified the process but also enhanced the overall travel experience.
I will elaborate on the marketing and digital strategy of TravelTriangle– India’s leading online holiday marketplace.
Today, marketing is the lifeblood of every business, and a company can only survive with a successful marketing plan. In the digital age, when everything is moving online, digital marketing is an integral part of every business.
The objective of this case analysis is to assist you in gaining insights into TravelTriangle from bridging the gap between travelers and travel agencies in 2011 to becoming a well-known online holiday marketplace in India.
Let’s decode the Marketing strategy of TravelTriangle!
How TravelTriangle Started Its Journey
TravelTriangle started when the CEOs Sanchit Garg, Prabhat Gupta, and Sankalp Agarwal decided to take a trip to Leh in the summer of 2010.
They had a wonderful experience and were thrilled with their trip. They talked to several travel agents, but ultimately, they realised they had been duped. For the three computer science students, the trip ended up being a turning point.
Science and invention have always captivated them, and they have a strong desire to share these things with the world. They decided to tap into the issue and make something that would lead to people making out good memories back after traveling from their favourite places.
Although various individuals advised them against entering a brand-new business due to the recession and other factors, their love and passion for innovation kept them on their toes and allowed them to develop the TravelTriangle brand.
TravelTriangle was India’s first online travel marketplace, launched in 2011, connecting customers with local, knowledgeable travel agents who are already trusted by other customers. TravelTriangle focuses mainly on customising packages as per traveler needs with transparent and open pricing and controlling fulfilment, giving over an exceptional customer experience for the traveler.
TravelTriangle was created by Holiday Triangle Travel Pvt. Ltd. founded in 2011 with the seed of one great idea—to empower travelers—by Sankalp Agarwal, Prabhat Gupta, and Sanchit Garg. TravelTriangle, founded by Noida residents, has established itself as a leader in creating vacation packages for tourists from around the world.
With the assistance of more than 650 local travel specialists, TravelTriangle is one of the leading online travel markets. Over a million tourists who were on domestic (India) and foreign tours were able to get their needs met by TravelTriangle.
The mission of TravelTriangle is to create a holistic travel ecosystem with the sole purpose of increasing the traveler experience. They are more than simply a straightforward travel agency.
Funding Rounds of TravelTriangle
TravelTriangle has secured a total of $47.9 million in funding via 7 investment rounds.
They raised a huge $13 million by Fundamentum, KB Global Platform Fund, in the most recent investment round, which took place on November 18, 2019.
RB Investments, SAIF Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners are some of the additional investors who took part in the round.
There are ten lead investors in the company.
| Date | Series | Investor | Amount |
| Jun 1, 2012 | Angel Round | – | $200K |
| Jul 17, 2014 | A | Elevation Capital | $1.7M |
| Apr 29, 2015 | B | Bessemer Venture Partners | $8M |
| Feb 7, 2017 | B | RB Investments Pte. Ltd. | $10M |
| Apr 10, 2018 | C | Fundamentum | $12M |
| Oct 17, 2018 | Debt Financing | InnoVen Capital | $3M |
| Nov 18, 2019 | D | Fundamentum, KB Global Platform Fund | $13M |
Business And Revenue Model of TravelTriangle
The business succeeds in living up to the demands of customers. It keeps the quality. Additionally, it makes sure the buyer is getting the greatest deal.
TravelTriangle has created a SaaS-based CRM platform by selecting this company as its travel agency. Analysing client interactions and data is done in this manner.
The objective is to establish successful commercial relationships with clients. Through technological innovation, problems are always solved. It provides a range of quotations from reputable travel brokers.
Travellers as a result make their own plans, and the company makes sure they get the greatest deal.
The business has a pretty straightforward revenue model. Always, 5-8% of the travel is taken. In some regions, it can reach 10% at times. The business is effective with cash. It has no fulfilment expenses because it is not a sort of fulfilment business.
They simply incur marketing expenses. Many payments typically arrive at the business before being distributed to the suppliers. Thus, a network effect develops. These initiatives aid the business in growing at extremely low burn rates by retaining vendors on the platform.
Business Plan of TravelTriangle
The company has entered a phase of expansion as of the year 2018. The market presents a huge opportunity for the company.
Vacations abroad are a sizable market now and are anticipated to expand further by 2025.
The company is making significant investments in its products, technology, and brand development. The business opened its new location in Gurgaon’s Udyog Vihar as part of its expansion.
After learning about the company story, let’s get understand the reasons behind TravelTraingle growth by analysing its business strategy first.
Let’s start by exploring its STP analysis.
Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning
The platform considered two approaches to address the issues facing both suppliers and consumers.
For the former, it developed a SaaS-based CRM platform to assist them in managing and analysing client interactions and data with the aim of enhancing company ties with customers, assisting in customer retention, and fostering sales development.
They created an online marketplace for the latter that helps tourists plan their schedule, offers numerous quotations from trusted travel agencies, and guarantees they get the best rate.
The audience of traveltriangle.com is made up of 43.3% female and 56.7% male. The largest age group (31%) of tourists is between the ages of 25 and 34.
Key information about the browsing preferences of visitors to traveltriangle.com is revealed by audience interests. India and Travel and Tourism > Other Travel and Tourism are interests of TravelTriangle’s audience.
In its most basic form, TravelTriangle is a marketplace for travel, where customers may look for deals on trips to certain locations. TravelTriangle partners with local operators and industry experts to offer travelers exclusive packages through its presence across all of India and its operators in a number of other nations.
The brand primarily targets two industrial segments:
- those who provide services, and
- those who are in need of services.
All those who want to travel and those who offer travel-related services make up the target population.
the complete vacation package, which often includes transportation, lodging, meals, and hotels, as well as an itinerary and personal support. TravelTriangle also offers many pre-made and personalised packages for the following:
- Honeymoon Packages
- Family Packages
- Holiday Packages
- Holiday Deals
- Luxury Holidays
The company’s main objective is to double its market share. It plans to invest in technology, particularly machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data analytics. It also focuses on consumer technology businesses. Additionally, they intend to strengthen and extend their international operation.
According to Sankalp Agarwal, around 15 million Indians pack off for holiday, less than 1.5 percent of the population. In China, it is eight percent of the population. In the US, it goes as high as thirty percent.
“Though the Indian market is small, it has a large potential. With time, as the purchasing power of people is increasing, so is the travel market. We aim to tap the larger market as it grows in the future and hit the target of $ 100 million in revenue,” says Sankalp Agarwal.
SWOT Analysis
| STRENGTH | WEEKNESS | OPPORTUNITY | THREATS |
| – Experienced and knowledgeable team with CS graduates from IITs in India – Solid experience in building an e-commerce platform – Expert advisor with scaling expertise | – Experienced and knowledgeable team with CS graduates from IITs in India – Solid experience in building e-commerce platform – Expert advisor with scaling expertise | – Untapped and unstructured travel market in India and SE Asia – Solving issues of opaque prices, trust, and customizations – Growing Indian travel industry with high internet and online payment penetration | – Intense competition in the travel industry online – Difficulty in customer acquisition – Relying on social media and word of mouth for customer acquisition |
Digital Strategy – TravelTriangle’s Blueprint for Growth
Nowadays digital marketing strategy plays an integral part in any business’s growth and in achieving its objectives.
TravelTriangle has embarked on an exciting journey towards sustainable growth with its Digital Strategy.
This blueprint is more than a roadmap; it’s a visionary guide that reveals how TravelTriangle plans to harness the power of digital innovation to propel itself to new heights in the travel industry.
Utilizing YouTube for Video Marketing
TravelTringle uses YouTube for its Video Marketing campaign till 2020.
TravelTriangle’s YouTube Presence:
- No. of Videos – 187
- Subscribers – 15K
- The last video posted – Aug 05, 2020
Approach: TravelTriangle’s video marketing is all about captivating storytelling. They offer a variety of content, from destination guides to user testimonials, creating an emotional connection with viewers.
| Video | Topic Title | Type | Views | Posted |
| 1 | 44 Best Tourist Places In Kerala In 2020 | P2V | 725K | Dec-19 |
| 2 | TT Happy Honeymooner’s Testimonials | Testimonial | 556K | Mar-19 |
| 3 | 15 Top Historical monuments of India – TravelTriangle | P2V | 251K | Sep-19 |
| 4 | 18 Best Things To Buy In Dubai | Shopping In Dubai | T2D | 114K | Jul-20 |
| 5 | Hari Har Dubai Honeymoon | Romantic Arabian Nights | TT Travel Tales | Testimonial | 100K | Feb-19 |
Targeting: They hit the bullseye by focusing on travel enthusiasts, holiday seekers, and the younger audience segment. TravelTriangle’s videos often feature a youthful and adventurous tone, which resonates well with the younger demographic seeking experiential travel.
In this captivating video, TravelTriangle establishes itself as the ultimate destination for crafting your dream romantic getaway, making it irresistible to young couples seeking the perfect romantic escape or honeymoon experience.
Results: TravelTriangle’s video marketing strategy boosted brand recognition, engagement, and customer trust. It’s driving more referral traffic and generating leads, making their marketing budget work perfectly.
In a nutshell, TravelTriangle’s video strategy takes potential customers on a journey, and plays a pivotal role on the path to marketing success!
Harnessing the Power of Search Engine Optimization
Every company wants to increase its visibility online, and SEO is a method that helps you achieve it.
According to SEO analysis, keywords under 500 are bad, over 1000 are considered good, and over 10,000 are excellent.
TravelTriangle has a remarkable SEO strategy with 774K organic keywords. Because of this amazing strategy, they can attract a high organic monthly traffic rate i.e., 8.9M+ (June 2023) which is great for any company.
TravelTriangle is now getting around 8 million organic organic traffic per month with more than 47 thousand backlinks.
Here is the organic traffic and keywords growth graph of TravelTriangle since January 2016.
Approach and Targeting
Now, you might wonder how TravelTriangle achieved this remarkable success by only harnessing the power of SEO.
Well, let’s give you a brief overview of their SEO strategy.
As I have been fortunate enough to work for them to manage their SEO strategy and implement them, I will give you an approach overview that I followed to create a successful SEO strategy that yields even greater results than before.
The worldwide travel sector has been greatly impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak. The 2020 and 2021 travel seasons were severely damaged, resulting in a drop in revenue and website traffic for several travel businesses. TravelTriangle was not an exception.
Yet, as the world recovers from the pandemic, businesses are seeking methods to rebuild and restore lost momentum. The CEO, Mr. Sankalp Agarwal, explicitly stated in the first business brief that the firm had witnessed a major loss in income and website traffic due to Covid-19, and his vision for the future – the first several goals were to improve website traffic and leads through organic traffic.
Travel Triangle which typically receives around 6 million website visits each year has dropped to 4 million dramatically due to the pandemic and struggling to recover its traffic and leads post-pandemic.
The company has decided to focus on increasing website traffic by creating content in different regional languages and revamping its SEO strategy.
We felt that increasing website traffic would result in higher market share and brand recognition, leading to a rise in leads and revenue. To achieve this aim of increasing website traffic, I decided to focus on two main strategies.
The first strategy is to strengthen the SEO foundation. Travel Triangle was already optimizing its website for search engines through the use of relevant keywords, the creation of quality content, and the establishment of backlinks.
In addition, a strategy was developed and followed to improve the website`s loading speed, mobile responsiveness, and user experience, which was lacking.
The second option is to generate material in regional and international languages other than English, such as Hindi, French, and German respectively, in order to attract specific regional and international audiences.
Information that is pertinent to each location’s culture, customs, and preferences is what the company aims to deliver. By creating regional content, the company hopes to increase its market share and brand recognition in India.
The following efforts were also prioritized:
- Create content around the needs-based searches performed by their new target audiences and deal with changes in search terms post-pandemic like solo travel, nearby trips within certain distances, ecotourism, weekend gateways, places to visit, etc.
- Researched and identified 100+ keyword clusters (mostly long-tails) and opportunities and created optimized blog pages around these keyword clusters in 10 months.
- Optimize and update meta titles, tags, and headings
- Optimize information architecture, content structure, and format
- Content refurbishing – Update current site copy both in the product part and blogs to include additional keyword variations
- Guest Postings in relevant sites, Web 2.0, Q&A submission in Quora to increase quality backlinks and domain authority
- Using an automated dashboard for daily reporting to track the daily performances (also the fluctuations) in terms of leads and web traffic which helps to understand the trends.
- Eliminate technical SEO roadblocks while improving website performance and improving core web vitals metrics for mobile as well as desktop.
Results:
This well-crafted SEO strategy yields some outstanding results for TravelTriangle, such as:
Domain Authority Improvement: The increase in domain authority from 63 to 80 in a year is a remarkable achievement. This indicates Travel Triangle’s improved website credibility and ranking potential.
Keyword Rankings: Ranking over 41,000 keywords in the top 3 positions on Google is an exceptional feat. It showed a 69% growth in keywords position in the top 3 places within 1.5 years (February 2022-June 2023).
It means that Travel Triangle is dominating search engine results for a wide range of relevant keywords, driving more organic traffic.
Traffic Growth: The 57% increase in organic traffic in just four months from February 2022 to June 2022, and the previous 6 months (September 2021 – February 2022) Vs. The current 6 months (March 2022 – August 2022) traffic showing a 37% increase (from 25 million traffic to 34 million traffic) are impressive results.
From 1st March 2022 to 28th February 2023 the website generated overall 65 million visitors (91 million sessions) out of which 90% are from organic traffic, about a 58% increase from the previous year’s number.
This shows that the SEO efforts of TravelTriangle successfully attracted more visitors to their website.
Lead Generation: Generating 1.57 million leads in just one year through organic traffic demonstrates that the SEO strategy not only brought in more visitors but also converted them into potential customers.
In conclusion, TravelTriangle’s approach of focusing on content quality, keyword optimization, and building domain authority has yielded significant results in the competitive travel industry.
Continuing to refine and expand upon this successful strategy will likely lead to further growth and success.
Using Content at Scale
SEO and content go hand in hand. Throughout the years TravelTriangle has created useful travel content for their readers.
These contents are posted as blogs, through packages or product pages for various national and international destinations on their website, and also on various social media platforms.
The majority of their organic traffic comes from their blogs, and the number is currently more than 20,500. More than 51% of keywords are informational by intent, indicating their main objective is to help people to resolve their travel-related queries and doubts through content.
TravelTriangle is transparent to the whole world and they regularly post meaningful travel content to solve users’ travel queries, inspiring them to travel to beautiful destinations around the globe.
TravelTriangle utilises its content marketing strategy to the fullest to gain better brand equity through the content at –
- top of the funnel (TOFU): blog posts, social media updates, photographs, web pages, newsletter
- middle of the funnel (MOFU): Discounts/offers, emails, useful resources
- bottom of the funnel (BOFU): Customer stories (travelogues), events
This consistent content marketing approach become more and more effective for grabbing TravelTriangle’s audience’s interest, maintaining their engagement with the business, and reminding them that you exist.
Also, this strategy helps the company to obtain high-quality inbound leads that have a higher conversion rate.
Build Brand Awareness Through Social Media
Because it enables brands to connect with a sizable and varied audience, social media marketing is essential in travel businesses like TravelTriangle.
Social media platforms provide TravelTriangle with the opportunity to showcase their offerings, engage with potential customers, and build brand awareness.
Travel Triangle post specific sorts of media (such as photographs, videos, etc.) or discuss specific subjects related to travel (such as destination discussions and sharing, images, user-generated content (UGC), videos, etc.).
Here is the follower base of Travel Triangle’s various social media platforms:
- Instagram – 267K followers
- LinkedIn – 59K+ followers
- Facebook – 911K followers
- Twitter – 5,174 followers
- YouTube – 15K subscribers
- Pinterest – 3.8K followers
Social media is also a cost-effective way for TravelTriangle to reach a global audience and target specific demographics.
Making The Online Booking Handy Through Mobile Apps
You can get Travel Triangle in your pocket by downloading their mobile app.
Mobile applications are essential in today’s world because it helps customers to perform their task easily and comfortably from the application.
TravelTriangle has an Android app available on the Google Play store and Apple App Store for its users to curate their travel packages and connect with experts hassle-free.
This app has 4.3 ratings with more than 20K reviews and over 1 million downloads.
Mapping The Journey by Enhancing UX
The experience of travelers is of utmost importance for TravelTraingle, and to make their journey smooth they revamped their traveler dashboard to achieve a utopian stage. TravelTriangle is revolutionizing the travel industry with its innovative ‘product utopia.’ This mobile-first, personalized interface delves deep into travelers’ needs, aiming to create a seamless journey from start to finish.
The company recognizes three essential components: the Travel Agent Network, the Internal Operations Team, and Product. Since scaling the first two is limited, they’ve focused on maximizing the potential of the product by understanding travelers better.
What is Utopia’s goal? Well, it identifies a traveler’s stage, both conscious and subconscious, and eliminates mental blockers. They began by mapping the traveler’s journey and identifying pain points like communication gaps and excessive notifications.
With these insights, they crafted an ideal traveler journey, using the atomic design methodology to create dynamic, reusable UI modules. They structured the dashboard with various organism sizes for each lead stage.
They defined objectives and stories for each stage, guiding users through their journey. The result is a new dashboard that not only helps travelers find their next steps but also provides engaging destination information.
With ‘product utopia,’ TravelTriangle is poised to redefine travel, offering a more personalized and efficient experience, ensuring every trip is unforgettable.
Recommendations – Things That Are Missing Out
Post Covid-19 TravelTriangle stopped doing their paid ads campaign, as they are heavily relying on their SEO strategy. There are other important marketing aspects they could focus on to strengthen their marketing strategy in the future.
Let’s see a brief overview of them:
- Email Marketing: Implementing a robust email marketing strategy can help TravelTriangle stay engaged with its audience. They can send personalized travel recommendations, exclusive offers, and travel tips to subscribers, thereby nurturing leads and encouraging repeat bookings.
- Social Media Advertising: While TravelTriangle has a substantial social media following, it can expand its reach further by investing in paid social media advertising campaigns. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer advanced targeting options to reach specific demographics and interests.
- Influencer Marketing: Collaborating with travel influencers and bloggers can help TravelTriangle reach a broader audience. Influencers can showcase their travel packages and share their experiences, providing authentic endorsements.
- Personalization: TravelTriangle can leverage data analytics and AI to further personalize the user experience. They can provide tailored recommendations, itineraries, and offers based on individual preferences and past interactions.
- Referral Program: Implementing a referral program can incentivize satisfied customers to refer friends and family to TravelTriangle. This can lead to a cost-effective customer acquisition strategy and increase brand advocacy.
- Video Marketing Expansion: While TravelTriangle has a presence on YouTube, they could expand their video marketing efforts by creating more video content, including destination guides, virtual tours, and travel tips. Video is a powerful medium for engaging and educating potential travelers.
Let’s go on to the conclusion of TravelTriangle’s marketing plan now.
Read More: 10 Essential Digital Marketing Channels – A Complete Guide
How Different is the Marketing Strategy of TravelTriangle?
TravelTriangle has clearly demonstrated a robust marketing strategy that has contributed to its growth in the highly competitive travel industry. Let’s analyse the key components of their marketing strategy and draw some conclusions.
TravelTriangle’s marketing strategy is multifaceted and well-rounded. They have successfully leveraged technology, content marketing, and user experience enhancements to attract and retain customers.
Their strong online presence, especially in SEO and social media, has significantly contributed to their growth. Its organic follower search can be looked into as a positive client base generator and the number of followers on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook shows an impactful social media strategy. Their Android app is easy to use and offers a friendly user interface (UI).
TravelTriangle’s focus on diversification, both in terms of product offerings and market expansion, indicates a forward-looking approach.
Launched in 2011 as India’s pioneering online holiday marketplace, they connect travelers with trusted local travel agents, specializing in tailoring packages to individual travel preferences, offering transparent pricing, and ensuring a top-notch customer experience.
As they continue to invest in technology and refine their strategies, they are well-positioned to tap into the vast potential of the Indian travel market and achieve their goal of doubling their market share.
However, it’s worth noting that they also face challenges, including intense competition and the need for careful spending. Adapting to changing market dynamics and consumer preferences will be crucial for sustained success in the travel industry.
Finally, this proves that the company has an outstanding market strategy because of digital marketing with the increasing importance of digital marketing, learning about the growing field is an important step.
Frequently Asked Questions About TravelTriangle
What is TravelTriangle.com?
India’s first online holiday marketplace, TravelTriangle, was established in 2011 as a platform to assist travelers in customizing, arranging, and enjoying hassle-free vacations. TravelTriangle connects customers with vetted, reviewed, local travel professionals who have earned the trust of other customers just like them.
How does TravelTriangle function?
Based on traveler’s criteria, which are gathered through a pre-defined form of questions, travelers register a request for the trip. The information gathered is then given to local, knowledgeable travel agents, who reply by mail or call with their best estimates. As a result, a traveler can choose from several quotes from several agents.
What distinguishes TravelTriangle from other online travel portals?
A one-stop platform for holiday package planning and booking is available at TravelTriangle. What makes TravelTriangle unique is that it gives customers the ability to compare prices from several travel agencies and further tailor their vacations to suit their needs.
How are travel agents selected on TravelTriangle?
Over 650 local travel agents assist tourists in tailoring their journeys to over 65 destinations. Only the top travel agents are chosen after being put through rigorous quality checks.
What is the best way to contact TravelTriangle?
You can contact TravelTriangle by email at customercare@traveltriangle.com or by phone from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at 1800 123 5555. The headquarters of TravelTriangle is in Gurugram, Haryana, India.
What are the various payment methods available for booking a trip on TravelTriangle?
To ensure you have a wonderful booking experience, TravelTriangle offers a variety of payment methods:
– Debit/Credit Cards
– Net Banking
– NEFT Transfer
The least expensive method of payment for a traveler is often Internet Bank Transfer; for all other methods, banks and payment gateway providers impose additional fees that the consumer must pay.
