US' hotel tech firm Travel Tripper opens office in Hyderabad

Mumbai: American hotel technology firm Travel Tripper has entered the Indian market by setting up its second global delivery centre outside the United States in Hyderabad. The new centre will serve as a development and client service centre for the company's worldwide operations. 

The New York-headquartered firm provides web-based central reservation system for the hospitality industry. "The company's focus is to shift business from online travel agencies (OTA) - which comes at a high cost - to the direct booking site of hotels," Gautam Lulla, president of Travel Tripper told ET. 

"OTAs have been successful all over the world and in certain emerging markets like India, where the ability to generate organic traffic is difficult, the percentage or share of bookings through them is much higher. So the opportunity for us is bigger," he said. 

The Hyderabad centre is Travel Tripper's second international office, after it recently entered London to cater to European clientele. 

The launch of the centre comes close on the heels of Apple choosing Hyderabad to set up its largest technology development centre outside the US and Google announcing to set up a huge campus in the city. Recently e-commerce firm Amazon also decided to set up its second largest global delivery centre in Hyderabad. 

Travel Tripper's Hyderabad centre will be headed by Sathish Nuggu, who was formerly a partner and managing director at Accenture's India Delivery Centre, primarily in the hospitality and travel segment. Nuggu has led global client delivery projects for hotel chains such as Starwood, Marriott and Hilton. 

"We want to set up a scalable delivery engine in Hyderabad, which is home to domain talent, to support operations for global clients," Nuggu said. 

Travel Tripper plans to work with Indian hotel companies which, like their global competitors, are beefing up their digital presence to fight OTAs. The company earns a fee per transaction on the hotel's reservation system. "It's a much lower fee than what OTAs would charge for hotels," said Lulla. 

Since its inception in 2005, Travel Tripper has worked with hotel and hotel management firms such as US-based Highgate Hotels, American real estate investment trust Hersha Hospitality, Australian hotel firm Staywell and Indian chains such as The Leela, The Park Hotels and Royal Orchid. 

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.