Technology helps ‘Innowayt’

With a vision to create a platform that promotes both knowledge sharing and networking, the Thought Leadership Meet united associations, trade and technology partners to deliberate on ways to grow business.

Manas Dwivedi

Discussing ways and means to grow their travel business, the leader- ship meet brought together representatives of TAAI, TAFI, ADTOI, OTOAI and ICPB on one platform, where they discussed the current scenario of the industry, ways to tackle them and prosper. With different presentations, panel discussions and motivational talks, the meet saw in attendance more than 70 thought leaders from the industry.

Delivering the ice-breaker session, Vikas Khanduri, Co-Founder, Innowayt, talked about the current challenges faced by the industry and the way forward to not only survive but to scale by way of technology. This was followed by the keynote presentation by Aashish Gupta, CEO, FAITH, who spoke on Travel Technology, Vision 2025. Ashish Kumar, Co-chairman, FICCI Travel Technology Committee, gave some very interesting insights through his talk on digital transformation in the industry in the last decade and how the travel fraternity lost or gained opportunities.

The panel discussion themed ‘Riding the next wave of disruption in travel — Will your business be next?’ included panellists Mahendra Vakharia, President, OTOAI; PP Khanna, President, ADTOI; Ashwani Sharma, Chapter Chairman, TAFI-North; Madhu Dubey, Executive Director, ICPB; and Sankalp Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO, Travel Triangle, who put forward their views and ideas on the topic and later answered questions.

Ankush Nijhawan, Co-founder & CEO, TBO Group, gave an engaging presentation on ‘A Billion Dollar Question: 20 Years — What have we learnt and where are we headed?’ which was well received by the audience.

Later, Khanduri gave a talk on the importance of CRM and presented a grand offer by Innowayt for travel trade associations, after which Narayan Mallapur, CEO & Co-Founder, Innowayt, spoke about the thought behind Innowayt and how it can help the travel business.

Sunil Kumar, former president, TAAI, gave a motivational talk on ‘Re-engineering relevance, Sustaining level’. Prashant Pitti, CEO, EaseMyTrip, talked about – ‘Will offline and OTAs co-exist in the future?’

Anil Bhandari, Chairman, AB Smart Placement and a well- known name in the travel and hospitality industry, opened the event, while Yogesh Srivastav, Principal Director, PHD Chamber, summed it up.