Sonu Sood launches India’s first rural B2B travel tech platform

‘Travel Union’ to digitally empower and build travel agent business community in rural India

Hyderabad: Travel Union, India’s first rural B2B travel tech platform and a Sonu Sood initiative, has been launched to democratise travel services by providing a platform to Travel Union members (travel agents) to cater to the travel needs of rural customers across India.

At the rural level, the travel sector has been largely unorganised with no player focusing on the needs of Indians in tier 2 towns and villages. Travel Union addresses multiple unfulfilled needs of rural travel agents, small business owners and enterprises, the primary one being the absence of travel-tech platforms designed for rural travel at the core.

The platform aggregates all available price options for a particular offering and shows Travel Union Members the lowest prices they can offer their customers. It also allows for online cancellations and refunds, eliminating the long wait customers usually have to endure.

Members can earn high margins due to direct booking options available with multiple travel service partners. Travel Union provides inventory, competitive prices, and technology directly from airlines, railways, hotels, trips, wholesalers and aggregators.

The platform will give access to all trains operating in India through IRCTC, over 500 domestic & international flights, more than 10,000 bus operators and over 10 lakh hotels to its members and consumers.

The onboarding of Travel Union Members will require zero investment from them and there is no recurring cost post onboarding either, lowering the barrier of entry. Also, it offers the lowest IRCTC agent ID purchase cost. Moreover, this cost gets refunded over a period of time upon successful transactions making this ID free.

On occasion of the launch, Sonu Sood, said, “During the lockdowns, I had first-hand experience of the challenges that rural Indians face when it comes to travel as well as the struggles of small business owners. The lack of tailored offerings catering to the needs of Bharat and addressing digital needs of rural citizens stayed with me. In fact, currently rural consumers have no option to pre-plan their travel and have to run to multiple operators for different kinds of travel needs.”

He added, “I envisioned Travel Union so that we can remove all barriers to travel and give an entrepreneurial opportunity to anyone in the nation who wants to start a career in the travel industry.”

Travel Union is presently available in English and Hindi. It is soon-to-be launched in 11 more Indian languages. The platform will also showcase domestic and international holiday packages, visa services, forex services as well as travel/ luggage accessories.

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