Made for You

Gaurav Gujral, Director - Corporate Channel

 

 

“One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.” -  Henry Miller

 

While chatting with my daughter one day, I asked her about her favourite vacation moments and was surprised to find out that more than the destination, she remembered specific moments and memories. That time, I realized that at the very heart of it, the joy of travel is in the experiences and special moments that we cherish together. 

 

Intrigued by the same thought, I asked my colleagues also the same question the next day. While one colleague shared how his son enjoyed elephant bathing on their summer break in Kerala, another one mentioned sleeping on the sand dunes of Rajasthan under the starlit sky. Though it sounded like an ‘Incredible India!’ ad at that moment, but it wasn’t. India is truly a land of innumerable experiences and every corner of our country has so much to offer. This posed another question before us—While we were making destinations accessible, could we offer more to the Indian traveller in terms of experiences?

 

I am passionate about travelling and what I enjoy the most is chasing that feeling—of thrill, of immense bonding, of slowing down and experiencing something that takes your breath away. I wanted to make every traveller feel and experience the true essence of travel. I wanted them to know that visiting a new place and truly immersing yourself in it can leave you with memories that you can treasure for a lifetime. 

 

This eventually led to the making of our MadeForYou holidays product. MadeForYou holidays was a huge undertaking and I clearly remember the countless conversations with colleagues and vendors, followed by sleepless nights wondering how we can add an experiential element to people’s holidays. It was a creative and an ambitious plan and the challenges seemed insurmountable. Could we give a family a winter experience of actually creating a snowman at the hill stations? Could we give honeymooners an experience of candid photography along with their holiday package? 

 

We believed that we could and we did. A positive mindset coupled with likeminded and action-oriented team motivated us towards continuously innovating, improving and thoroughly collecting feedback from the users and customers. All this further helped us in taking quick and appropriate actions when needed and we managed to launch the MadeForYou holidays in record time. 

 

On the day when ‘Experiences’ were uploaded to our app, we sold out within the first hour. A year later, ‘Experiences’ were added to the holiday packages, and today we can proudly say that 40K customers have tried an experience and appreciated it. Above all, what made the hard work and struggle worthwhile is knowing that many families out there are creating memories and a little boy or girl will remember that they bathed an elephant or camped under the stars, even 10 years later.