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Tripian is a B2B SaaS provider that creates ‘in destination’ travel itineraries. Tripian enables travel companies to offer a hyper personalised and detailed trip-planning experience to their users, by combining user stipulated and machine-learnt behavioural preferences. The user is presented with a uniquely personalised itinerary; honing in on preferences such as restaurant type, dietary needs and sightseeing interests, as opposed to suggesting what simply ranks highest on Google.
We spoke with CEO and founder of Tripian, Jeff Kischuk, to understandhow the TravelTime API has contributed to Tripian’s tech ecosystem.
A powerful tool for delivering ‘smart’ tourism
Tripian’s mission is to enable the travel industry to provide safe, sustainable, and super-smart recommendations to travelers and tourists.
“Beyond the destination basics, such as flights and accommodation - a typical traveler spends between 40 and 60 hours planning an itinerary for their trip; researching restaurants, museums, galleries, tourist destinations etc. Tripian can conclude and suggest an itinerary for the user in a matter of seconds” Jeff explains. “The benefit for the travel company is a hyper-relevant and joined-up customer experience. While the traveler benefits from a truly personalised agenda for their trip, based on their own uniquely intricate needs and preferences. It’s not driven by what appears first in Google search, paid ads or lists on popular travel sites. We want the end user to feel like a local wherever they go.”
One example being hotels, many of which want to enhance their guest’s experience by offering bespoke and highly personal suggestions on exploring and enjoying the local area. Tripian’s platform makes this possible by providing them with a digital concierge.
Save Developer Time & Resource
Obviously, when recommending an itinerary, travel time from one location to the next is a critical factor. We developed our own travel time calculation feature, but we were restricted to walking and driving time within that. This was a challenge that we needed to overcome. When on holiday, people’s travel needs are more multi-modal, switching car travel for public transport.” said Jeff. “We wanted a more sophisticated, variable and realistic solution.
Jeff explained that many companies will waste time, resource and money attempting to replicate a function or service that’s readily available. He highlighted Tripian’s need for a versatile travel time calculation.
Speedy Deployment
“We knew our travel time calculations weren’t as good as we wanted them to be. TravelTime stood out to me. First and foremost, their API seemed to perfectly solve the problem we were trying to fix. But secondly, and rather critically, the speed of their API was evidently capable of handling the real-time user demands. When a hungry traveler is standing on the street, looking for a family-friendly vegan restaurant within a 5 minute walk, that information needs to be available instantly.”
Jeff explained that performance and speed was essential in choosing a travel time calculation API. Furthermore, the integration took just a few weeks to deploy. These efficiencies created space in Tripian’s development roadmap, meaning developers could focus on other business critical tasks.
“My team at Tripian spoke very highly of the TravelTime team. Complimenting their processes, efficiencies and documentation. I feel this speaks volumes” said Jeff.
Using the TravelTime API for route optimisation
One of Tripian’s clients is in the cruise industry. For cruise passengers, optimising time is essential when exploring while on-land, often within a limited time frame. Research has shown that one of the biggest anxiety-drivers amongst cruise ship passengers is a fear of missing their sailing. The ship will be scheduled to leave port at a specific time. Passengers might place a limit on the things they see and do, through fear of not making it back to port in time. Poor or misinformed itinerary planning could have a devastating outcome.
Tripian developed an app for cruise ship passengers; called Cruise Genie. Within the app, users are able to plan-out their itinerary with time restraints considered. The TravelTime calculation applies realistic journey times between attractions. The app also includes a ‘return to port’ feature, which uses real-time location data to present the user with journey options for returning to port from their exact location.
Overall, Cruise Genie optimises routes and schedules alongside the user’s sightseeing hit-list.