Traveling is one of the most remarkable ways to increase personal growth, experience new things, discover new cultures, and make new friends. Traveling allows you to do things differently from your regular routine and allows you to step out of your comfort zone to a whole new environment. It makes you more responsible and evokes a sense of independence.
Thrillophilia is a Bangalore-based startup and India’s biggest online platform to book and discover new travel experiences. Approximately 3.5 million people use Thrillophilia every single month. The company has more than 12,500 activities listed across 125 destinations and 5,000 suppliers. The aim of this company is to provide a more experiential, safe, and affordable traveling experience that includes various activities, excursions, and getaways to make travel more fun. Thrillophilia simplifies activity-travel for every customer by providing organized activity options while planning different unique local experiences while traveling.
What Is Thrillophilia?
Thrillophilia is a Bangalore-based startup in the adventure travel space. Their focus is on finding experiences and activities to do in India, enabling adventure lovers to go beyond their hotel rooms and explore what the beautiful region has to offer by making their itineraries as exciting as walking tours in the old city of Mysore or kayaking in Goa.
How Did It All Start?
Abhishek and Chitra, co-founders of Thrillophilia, have always been passionate about traveling. They would often travel together in and around Karnataka, but they always faced trouble finding the right vendor while planning their getaways.
It all started as a simple blog post back in 2009 when Thrillophilia focused on providing content related to traveling and on ‘what to do’ based on their own recommendations and experiences. Later, in 2010, when there was sufficient content and traction on the blog, they slowly evolved Thrillophilia continued it as a side project with a small team that consisted of a sales force. The initial grip and focus came from corporates and huge brands that were regularly searching for new experiences for their team-building efforts, and Thrillophilia seemed to fit in perfectly with what it had to offer.
In India, the trend of going on vacations has been undergoing a major change in the past years. These days’ people are always ready to explore the adventurous side of the holidays by renting out a place or a resort for camping alongside the hills or the riverside. The change in the nature of traveling expectations prompted Thrillophilia to provide its list of the top camping sites in India, such as the popular valleys of Ladakh and camps in Verdant valleys.
In 2011, Abhishek mentioned during an interview that all of the efforts till this point had been self-financed. However, they also raised funding through an NRI angel investor to help the company grow.
Planning the Best Getaways
Thrillophilia has been known for organizing getaways for corporates and team outings and has frequently provided a list of the best places that India has to offer when it comes to adventure travel. Abhishek mentioned that most organizations these days are focused on providing offbeat experiences to their employees to give them a break from their stressed routines.
Thrillophilia claims that every trip is essential to them as they ease the booking process for their customers and go way beyond that. Their team hand curates the activity providers and local suppliers and works in close proximity to ensure that every customer receives a memorable and delightful experience.
The company has more than 7,500 customer reviews since they prefer complete transparency for every user. The main focus is to showcase the beauty of India and visualize how incredible the world is. In India, Thrillophilia has been ranked as the sixth-best startup to work for and has shown immense growth and progress over the past few years, thanks to all the adventure seekers out there.
Where Is Thrillophilia Right Now?
Abhishek claims at least 200% every year for the startup with at least 500 experiences and 400 tours, with another 1000 coming up in the coming months. The corporate entities still dominate most of their business, but the focus is now shifting from B2B to B2C for Thrillophilia. The most popular destinations in India are Goa and Karnataka; whereas, international travelers prefer Kerala and Rajasthan more.
Recently, Thrillophilia launched a marketplace that would get various vendors under an umbrella banner to increase the product offering, which could be very valuable for the customers. In the years to come, Thrillophilia is aiming to hit the target of providing 3500 experiences and 30,000 travels with nearly 600 vendors on board. The current structure of Thrillophilia is dominated by ground-based adventure, with 12% experiences for water sports and 3% for airborne activities.
What Is Next?
The next steps for Thrillophilia include strengthening its marketplace offerings with different vendors and deploy a dedicated team to vet and match various outdoor venues to provide a more thrilling and safe experience. Other campaigns include online marketing through the use of social media platforms to increase customer base and repeat customers.
Conclusion
If you are planning your next adventure holiday, Thrillophilia is the right platform to go about it. It is a one-stop solution for exciting activities, tours, and interesting things to do in India that you may have never thought of doing before. With an aim to change the way you experience the world, Thrillophilia will shape the future of travel.
Resources
- https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/thrillophilia-adventure-tours-pvt-ltd
- https://www.thrillophilia.com/about-us
- https://www.newswire.com/thrillophilia-compiles-a-list-of/174593
