Sunday, July 1, 2007

Source: iXiGO Wednesday, June 20, 2007 01:01 PM IST (07:31 AM GMT) Editors: General: Consumer interest, Travel & tourism; Business: Advertising, PR & marketing, Information technology, Travel & tourism; Technology
Returnee Entrepreneurs Launch “travel 2.0” Search Engine for India
Gurgaon, Haryana, India, Wednesday, June 20, 2007 -- (Business Wire India)Travenues, a “travel 2.0” technology start-up based in Gurgaon announced the launch of iXiGO (www.iXiGO.com) – a travel search engine for Indian online and mobile consumers. Conceived a year ago, iXiGO is backed by a team of returnee IITian entrepreneurs and includes a German national in its founding team that has rich travel technology experience. The proliferation of airlines as well as online travel agencies in India means that increasingly, consumers have many places to book their tickets, but no guarantee of getting the best deals always at one place. Value-conscious consumers will thus need to spend even more time and effort in finding the travel deal they are looking for on multiple browser windows. iXiGO simplifies the travel search experience by looking across all possible sources of travel deals and content and provides up-do-date, real-time pricing and availability information with ticketing and fulfillment directly on the vendor’s portal. iXiGO aims to provide Indian consumers a comprehensive and unbiased platform for searching and comparing airfare information & deals from multiple airlines and online travel agencies and shall soon expand to cover hotels, activities and other travel categories. By showing tax-inclusive fares directly from the airline portals, iXiGO empowers consumers with unbiased information, and ensures that do-it-yourself consumers can book tickets with confidence, without the need for a travel agency. “Online Travel needs to evolve to the next level in India, and with the arrival of iXiGO, Indian consumers shall be freed from the pains of non-transparent pricing, slow search results and barely-usable interfaces. Travel 2.0 has arrived!” - said Aloke Bajpai, the Founder & CEO of iXiGO. An electrical engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from INSEAD, Bajpai had worked with Amadeus Europe, the world’s top travel technology company, before deciding to return to India and build the “new new thing” for the Indian market along with his Amadeus, IIT and INSEAD colleagues. When asked how iXiGO will differentiate its offering from other online travel portals, Bajpai responded - “We don’t sell tickets. We tell you where you can buy them and then give you a direct checkout on the provider’s website. We are thus driven totally by the needs of our users, and we will keep innovating in travel search technology to help travelers find the best deals online – wherever they might be”.
Source: iXiGO Wednesday, June 20, 2007 01:01 PM IST (07:31 AM GMT) Editors: General: Consumer interest, Travel & tourism; Business: Advertising, PR & marketing, Information technology, Travel & tourism; Technology
Returnee Entrepreneurs Launch “travel 2.0” Search Engine for India
Gurgaon, Haryana, India, Wednesday, June 20, 2007 -- (Business Wire India)Travenues, a “travel 2.0” technology start-up based in Gurgaon announced the launch of iXiGO (www.iXiGO.com) – a travel search engine for Indian online and mobile consumers. Conceived a year ago, iXiGO is backed by a team of returnee IITian entrepreneurs and includes a German national in its founding team that has rich travel technology experience. The proliferation of airlines as well as online travel agencies in India means that increasingly, consumers have many places to book their tickets, but no guarantee of getting the best deals always at one place. Value-conscious consumers will thus need to spend even more time and effort in finding the travel deal they are looking for on multiple browser windows. iXiGO simplifies the travel search experience by looking across all possible sources of travel deals and content and provides up-do-date, real-time pricing and availability information with ticketing and fulfillment directly on the vendor’s portal. iXiGO aims to provide Indian consumers a comprehensive and unbiased platform for searching and comparing airfare information & deals from multiple airlines and online travel agencies and shall soon expand to cover hotels, activities and other travel categories. By showing tax-inclusive fares directly from the airline portals, iXiGO empowers consumers with unbiased information, and ensures that do-it-yourself consumers can book tickets with confidence, without the need for a travel agency. “Online Travel needs to evolve to the next level in India, and with the arrival of iXiGO, Indian consumers shall be freed from the pains of non-transparent pricing, slow search results and barely-usable interfaces. Travel 2.0 has arrived!” - said Aloke Bajpai, the Founder & CEO of iXiGO. An electrical engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from INSEAD, Bajpai had worked with Amadeus Europe, the world’s top travel technology company, before deciding to return to India and build the “new new thing” for the Indian market along with his Amadeus, IIT and INSEAD colleagues. When asked how iXiGO will differentiate its offering from other online travel portals, Bajpai responded - “We don’t sell tickets. We tell you where you can buy them and then give you a direct checkout on the provider’s website. We are thus driven totally by the needs of our users, and we will keep innovating in travel search technology to help travelers find the best deals online – wherever they might be”.
Travenues launches iXiGO - a travel search engine for India
Press release from: travenues
Published date: 06-13-2007 01:29 PM - CET - IT, New Media & SoftwareVeröffentlicht auf openPR am 06-13-2007 01:29 PM - CET
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mail(openPR) - Gurgaon, India – June 12, 2007 – Travenues, a travel technology firm based in Gurgaon, India announced the launch of iXiGO (iXiGO.com) – a travel search engine for India. iXiGO will provide Indian consumers an unbiased fare search platform for searching and comparing airfare information & deals from multiple airlines and online travel agencies and shall soon expand to cover hotels, activities and other travel categories.The proliferation of airlines as well as online travel agencies in India means that increasingly, consumers have many places to book their tickets, but no guarantee of getting the best rates at any one place. Value-conscious consumers will thus need to spend even more time and effort in finding the travel deal they are looking for. iXiGO looks across all possible sources of travel deals and content and provides up-do-date, real-time pricing and availability information with ticketing and fulfillment directly on the vendor’s portal. “Our time has arrived – consumers wanted a comprehensive, easy-to-use, fast, transparent travel search, and we gave it to them” - said Aloke Bajpai, Founder & CEO of iXiGO.In addition, with its easy to use interface, and transparent price-comparison that shows all-inclusive fares, iXiGO empowers consumers with unbiased travel information. When asked how iXiGO will differentiate itself from other online travel portals, Bajpai responded - “We are a search of the traveler, by the traveler and for the traveler. We will ensure constant user-delight through our rich “travel 2.0” applications and innovative online & mobile search technologies”.
Small-scale hurdles
Bibek Debroy
Posted online: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email
Where wealth accumulates and men decay: study the quotas in a government order on small enterprises
Bibek Debroy
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Here is a quote from an office memorandum issued on May 21 by the International Cooperation Section of ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME). “Ministry of MSME and its organisations, viz SIDO, NSIC, KVIC and Coir Board have been facilitating participation of micro, small, KVI and coir units/entrepreneurs in international exhibitions under their respective schemes. Often, the ministry, SIDO, NSIC, KVIC and Coir Board participate in the same exhibition from different pavilions and there is no coordination amongst them.” So everything is going to be under an MSME umbrella, to increase synergy and spread costs. I am not convinced. By the same token, one can argue that MSME should be scrapped and all industry policies unified under a single ministry of industry. However, let’s read on. Financial assistance consists of DA (hotel charges), space rent and travel expenses. For space rent, “Up to 50 per cent of the space rent actually paid. In case of women entrepreneurs/SC & ST entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs from the North Eastern Region, up to 100 per cent.” For travel expenses, “Up to 75 per cent of the airfare by economy class or train fare, as the case may be. In case of women entrepreneurs/SC & ST entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs from the North Eastern Region, up to 100 per cent of the airfare by economy class or train fare actually paid”.