Desicow.com blog

Recently my mom was scheduled to travel to Mumbai from San Francisco on Lufthansa flight. I was looking for some companion on same flight. Someone to stop by her seat a couple of times during the flight and make sure that she is being taken care of. She doesn’t speak English, which creates a big challenge for her to get to correct gate on transit.

I tried all sorts of options to find companion:

1) Asked all friends to check if someone was traveling by same Airlines.
2) Registered with Travel companion websites like:  sulekha.com, safarsaathi.com, humrahi.net.
3) As a backup I requested wheelchair option although my mom is fit & fine.
4) Posted emails on mailing list at work place and local temple community.

Nothing worked for me.

My mom was stressed out whole month before flight since she was nervous to travel alone. I was worried too, however I kept saying to my mom that “It cools! You will be OK!”

On the day of flight we went to airport early and waited close to Check in queue. As soon as we see some Desi guy or family, we would smile, go next to them and ask “Are you guys heading for Mumbai?”

Third person we spoke to turned out to be a couple with a 3 year old kid who were there to fly Mumbai. We explained our situation and requested if they would help us by making sure that Mom gets some company. They were more than happy to help my Mom.

This couple was of big help, next day I spoke to Mom after she reached Mumbai and she told me about how helpful that couple was.

I promised myself next time when I am traveling to India, I will look around for Parents, smile and just check with them if they needed any help.

Actually we don’t charge fortune, we charge Travel company small fee of 10 cent every time a travel agent submits a quote.

What are benefits of this?

Quality of data.
we are looking for quality data. Although at this point of time I just have two travel agents on board [I am intentionally delaying more agents to come on board, I will talk about this in some other post],  but eventually we will have couple of agents from several regions in USA. These agents would be reliable people to deal with, one who gives good price for your tickets.

Works for everyone
People who are submiting Trip requests to gather quotes their contact details are only shared with Travel agents who are interested in selling that ticket.

Branding of Travel Agency
Staying active on website by submitting quotes for trip requests helps you get in touch with person who is looking to buy tickets, at the same time brings you in front of people [ and search engine, these
features are yet to come on website (Heard of SEO services charging 100s of dollars for optimizing your company website to perform better on internet? Desicow is soon going to make your life is easy in that
aspect)]

Advertisement sucks!
I am an engineer. Ask me to write a complex program, I will be more then happy to take a cup of coffee and get to work on my laptop. I love my job. Who the hell wants to call travel agents and ask them to get on board on some new website? Wait a minute I have got one easier option, let me register on google adsense and start flashing those advertisements on my website. I have done this in past and it has paid very well. However I don’t want to show advertisements this time for one important reason. The usual principle is get lot of users by attracting to your website, show them add, make users click on some of the ads, make money. So you put efforts in bringing users and then try to change their focus from your product (website) to all 1000s of ads [including ads of how to improve your sex life, loose 10 pounds and win ipod since you were luckiest 100000th visitor].  No advertisements.

This is something that happened a couple of years ago when I was fresh from India. I’m sure many of you may have had similar experiences. (Of course my tickets, paid for by my employer, were purchased from Desi Travel Agents, though it is a less known fact that travel agents get you the best of deals on air tickets).

Having recently opened an account with Bank of America, I had to go over to the bank, which was across the street to inquire about something. My office was on the outskirts of the city, so ample space available for parking, courtyard, small lakes, beautiful trees, wild birds, lawn…..

So here I was at a the edge of a road junction, admiring the lawn, the trees and the birds, the beautiful pond, and the sunny weather. Suddenly I realized that a big SUV has stopped about 20 feet away from me while I was looking the other way. The lady driving the now stationary car moved her hand suggesting that I cross the road. And for a split second I was amazed….. too amazed to understand what was happening. I swiftly took control of the situation, realizing that she assumed that I was standing there to cross, with a motion of my hand I conveyed that I’m not going to cross, and took small steps in the direction I wanted to actually go (along the road) with a smile which I hope, conveyed a THANK-YOU. The car then left…. but I couldn’t take the smile off my face.  WOW !!! I was left to myself with a big sensation of WOW. People actually wait for pedestrians to cross first, and then drive away. Though now I take it for granted that they will stop.

In the flight to USA, they showed instructions on the in-flight video display about immigration and customs formailties. For most of the visas that are applicable to ppl from India, we need to fill form I-94. Tired & half asleep I watched the details in the flight video, not understanding much. Luckily for me, there was an experienced desi gentleman next to me who helped me to fill out the form. Though, I had to make 3 attempts before getting everything right on the form.

Soon we landed at Washington D.C (it was Dulles Airport IAD, I think), stood in line for the Immigration. I was still quite groggy, and sleepy from the flight. They told me to wait behind a yellow line, till the officer calls. Other ppl got calls from their respective officers, but unfortunately for me,  I stood there waiting for the officer to call. But he wouldn’t call !!!! Now what, my tired half asleep mind panicked. I stood there for what seemed like tens of minutes. After a long time, a security guard told me loudly (I’m sure he was angry), why are you waiting, go to the counter. “Arre but”, I thought, “its written on the board to not go till you are called.”

So then, I gathered some courage and started to go to the counter, certain that i’m going to be scolded by the immigration officer for coming to the counter without him calling me. Luckily for me, there was no shouting. I think that officer didn’t want to work that day, so he just didn’t call me.

Then came the usual verification of original docs, passport, & taking the I-94. Once all that was completed, the officer stamped the I-94 form with my immigration status. Gave me the rubber stamped Customs form, to be given at the customs declaration counter. Much relieved, I was like…..  America here I come …..

I am starting a website where Travel Agents will be able to get in touch with potential customers who are shopping for air tickets to India. Of course tickets need to cheapest and should beat all other prices.

Mr. X runs a travel agency, selling tickets to India. Business is doing all good.

One fine day he comes across a website which claims to solve an important issue in same business and also claims that website will give boost to Mr X’s business.

For some reason Mr. X decides to give this website a shot, so that he is not left behind in competition. Within minutes Mr. X realizes that website does solve problem if it is able to attract users who are shopping out for Air tickets to India. He also finds that website is not free. There is a small fees involved in using website to get business out of it.

Is it wrong to ask your first few customers(Travel Agencies in my case) to pay for using website?

Almost all of my friend said ‘YES’. Everyone said - “make it FREE for first few Agencies”

I can guess some of the reason they are thinking:
1) Travel agencies will avoid using website because of fees involved.
2) no one wants to pay money to a new website.
3) You will get more travel agents on board if you make it free
4) Its always easy to start asking for fees once website gets bit old and popular.

However I have some different thoughts in my mind.

1) A business owner doesn’t care about some small amount of money, if in return, website is really helping his business. In fact he will surely avoid wasting time on some website which doesn’t help him(even if it FREE).

2) As business owner instead of spending small amount he is more concern about how he can get more out of this website, promote his business and sell more tickets.

3) Desicow.com is actually bringing a travel agent closer to potential ticket buyer; its way better then wasting money on other websites for advertisement.

Desicow.com is going to give Travel agents 100s of ticket leads over a period of time. Travel Agents will get access to these leads from all across USA.

I want these travel agencies to push me to add more tools and features to website. I want them to make me go crazy fixing any issues and get more potential ticket buyers. This kind of coomunication will only come in to picture if these travel agencies have paid for using website. They are serious about business and now they have paid to use desicow.com , so desicow.com better be a sincere website.