Travelers from the US who are on international travel don’t have to worry in case of an emergency situation like losing the passport. www.stolenpassports.com ensures that they get you a replacement passport in case of lost or stolen passports. The importance of protecting an individual from identity theft has never been greater than it is today. Recent data released by the U.S. government shows that identity theft is the leading white-collar crime, with billions of dollars in fraudulent transactions taking place each year.

Losing passport is a clear case of pressing the panic button, but nowadays there are quite a few travel services companies providing “panic-assistance”. A lot of these panic situation services are becoming online. For instance, in India, OneAssist provides panic resolution services to travelers, one of their service (known as TripAssist) helps travelers in not only getting a replacement for lost passports, but also offer many other travel services – in case of stolen wallet they block all your cards, book you a return ticket and even pay your hotel bills, offer you cash in case you need,, offer services to store all your travel documents. Clearly, competition is high in this market too.

There are three stages in a customer’s travel: Pre-trip, During trip and Post trip. The pre-trip space is extremely crowded with numerous travel product/services companies. During trip and Post trip service companies are mushrooming around. Above mentioned StolenPassports.com, OneAssist.in falls under the “during trip” umbrella.

A lot of these services are country specific and slowly marching towards the automation phase. A global service with end to end process automation is something to be dreamed of.

Lets say a traveler named Jackie is from Japan and he is on an international trip to Germany. On the last day of his trip, Jackie loses his wallet. Jackie opens the mobile app of ABC Travel Services company in his iPhone and logs in with his customer credentials, selects the complaint as “Lost Wallet” and enters his hotel stay as “Hotel Holiday Inn” and submits the request. The app recognizes where Jackie is currently located based on the GPS in his iPhone and triggers a workflow to ABC Travel Services company to send a car to Jackie’s location to reach the airport. Also ABC Travel Services settles Jackie’s hotel bills electronically and ensures a smooth checkout. Jackie doesn’t pay for car service and hotel stay while in Germany, he settles the bill later when he reaches Japan.

Wouldn’t you be happy if things work as smooth as a baby’s skin?

Travel Startup aspirants, something cooking? Smelling something?

Picture credit: mdjunction.com
Author: Karthick Prabu