Announces key partnerships with nine giants in the air travel industry
Sri Lanka’s largest online travel consolidator, the super app ‘Ticket Gadget’, recently celebrated two years of operations and multiple accolades, at an event attended by representatives of the local and global air travel industry. A highlight at the event was Ticket Gadget’s announcement of nine key partnerships with industry giants, a testament to the super app’s impact on the air travel industry and its success since its inception during the pandemic in 2020.
The partnerships announced were with Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Qantas, MasterCard, Oman Air, British Airways, FlyDubai, Jazeera, and FitsAir.
Ticket Gadget was also the recipient of many endorsements by the airlines and industry partners. “The Ticket Gadget team has been fantastic. They are very dynamic and it has been great working together, noted General Manager of British Airways, whilst Sanjika Perera, Country Manager, Sabre stated “It has been amazing working with Ticket Gadget as a technology partner because they are bringing out the best in technology to provide B2B solutions. They have been an innovator right throughout”.
Sajith Amarasekera, Sales Manager, Malaysia Airlines added “Ticket Gadget has made great strides – they have used technology to make a real difference and I think it’s correct to say that they have basically revolutionized the air travel industry.”
Ticket Gadget was born of the chaos that ensued in 2020, when the global travel industry hit rock bottom. The brainchild of the founders of Inqbaytor, Dr. Harshani Perera and Yashas Sumanasekara, Ticket Gadget was the duo’s way of leveraging technology to reset, reposition and thrive. Its target audience interestingly was not the end-consumers but instead, travel agents and corporate travel managers. Ticket Gadget is not limited to traditional Global Distribution System (GDS) content, but also distributes IATA NDC and direct airline inventories.
Ticket Gadget’s approach to identifying and addressing the issues faced by an audience crucial to Sri Lanka’s travel industry, during an extremely challenging time, has paid off. As observed by Shaminda Fernando, CEO of John Keells’s Airline Division of Mack Air “ Ticket Gadget’s innovation in the online space has managed to capture the market very well, both the B2B and B2C segments and due to that, they’ve been the market leader.”
Its success in alleviating the problems has seen the platform generate over LKR 1 billion in monthly sales, becoming Sri Lanka’s largest online travel consolidator and the largest revenue generator for most airlines. Ticket Gadget also became the overall largest revenue generator in the IATA Sri Lanka market in December 2022.
At the event held at the Shangri-La, Colombo, Co-Founder Dr. Harshani Perera stated “Today is not just about celebrating our achievements, it’s about celebrating the extraordinary work we have been doing to revolutionize and move the travel industry forward in Sri Lanka.”
As a start-up, Ticket Gadget also embodies the innovation and zeal Sri Lanka’s start-up ecosystem needs to have, to uplift the country’s economy – points which were highlighted by Dialog Axiata PLC Group Chief Customer Officer, and SLASSCOM Past Chairperson Sandra De Zoysa. She underscored the importance of entrepreneurs such as Dr. Harshani and Yashas to accelerate economic development, disrupt industries, and create employment, through the creation of progressive new products and services. Chalinda Abeykoon, Managing Partner of nVentures PTE LTD, and Ammar Kassim, Director of FitsAir, also featured as guest speakers at the event.
Today, the super app Ticket Gadget is the preferred option among Sri Lankan travel agents and corporates for booking air tickets, hotels, tours, and car hires more efficiently and conveniently, with zero set-up costs. It aims to help overcome common barriers to entry faced by travel agents and focuses on giving its users a seamless, easy-to-use experience, and the independence to issue tickets instantly at any given time, on their own, from anywhere, with access to the best market prices.