Covid-19, and the subsequent halting of global movement, hit the traveltech sector in Scotland hard.

With people around the world being told to stay in their homes, travel, and tourism ground to a halt. For Edinburgh, with its rich history and annual events such as the Edinburgh International Festival, the loss of millions of yearly tourists was a huge economic hit.

Companies that are providing a unique service within the industry, such as Skyscanner and Airbnb, survived the pandemic and will undoubtedly start seeing business improve as we the travel sector returns to pre-pandemic levels.

However, we have already seen widespread disruption as millions of people book holidays en masse now that the pandemic has slowed down.

Recent news has seen passengers at Heathrow Airport suffer flight cancellations, long queues, lost baggage, and strike threats, whilst people travelling to France through the port of Dover have experienced hours of delays due to lack of staff and Brexit red tape.

To try to ease some of the stress of travelling, Janani Prabhakaran hopes to disrupt the luggage management space with her company Unbaggaged. The firm runs a network that collects, stores and transports bags for travellers.

DIGIT sat down with Prabhakaran to discuss the Scottish traveltech market, The current state of travel and tourism in Scotland and starting her company in one of the most challenging business environments in recent history.

Disrupting luggage movement

With Unbaggaged, Prabhakaran provides an on-demand luggage management network. The platform allows for a traveller to select where, when, and how many bags need to be picked up and stored. The luggage will then be delivered to the final location.

She developed the idea of Unbaggaged in 2018, but officially launched the company on May 25th, 2021, currently focusing it’s services in the Scottish capital.

Prabhakaran says: “I came up with the idea in 2018 while I was studying at the University of Strathclyde. I love travelling and had been to around 10 countries by then.”

Whilst travelling around London, and with a series of bags to look after, Prabhakaran checked out of her short-term rental and stored them at a left luggage facility. “I went to the British Museum, came back to retrieve the [my bags], and I paid around 50 to 60 pounds for four hours.

“I then took a cab to the airport because I was running late and somehow still ended up missing my flight. I spent probably around 100 pounds overall just for bags and for transportation and still ended up missing my flight.”

This negative experience made Prabhakaran consider that there must be an easier way. This is when the idea of Unbaggaged came to her.

She decided to launch her idea in Edinburgh, and initially went to targeting short term rental properties, which had no system for luggage management for user of its service – Prabhakaran saw a gap in the market.

“More than 30% of travellers face luggage difficulties overall, and when we spoke to Airbnbs, every single one of them told us ‘We don’t have luggage, we just tell them to go and store their luggage at the Edinburgh bus station lockers’, every single one of them,” she comments.

Prabhakaran continues: “We recruited almost 475 properties, along with tour operators and event venues, to be affiliated with us. All the tourists we’re seeing in these 475 properties are facing this problem, just in Edinburgh. If you go to London that puts a number at 2 million people, just staying in Airbnbs.”

The scale of the problem is highlighted in previous research from the office for national statistics. In 2019, there were 93.1 million visits overseas by UK residents whilst overseas residents made 40.9 million visits to the UK.

Scottish traveltech

Travelling can be a stressful experience; with the possibility for things to go wrong at any stage of the process, from delayed flights, to losing baggage and missing connections.

However, Prabhakaran is noticing a change in the UK traveltech scene: “The entire supply chain is covered, which is brilliant. If you take other startups and other countries, they don’t cover the entire journey. Maybe only the accommodation and the flight or train,” she says.

Prabhakaran adds: “I think one of the interesting things that I’ve found about the traveltech community is they don’t just focus on hotels or accommodation or lights, but the entire travel journey.”

She admits, however, that although the sector is strong here and despite its small size, it can learn a lot of from the traveltech sectors in other European countries.

“I do think Barcelona and Catalan itself have been around for a longer period. They’ve established themselves. That is something that Scotland could be doing,” she says.

Prabhakaran adds that major traveltech organisation Skyscanner is a great example of what Scotland is doing well: “There is a need for other companies to gain that level of recognition or put around a case in a global platform,” she says.

“That is where Scotland’s a little lacking in the establishment of themselves in a global way where Barcelona, or Portugal even, are doing a really good job.”

Prabhakaran notes that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a major shift in the way that her sector has had to function over the last two and a half years, and this has certainly been the case in Scotland.

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After officially opening her company days before the pandemic hit, rather than giving up, like some suggested, she says Unbaggaged put in the work to improve.

“It was a challenging year, but we did a lot of work on the tech side; we did integrations with taxi companies; we grew our team; we expanded our Airbnb portfolio; we made our website smooth and functional.”

Levelling up instead of closing her doors was a smart move. The Tech Nation Travel Tech Report 2021 carried out last year indicated that, despite the pandemic, traveltech investment proved resilient.

More than £1bn has been raised by traveltech companies in the last three years, while firms received more than 800 deals over the same period.

Companies also raised £358m in 2020 from 249 deals, while 50% are at the seed stage, showing a real pipeline within the sector.

Prabhakaran comments that, post pandemic, there will be challenges, but you must always be looking forward: “The principle is the same – you survive, and you deal with it, you grow resilience, and it leads to a better place.

“That’s what I’m seeing now, at least in terms of businesses that I’m seeing such as accommodations, tour operators, events like fringe venue as well. Everyone is adapting.”

A technological future

Now we are emerging from the pandemic, there is an opportunity to start recognising and changing the way that we travel, Prabhakaran believes.

It is also an opportunity to introduce technology into the mix, something that Prabhakaran is seeing more and more: “There’s a lot of interesting technologies coming in, such as IoT, data sensors etc.”

Technology has dramatically altered that way people travel, particularly over the last 10 years, and the traveltech sector has grown substantially into a multi-billion-pound industry.

In Scotland, with companies like Edinburgh-founded Skyscanner are sitting at a valuation of over £1.4bn and employing over 1500 staff according to Pitchbook data.

Additionally, traveltech company Airbnb had an IPO in 2020 with a market capital of $88bn and is Prabhakaran’s main customer.

She notes other technologies: “Even if you think about a simpler thing, like a visa. At some point we all had a physical visa when going to the airport. Now it’s an electronic visa, it’s that quick.

“These things are getting better and that’s what the pandemic did, I think, is give us an opportunity to innovate. The travel industry is very traditional. It’s very hard for people to change their minds about it [innovation],” she says.

When asked about what she sees as the future of luggage management, Prabhakaran notes it becoming a more interesting area.

“It’s a boring task if you think about it. That is my pitch. Imagine if we take the boring part of your trip away and help travellers make the most of their last day/first day in the city.

“Our long-term vision is to have the ‘add luggage storage and transportation’ button that promotes hands free travel and a ‘new way of travelling’.

“The market will become a lot more interesting. I think we will see a lot of collaboration happening between competitors. That is something that I am quite looking forward to, myself.”

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