GuavaTrips.
In a travel industry fixated on scale - and now being reshaped by AI - a Pune startup is pursuing something older and harder: being loved. GuavaTrips co-founders Jaykumar Anadkat and Mangal Sain explain why every trip they sell is built around the people taking it and the occasion they are marking - a honeymoon, an anniversary, a reunion, or simply time away with loved ones - and never around a ready-made package designed to fit everyone.
Jaykumar Anadkat, co-founder of GuavaTrips, at the company's Magarpatta office in Pune. Photo: GuavaTrips
A weekday morning in Magarpatta, Pune. Jay's phone will not stop buzzing - a family holidaying in Vietnam has just sent photographs from Ha Long Bay, and he is already replying with tomorrow's plan. Across the table, Mangal is quietly refining the AI workflow that converts their experts' curated knowledge into itineraries.
Two desks, two very different careers: fifteen years of leading treks across India on one side, twenty-five years of building technology on the other. Together they run GuavaTrips, founded in 2024 with an unusual ambition - not to become India's biggest travel brand, but its most loved.
Why start a travel company in 2024, when the market already has giants?
Jay: Everyone asks us that. Frankly, it is because the giants are not solving the problem. I have spent fifteen years taking people on treks and trips - couples, families, groups of strangers who became friends by day three. In 2023, I drove 21,000 kilometres around India's entire border: seventy days of meeting travellers, sharing experiences and forming bonds everywhere I went. One thing I saw again and again is that no two travellers want the same trip. Show ten people the same waterfall and one wants sunrise photographs, one wants to swim, and one simply wants chai and silence. Travel is deeply personal. Yet the industry treats everyone identically. A honeymooning couple, a family of five, a group of college friends - all are sold the same package. Same hotel, same bus, same everything. That always felt wrong, so we built the opposite.
Mangal: For me, the timing mattered. I have built technology platforms for 25 years, and delivering real personalisation at scale in travel was always impossible arithmetic. The personal touch dies as a company grows, or it becomes something only the wealthy can afford. AI changed that arithmetic - not by replacing people, but by making real people much, much faster.
You keep saying the industry is broken. Let us test that. Many of us prefer planning trips ourselves - what is wrong with that?
Jay: Nothing, except for your time and your peace of mind. Doing it yourself means 10 to 30 hours across AI tools, blogs, forums and booking sites - practically a part-time job. Even then, something is always missing. You may also end up paying more, because you miss the B2B hotel rates that companies like ours secure and pass on to travellers. And there is the pain nobody sees until they experience it: once on the trip, you become the tour manager - constantly planning what comes next, constantly bracing for what could go wrong.
And what about booking through a local travel agent?
Jay: In my experience, they are built to sell, not to support. Ready-made packages, little room for changes. They may find you cheaper options, but you end up putting the whole experience at risk. Above all, they lack the means to support you during the trip - no contingency cover, no flexibility to change your plans.
The big players - the MakeMyTrips of the world - do make it easy, though. Are there red flags there too?
Jay: Easy to book - I will give them that. But they are built to push their own inventory. The same cookie-cutter package for everyone, hidden charges later, and if plans change mid-trip, you are on your own.
And group tours - the Thomas Cook and SOTCs of the world - are at least affordable.
Jay: Affordable, yes. But you move with the crowd, eat when they eat and see what they see. There is no privacy and no room for personal moments - try celebrating an anniversary on a fixed bus schedule. There are no choices at all.
So what is the best way for Indians to plan a trip today?
Mangal: Here is the interesting part: travellers have already half-answered it. They plan with AI now. Then they sit with this beautiful plan and realise - who will validate it? Who will price it, book it and run it smoothly when the flight is delayed? Nobody. AI plans it; nobody executes it. The best way today is the one the industry never built: a trip designed around you by a real expert who validates the plan, books it and stays with you until you are home. That is exactly what GuavaTrips is.
"AI plans it; nobody executes it."
Spell it out - what does GuavaTrips actually do?
Jay: Every trip is designed from scratch, by a real person, around whoever is travelling and whatever they are celebrating - a honeymoon, an anniversary, a reunion, or simply a chance to unwind. Planning is completely free. We book everything: flights, stays, transfers and experiences. And the part I care about most - we stay with you. A real human on WhatsApp, day and night, through the entire trip. Flight delayed? Weather turned? We re-plan while you relax.
Mangal: Behind Jay's team is our own technology - an AI engine, built entirely in-house, that drafts itineraries in minutes. But we are clear about the order of things. Humans first, AI behind the curtain. AI gives our experts speed; the expert gives you peace of mind.
Mangal Sain, co-founder of GuavaTrips, who leads the company's in-house technology and AI platform. Photo: GuavaTrips
Is there one moment that captures what "staying with you" means?
Jay: One I will never forget. A family flying to Puri had their flight delayed past midnight. We rearranged everything while they were still in the air and stayed on the phone until they reached their hotel at 2 am. Their Google review still talks about it. Another was a family of thirteen - thirteen! - ranging from senior citizens to an infant. They told us we delivered more than we promised. For other companies, these are exceptions. For us, this is the product.
Mangal: It shows in the numbers too. Every Google review we have is five stars - not the average, every single one. Six out of ten reviewers name their trip designer personally; nobody writes a review naming a call centre. We have served over a thousand travellers across 250-plus destinations, and a third of our business comes from people returning or bringing friends.
Why can't the big players simply copy you?
Mangal: Because copying us would break them. Their business runs on selling the same thing to lakhs of people; the moment they attempt one-to-one human care, their costs explode. The new AI-only startups face the opposite problem: plans are easy, but ground execution takes years of relationships across hundreds of places. We are building both - the machine and the journey.
Jay: And you cannot fake caring. Our team travels. We have slept in the homestays we recommend. That shows in a hundred small decisions no algorithm will ever make.
The tagline is bold - India's most loved travel brand. Not the biggest?
Jay: Not the biggest. Not the best funded, either. Biggest is a race we do not need to win; loved is the one that matters. Our dream is simple: to travel alongside one lakh Indians by 2035, one personal trip at a time. If each of them comes home feeling the trip was truly built for them, the brand builds itself.
Last question. What should a traveller reading this do differently?
Jay: Stop settling. You do not have to choose between doing everything yourself and being processed like a parcel. Come to GuavaTrips and tell us how you like to travel - the plan is free. And from that moment, your trip has an owner.
About GuavaTrips: GuavaTrips (guavatrips.com) is a Pune-based personalised travel company founded in 2024 by Jaykumar Anadkat and Mangal Sain. It designs custom domestic and international trips backed by 24Ã7 human support.
