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As tourism entered its recovery phase, Sara Truong and her two co-founders spent hours brainstorming, gradually shaping the idea for a revolutionary application. Laka was born with the mission of connecting travelers with unique experiences and quality services, from planning itineraries and finding accommodation to exploring destinations.
Having only launched five months ago, Laka is still on its journey to find its own unique voice. With cautious steps, they continuously learn and innovate, aiming to bring practical value to the tourism industry. Let's listen to the story of Sara Truong, a founding member of Laka, to better understand the challenges and aspirations they are pursuing.
Laka's interface
What motivated you to develop Laka? During that process, how did you envision AI applications changing the way people plan their travels?
The idea for Laka stemmed from personal experiences planning trips. Searching for information, comparing prices, and creating detailed itineraries is a time-consuming and laborious process. We wanted to provide a smart solution to help users plan trips quickly and efficiently. With Laka, users simply provide information about their preferences and travel needs, and we will use AI to generate a perfect itinerary in seconds.
Sara Truong - co-founder of Laka
Currently, our team consists of 10 members, each contributing to the building and development of the platform. Laka's target users are primarily young people who love independent travel, especially when traveling abroad. To date, Laka has nearly 10,000 users who trust and experience our services. We are constantly striving to improve the product and provide the most convenient solutions for the independent travel community.
What value does Laka bring to its users?
Laka's greatest value lies in saving users time and effort. Currently, many travel platforms focus solely on selling products like airline tickets or hotels, but fail to support users in planning their trips effectively. With Laka, we not only create itineraries but also provide detailed information about destinations worldwide, reviews, travel tips, and other elements to give users a comprehensive view of their trip. Furthermore, Laka understands each user's preferences and strengths to offer tailored suggestions.
With just a few simple steps, Laka will suggest a detailed itinerary for travelers.
What are the standout features of Laka?
Laka has the ability to quickly create itineraries tailored to users' personal preferences, providing more detailed schedules, linking destinations on a map, allowing users to easily edit itineraries and share them with friends. For example, upon first accessing the app, users will answer questions related to their destination, trip purpose, interests, etc., to better understand their needs.
If a user wants to travel to Thailand for 5 days, Laka can provide a detailed itinerary with 30 different locations in just seconds. Users can view photos, read reviews of each location, and remove any they don't like from the itinerary. In addition, we are also developing a route optimization feature to save travel time between locations.
What were the difficulties and challenges in the development of Laka?
The development of Laka has been a challenging journey. We've faced numerous difficulties, from building effective AI algorithms to collecting and processing large amounts of data.
Initially, we considered building an online marketplace for package tours and travel companies in Vietnam. However, after research, we realized that our technological strengths were unlikely to change the habits of this user group (primarily older users). Therefore, we decided to focus on independent travelers, who are young people with faster and better access to technology.
When we first launched the interface, we received a lot of mixed feedback and criticism. After that, we decided to change it to better suit current trends.
We are also collaborating with several bloggers to increase Laka's presence, especially in the Thai market – one of the team's main goals. We plan to expand into the Southeast Asian market, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and more, by the end of this year.
Currently, Laka is still in the product development phase, with the website platform as its core focus. Only when the product truly creates value for users will we begin exploring new technologies such as VR (virtual reality). Right now, we are focused on promoting the product and attracting users to experience it and provide feedback to further improve it.
With the enormous amount of data collected, how does Laka ensure the quality of the information?
We use data from various sources, including the internet, social media, and popular travel platforms. However, to ensure accurate and reliable information, our team verifies each data point (human touch). This helps users avoid misinformation, such as information about closed or no longer operating tourist destinations.
The combination of AI and human touch helps users avoid misinformation, such as information about tourist attractions that are closed or no longer operating.
What sets Laka apart from similar travel apps in the region?
Many AI applications only provide itineraries in text format without any visual elements. Laka provides not only a list of locations but also allows users to view images, reviews, and detailed information about each location within the same platform. This makes it easier for users to visualize and adjust their itineraries.
Unlike other travel platforms that focus primarily on providing services, Laka offers users a completely new experience: free travel itinerary planning. This means Laka is not just a service sales platform, but also a reliable travel companion, helping travelers plan their trips easily and efficiently.
Although Laka also offers travel services, competing with the "big players" in online travel platforms today, Laka's unique strength lies in its ability to help users create personalized travel itineraries.
What are Laka's product development plans for the near future?
Over the next two years, we will focus on developing new features, improving the user interface, and enhancing interactivity. While we currently only have a website version, we also plan to develop a mobile application in the future to better meet user needs. Laka's ultimate goal is to become an all-in-one application, helping users easily create and adjust their travel itineraries in the most efficient and convenient way.
Faster, simpler travel for the independent travel community.
With the rapid development of AI technology, what changes will occur to the tourism industry?
I believe that AI will bring about a major revolution to the tourism industry. AI will help users plan more easily, discover new and exciting destinations, and enjoy unique experiences. At the same time, AI will also help tourism businesses optimize operations and improve service quality.
Thank you very much!
