As tourism began to recover, Sara Truong and her two co-founders spent hours brainstorming, gradually shaping the idea for a revolutionary app. Laka was born with the mission of connecting travelers with unique experiences and quality services, from planning itineraries, finding accommodations to exploring destinations.
Having only been on the market for 5 months, Laka is still on a journey to find its own voice. With each cautious step, they are constantly learning and innovating, 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 time, how did you envision AI changing the way people plan their travels?
The idea of Laka came from my own personal experiences when planning trips. Searching for information, comparing prices and planning detailed itineraries is a time-consuming and laborious process. We wanted to provide a smart solution that helps users plan itineraries quickly and efficiently. With Laka, users only need to provide information about their preferences and needs for the trip, we will use AI to create a perfect itinerary in just a few seconds.
Sara Truong - co-founder of Laka
Currently, our team consists of 10 members, each of whom contributes to the construction and development of the platform. Laka's users are mainly young people who love independent travel, especially when traveling abroad. Up to now, Laka has had nearly 10,000 users who trust and experience the service. We are constantly striving to improve our products and bring the most convenient solutions to the independent travel community.
What value does Laka bring to users?
The biggest value of Laka is saving time and effort for users. Currently, many travel platforms only focus on selling products such as airline tickets or hotels, but do not support users in planning the right trip. With Laka, we not only create itineraries but also provide detailed information about destinations around the world, reviews, travel tips and other factors to help users have a comprehensive view of the trip. Above all, Laka also understands the interests and strengths of each user to make appropriate suggestions.
With just a few simple steps, Laka will suggest a detailed itinerary for visitors.
What are the outstanding features of Laka?
Laka has the ability to quickly create schedules according to users' personal preferences, provide more detailed schedules, can link destinations together on the map, allow users to edit schedules easily and share with friends. For example, when starting to access the application, users will answer questions related to destinations, travel purposes, interests... to understand the user's needs.
If a user wants to travel to Thailand for 5 days, Laka can provide a detailed itinerary with 30 different locations in just a few seconds. Users can view photos, read reviews about each location, and if they don't like a location, they can delete it from the itinerary. In addition, we are also developing a route optimization feature to save time traveling between locations.
What were the difficulties and challenges in developing Laka?
The development of Laka has been a challenging journey. We faced many difficulties, from building effective AI algorithms to collecting and processing large amounts of data.
Initially, we thought of building an online marketplace for package tours and travel agencies in Vietnam. However, after research, we realized that the strength of technology is unlikely to change the habits of this group of users (mainly 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 to users, we received a lot of mixed opinions and criticism. After that, we decided to change it to be more suitable with the trend.
We are also working with a number of bloggers to increase Laka’s presence, especially in the Thai market – one of the team’s main targets. We plan to open the Southeast Asian market including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. by the end of this year.
Currently, Laka is still in the product building phase, with the website platform being the focus. Only when the product really creates value for users, we will start exploring new technologies such as VR (virtual reality). Currently, we focus on promoting the product and attracting users to experience and provide feedback to further perfect the product.
With the huge amount of data collected, how does Laka ensure the quality of information?
We use data from a variety of sources, including the internet, social media, and popular travel platforms. However, to ensure the information is accurate and reliable, our team validates each piece of data (human touch). This helps users avoid misinformation, such as tourist attractions that are closed or no longer in operation.
The combination of AI and human touch helps users avoid false information, such as tourist attractions that are closed or no longer operating.
What makes Laka different from similar travel apps in the region?
Many AI applications only provide itineraries in text form without any visual elements. Laka not only provides a list of locations but also allows users to view pictures, reviews and detailed information about each location in the same platform. This makes it easy for users to visualize and adjust their itinerary.
Unlike other travel platforms that focus mainly on providing services, Laka offers users a completely new experience: free travel scheduling. This means that Laka is not only a service selling platform but also a reliable companion, helping travelers plan their trips easily and effectively.
Although Laka also provides travel services, competing with the current "big guys" of online travel platforms, Laka's unique strength is its ability to support users in creating personalized travel itineraries.
How does Laka plan to develop products in the near future?
Over the next two years, we will focus on developing new features, improving the user interface, and enhancing interactivity. Although we currently only have a website version, we also plan to develop a mobile application in the future to meet the needs of users more conveniently. Laka's ultimate goal is to become an all-in-one application, helping users easily create and adjust their travel schedules 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 happen to the tourism industry?
I believe that AI will bring a big revolution to the tourism industry. AI will help users plan more easily, explore new destinations and enjoy unique experiences. At the same time, AI also helps tourism businesses optimize operations and improve service quality.
Thank you very much!
