Here is a travel platform which plans your focused wildlife adventures with the help of sightings’ data analytics

If you have to plan a trip to a wildlife sanctuary or a national park, what would be your best bet? Scan a few popular travel websites and they throw up standard information which doesn’t please the intense photographer in you or the zealous wildlife enthusiast. WildTrails app, created by a Bengaluru-based startup, claims that it can plug that gap.

Available on iOS and Android, WildTrails organises specialised wildlife tours across famous national parks and reserves in India. How they do it is what makes it noteworthy.

The app has put out animals’ sightings data and lets travellers decide, which national park they want to visit, based on these figures.

Even as I write this, selecting Malabar giant squirrel in the mammal’s section shows its sightings percentage in the last seven days at Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary to be 93.5%, in Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary 92.5% and Nagarhole 65.22%.

I change the attributes to a different mammal, bird or a reptile and different numbers show up.

“The data dug up through mining and analytics has helped us come up with a sighting index metric, which can predict what your chances of sighting a particular species (say a tiger, or any bird or mammal or reptile for that matter) are in a given sanctuary for a given zone/gate during a given period. This greatly enhances travellers’ sightings probability and that is why we have the tagline — ‘look before you book’,” says Ashok Madaravally, co-founder, WildTrails. The platform has more than two years of animal data from more than 30 national parks and reserves.

WildTrails was started by wildlife enthusiast and former IT professional Manjunath Gowda in 2016 after he discovered that the inflow of foreign tourists to these wildlife sanctuaries is obstructed by the unorganised nature of the market and trust factor. “He felt that a lot of people want to take up these trips, but first of all they are not customised, and a lot of them, particularly foreigners, have apprehensions about paying a vendor in a different country,” explains Ashok.

Initially intended to be a travel aggregator like others, it panned out differently. Wildlife travel is expensive and indulged in by people for photography, research, documentation or passion.

To download the app: For Google Play Store: click here

For iOS: click here

“It means that their needs are specific and that calls for a focused and planned trip, which can only be fuelled by a deeper experience rather than just a usual luxurious outing,” he elaborates.

So a traveller can place a reservation request depending on the sightings percentage of their choice of animal, bird, or reptile.

Also, in the trips section, if you key in the name of the park, it will provide detailed information about it right up to its safari gates. If you want to search by a specific mammal or reptile, the app will show you the sanctuaries or parks, your choice of animal is located in, with the distance from your location, and the best time to visit etc.

Finding patterns

WildTrails provides sightings data and other information for 500 animal sanctuaries in India.

As far as trips are concerned, they are limited to 20. Expansion plans, domestically and internationally, particularly Africa, are on the cards.

Based on patterns from the bookings made, Ashok reveals, “As of now, 20% of parks contribute to 80% of traffic, and in the last few years, lesser-known sanctuaries such as Tadoba in Maharashtra have also started attracting visitors, but the focus remains on the tiger and leopard.”

The gallery of images and videos is where you see the most recent sightings recorded by guides and naturalists employed by WildTrails.

There are about 60 guides on rolls as of now, who upload inputs on a separate app meant for them. “They give us pictures, videos, and information in a language known to them. We sit here and translate and put it up on the app. And there is much more data which is visible to only the customer who has made the booking.”

Another interesting feature is the Sanctuary Chat Channel, available to guests who are doing the safari.

“Suppose there are two groups that have gone in two different areas and one group spotted a herd of elephants, they can immediately alert the other group about it. And not just that, they can communicate with each other or the group leader,” says Ashok.

Currently, the app has had 60,000 downloads, and the website receives 1000 hits every day. On Facebook, the WildTrails page boasts about 2.5 lakh followers.

There is still room for improvement. “We don’t have the best user interface. It needs to be decluttered. We have to work on the website because it is unexpectedly getting a lot of traffic. We need to add more species and more data.”

Having examined the app myself, I noted the number of categories on the home page could be reduced and simplified, as some trips are repeating in WildTrails Luxe, Africa and theme-based safaris.

The package starts from ₹10,000 onwards, and goes up to ₹5-6 lakhs, depending on customers’ choice of accommodation. The package includes food, stay, safari and transfer from the airport, railway station and bus stand, but excludes airfare.