India Internet Group and Rajan Anandan backed Abreakplease helps you find those weekend getaways

Who doesn’t love a weekend getaway? A long weekend break provides enough delicious time to feel the distance from job, home, kids, and the regular but still be viable with just an overnight bag. With time, our lives have only got more hectic and with a booming Indian economy and due to extreme job pressures in most of the organizations, the weekend getaways have become very popular among the professionals. Tapping into this unavoidable change is where Nikhil Khekade stepped in and setup Abreakplease.

Abreakplease.com is a weekend getaway discovery & booking portal which helps people find short trip options around a city. The places they cover are within 400km range around a city which can be visited over 2-3 days. Currently present mainly in Maharashtra, some of their most preferred getaways are the adventure, farms & bungalows getaways. Apart from this they also provide resorts, luxury and romantic getaways.

The whole motivation behind starting up this venture was – “The idea itself. You always feel motivated when you do something which is adding value to people's lives,” says Nikhil, who is an engineer from University from Mumbai. After about 5 years of working with corporates, Nikhil took a plunge into entrepreneurship and is currently working with a vibrant team of 8 members from travel & sales industry and is also in the process of setting up an in-house tech team. The venture is funded by India Internet Group (IIG) and Google’s Rajan Anandan.

Currently based out of Mumbai, abreakplease team is tied up with over 450 properties in and around Mumbai & Pune and this number will be growing to 600 in the coming weeks. The team also plans to expand its operations to Bangalore and other major cities soon.The travel space in India has brimmed up with startups and there are a players like Nomad who specifically deal with the weekend getaways and others like India Untravelled, Travspire, etc that can help find unique locations. When asked what sets them apart from their competitors, Nikhil replies - “Team abreakplease.com specializes in weekend getaways space which one can consider slightly different from hotel room bookings. Imagine spending a weekend in a private bungalow with a swimming pool with only your group in the premises? Getting all the exclusive access? And most importantly having one point of contact and not having to call 20-30 hotels to check on the availability and then negotiating?” When it comes to weekend getaways, alot of people opt for group accommodations like a bungalow or a farm house or a big dormitory. Main reasons being - the cost per person is highly reduced & also they can stay together. “Weekend getaways are not always planned months or even weeks in advanced, so the customer always wants the booking process quick & smooth and this is where we come in.” The team maintains deep data about every property which helps the customers to make decisions quickly and easily.

With a vision of becoming “THE” weekend getaway provider in India, for both premium & budget customers from every major city, abreakplease.com does about 450 room bookings per month and generates a traffic of 3 lakh page views every month. With the appetite for travel increasing and with one of the most reputed angels in India backing the venture, Abreakplease is a startup to look out for in the travel sector.

- Jamia Zaheer and Jubin Mehta