How Personal Travel Struggles Inspired the Creation of Bag2Bag – An Interview with the Founder

From frustrating travel experiences in tier-2 cities to building one of India’s first true hourly hotel booking platforms, Alok Mishra has transformed a personal pain point into an innovative business. With Bag2Bag, he and his team are reshaping the hospitality landscape using technology, flexibility, and customer-first solutions. In this conversation, he shares the inspiration behind Bag2Bag, the challenges of creating a new category, and the lessons learned on the journey.

What inspired you to start Bag2Bag? Was there a specific moment or problem you encountered that made you realize this business was needed?

Alok Mishra: The inspiration came from my own travel experiences. While visiting multiple cities with my spouse, I often faced unnecessary restrictions from hotels booked through online platforms. In tier-2 cities especially, hotels sometimes denied check-in citing reasons like not carrying a marriage certificate or strict, unclear policies, even though I had a valid booking. At times, I paid for the entire day but was refused check-in if I arrived earlier or later than expected. These frustrating experiences made me realize how rigid and outdated the accommodation system was. That’s when the idea struck — why not build a platform that offers flexible, fair, and customer-centric stays without these unnecessary hurdles? That’s how Bag2Bag was born.

How did your background shape the idea and execution of Bag2Bag? Were there prior experiences that directly fed into this venture?

Alok Mishra: Interestingly, none of us founders had prior hospitality experience. Bag2Bag was built primarily as a tech-driven company. My background in engineering and corporate roles across global telecom leaders gave me the technical knowledge to design and execute scalable solutions. What shaped Bag2Bag wasn’t industry expertise but personal experiences as travelers who saw the gap. My global exposure also helped me apply structured thinking to product development and operations. Instead of seeking perfection from day one, we focused on solving real traveler problems through technology.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in the early days?

Alok Mishra: The toughest challenge was creating supply. As a new platform introducing a new concept like hourly stays, we faced resistance from hoteliers. Many were skeptical. Gradually, once we onboarded some trusted hotel brands and educated them about the benefits for both hotels and guests, acceptance grew. On the technology side, we had to build connected systems that synced properties and Bag2Bag customers in real time—room availability, booking confirmations, price updates—everything had to happen instantly. That integration was crucial and challenging but also set the foundation for scale.

How do you balance pricing and availability so that both customers and hotel partners feel satisfied/fairly treated?

Alok Mishra: Through our extranet, hotel partners can update prices and availability in real time as per market demand, and it immediately reflects on the website and app. The interface is easy, so they don’t face operational hassles. On our side, we ensure competitive pricing by monitoring and conducting due diligence. We also maintain a variety from budget stays to luxury hotels so every traveler finds an option that fits their budget. That balance ensures both customers and hotel partners are happy.

How do you ensure quality, safety, and reliability across your partner properties — especially for unconventional stay durations?

Alok Mishra: We only onboard trusted and verified hotels. The same brands known for overnight stays also provide hourly stays through Bag2Bag. Our due diligence includes verifying incorporation papers, GST, property documents, government IDs, and business proofs. We conduct video calls to confirm the property and its location which must match the actual address. These measures ensure authenticity, safety, and reliability. For guests, this means they get the same trusted service—just with more flexibility.

What unique value does Bag2Bag bring to customers that other OTAs don’t?

Alok Mishra: Bag2Bag pioneered true hourly hotel booking in India. Unlike slot-based systems which other platforms were offering, we offer actual hourly stays with anytime check-in and checkout, even 24×7 check-ins at many properties. We’ve also introduced innovations like pre-booking F&B. We have onboarded homestays from small towns that focus on sustainable travel. We’ve created one-of-a-kind reward programs like credit points on each booking and a free 11th stay. Bag2Bag isn’t just about hotels—it’s about empowering customers with flexible, affordable, and unique stay options, all in one platform.

What is your expansion plan in terms of geography, services, or offerings?

Alok Mishra: We started as a pay-per-use platform and have since grown into a diverse accommodation marketplace with hotels, resorts, serviced apartments, and homestays across India. Right now, we are focused on strengthening our domestic presence with both hourly and long-term stays. We’re also exploring curated experiences and domestic tour packages. Once we solidify our base in India, we plan to expand into international markets.

Could you talk about Bag2Bag AI? What the AI-powered features are, the problems they solve, and how they were developed?

Alok Mishra: Bag2Bag was the first in the industry to launch AI features. While we use AI at the backend for data accuracy, we also built customer-facing AI to improve booking experiences. For example, our AI bot lets users express specific needs and get directly to the checkout page instead of scrolling endlessly. It saves time and ensures they don’t miss relevant properties. In the future, we plan to use AI for deeper personalization, combining accommodation with experiences, and further streamlining the booking journey.

What challenges have you faced integrating technology with the hospitality industry, which often has many legacy, offline systems?

Alok Mishra: When we started, no technology existed for hourly stays. Most SaaS products were designed only for overnight bookings. So, we built our own user-friendly platform for hotel partners, allowing them to manage hourly and daily stays, block rooms, and sync updates across desktop and mobile. Adoption was a challenge, but our extranet is free of cost and easy to use, so hotels gradually adopted it. For properties with connectivity issues, our support team is always available on instant messaging to assist.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned since founding Bag2Bag? If you could go back, what would you do differently?

Alok Mishra: The biggest lesson is the importance of pre-planning the technology roadmap in sync with expansion. Building a startup means constantly balancing resources, costs, and competition with bigger players. If I could do things differently, I would focus on faster product development first before aggressively hiring or scaling customer acquisition. I feel having a solid product foundation early makes growth much more sustainable.