Bangalore, May 25, 2017: Treebo Hotels, India’s largest tech-enabled budget hotel chain, was amongst the select few Indian companies to be showcased this year at the world’s most prestigious and coveted technology conference, Google I/O. Google I/O is Google’s annual developer conference which brings together developers from around the globe for an immersive experience focused on exploring the next generation of tech. It is one of the most awaited events in the technology world where Google shares foreseeable technology trends and showcases companies using its products to build high impact products.
The theme for Google I/O 2017 was artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Google CEO Sunder Pichai opened the three-day conference with his keynote focusing on the application of these futuristic technologies and introduction of Google’s new range of products including Google Lens, Android Go, and Daydream. In addition to the launch of Google’s new product line-up, top engineers and developers from across the world leveraged this global platform to launch their breakthrough web technology products.
With increased adoption of low-end smartphones across emerging countries like India, Google is closely working with companies to develop mobile-friendly Progressive Web Apps(PWA) to help acquire customers in smaller towns and cities. Progressive web apps allow developers to offer an app-like experience to consumers on the mobile web while requiring a fraction of data used by native apps. It’s the magical solution to the restrictions presented by the web including performance, quality, and poor or unavailable Internet connections and can be run on any modern platform.
At Google I/O 2017, Treebo’s recently launched PWA was demonstrated as a successful case study during a talk on the future of PWAs. The talk highlighted Treebo’s re-architectured mobile web product built to achieve a best-in-class performance and offer a native-like an experience.
Addy Osmani, Engineering Manager at Google, who delivered the talk on the future of PWAs at Google I/Os 2017 said, “Treebo’s Progressive Web App is one of the best-in-class mobile web experiences I’ve seen. Their PWA loads fast on even flaky network connections, making it easier for users to book a hotel on the go. It works great on low-end devices, meaning it’s going to load quickly for a broad spectrum of users. It’s honestly been inspiring to see the amount of technical investment Treebo’s team put into nailing performance for their users. I’m excited to see where Treebo takes this work next as this is competitively one of the best PWAs in the region. ”
Kadam Jeet Jain, co-founder, Treebo Hotels said “What started as a Twitter conversation between us and folks at Google about our work on our PWA, ended up becoming one of the major milestones in Treebo’s tech journey. Since the very beginning, we have focused on using and developing cutting edge technology to offer an unmatched experience to our consumers. Through this project, we wanted to make hotel booking as seamless and fast as possible, considering internet connections on mobile (especially on-the-go) can be flakey and slow.”
Maulik Shukla, VP Engineering, Treebo Hotels further added, ”Treebo has been a tech-oriented company from the get-go and it is demonstrated in the way we operate. Our goal was to bring the website’s page load time under 1 second for our users. To achieve this, Progressive Web App (PWA) was undoubtedly the natural way forward. Pushing the envelope on performance, instead of the targeted 1s, we achieved 500 ms with page interactivity within 3.8 secs on 3G network, on an average mobile hardware. We are elated to be mentioned as a success story at a prestigious conference like Google I/O. We have barely scratched the surface with this achievement and are building several technology-led solutions to augment the guest experience.”
Treebo Hotels invests heavily in technology to create the seamless and hassle-free experience for its guests and hotel partners alike. Some of the key tech innovations at Treebo include its property management tool ‘Bumblebee’, an efficient revenue management system, a mystery audit program ‘Friends of Treebo’ and the quality control product ‘Prowl’ which enables the on-ground staff to bolster the brand service standards at scale.