Thrillophilia CEO & Co-founder Chitra Gurnani Daga Receives 'Entrepreneur of the Year - Travel' at ET Awards 2026

PNN
New Delhi [India], April 8: Chitra Gurnani Daga, CEO and Co-founder of Thrillophilia, receives the 'Entrepreneur of the Year - Travel' award at the ET Entrepreneur Awards 2026, recognising her leadership in building Thrillophilia into India's most trusted multi-day tour operator.
Chitra Gurnani Daga, CEO and Co-founder of Thrillophilia, has recently been awarded 'Entrepreneur of the Year - Travel' at the Economic Times Entrepreneur Awards 2026. The recognition highlights her leadership in building Thrillophilia as India's most trusted multi-day travel company. Customer trust, operational reliability, and scalable travel delivery are a few of the major pillars that the company focuses on in its business models.

The award was presented as part of the ET Entrepreneur Awards' 3rd edition. It aimed at honouring entrepreneurs across sectors on the basis of their business performance, innovation, and long-term contributions to their core industry's development.
Under Chitra Gurnani Daga's leadership, Thrillophilia has expanded from just an experiential travel platform. It has, over the years, gained its position as a large-scale travel business serving travellers across India and international destinations.
Building a Scalable Travel Business
Thrillophilia, which was founded in Bengaluru and is now headquartered in Jaipur, operates across domestic and international destinations, including Europe, Southeast Asia, and East Africa.
Within the period of FY2021 and FY2025, Thrillophilia has served over 1 million travellers on curated tours. At the same time, the company has scaled across categories such as customised domestic holidays, private international itineraries, adventure travel, and more. Currently, their business stands at a revenue of INR 500 crore+ with a profitable EBITDA. With such numbers, the company reflects its sustained growth in one of travel's most operationally demanding segments, i.e., multi-day tours
The platform's operating model brings together the right combination of destination expertise, structured supplier coordination, and tech-led itinerary planning. As a result, the on-ground execution becomes seamless with systems that are designed to manage travel across multiple destinations.
How AI Powers Every Stage of Travel at Thrillophilia
Thrillophilia's approach to technology is very focused and practical. The company has developed their own set of AI systems internally. Further, each of these is designed to solve a specific challenge in the lifecycle of how multi-day tours are executed.
* AI Itinerary Builder: Beginning with personalised itinerary creation, this tool facilitates day-by-day travel plans. Their Feasibility Agent then validates each itinerary for route flow, availability, seasonality, and timing before finally forwarding that to the traveller.
* Thrillo Voice AI: This system manages initial customer interactions. It helps them understand requirements, qualify enquiries, and connect travellers to the right advisor.
* CallMind: This tool records, processes, and analyses customer conversations. Based on such analysis, advisor performance gets further improved and results in a consistent service quality being delivered across teams.
* Trip Management System (TMS): Once a booking is confirmed, the TMS converts it into a structured execution pipeline and gives operations teams real-time visibility into every element of an ongoing trip.
* Lead Intelligence Engine: This system evaluates incoming enquiries and routes them efficiently. It is ensured that more complex or high-value trips are handled by experienced advisors.
All these systems are designed to work together as connected layers and not separate tools to ensure that every stage of a trip stays linked, whether it's planning, validation, booking or on-ground execution. Their teams, thus, receive complete visibility, enabling smoother coordination and more reliable delivery for travellers.
Industry Recognition at ET Entrepreneur Awards 2026
The ET Entrepreneur Awards recognise founders building high-impact businesses that eventually contribute to factors like employment generation, sectoral innovation, and economic growth.
The travel category specifically highlights entrepreneurs who have demonstrated measurable scale, business adaptability, and operational strength. This becomes further relevant in an industry like travel that is rapidly evolving with its changing customer demands and increasing service complexity. Thus, the award is a crucial acknowledgement for those who are building category-defining companies in India's entrepreneurial ecosystem.
About Thrillophilia
Thrillophilia is India's most trusted multi-day tour operator, offering personalised packages that are delivered seamlessly by their on-ground destination experts. The company's operations are widespread across India and international destinations. Having executed trips for 3 million+ travellers, they operate on a model built on a simple principle: AI handles the planning, while humans ensure the delivery.
Media Contact: pr@thrillophilia.com | www.thrillophilia.com
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