The journey began in October 2019 when Be-Yon Travel Technology entered IMDA’s OIP Call-5 event as a “problem owner” in the hope to be connected to a “problem solver” and take the company’s travel technology to the next level. After several rounds of interviews with potential “problem solvers” the company selected Zillion as the finalist.

The founders of both companies, Janet (Be-Yon) and Ram (Zillion), found in each other a similar path of their travel technology journeys and they foresaw a potential great partnership that can extend beyond the current OIP Project. Fuelled by their years of experience and deep passion for the travel industry, both companies decided to join forces and embarked on a new venture and Ad Astra was born.

While 2020 has put a halt to the travel industry, it marked a significantly productive year for Ad Astra as it completed multiple milestones from its incorporation in May 2020. One of the highlights of this young start-up was the successful innovation journey with IMDA. After several qualification rounds, Ad Astra was declared as the winner in July 2020. Following the declaration, the company immediately participated in design thinking sessions with the team from Ernst & Young, facilitated by IMDA. The aim of the exercise was to jumpstart and develop the framework for Ad Astra’s Leisure Global Distribution System (GDS) in order to provide the best user interface, as well as user experience (UI/UX).

Our Leisure GDS platform is currently online with its “smart scheduler” highlight feature and more upgrades to be launched within this year and early 2021. Our next focus will be on the subscriber’s dashboard as well as an upgrade to the customer’s itinerary page to include not only comprehensive descriptions of the programs but also images of each of the confirmed experience.

It has certainly been a tremendous starting journey for Ad Astra, with more currently in the works for 2021! Stay tuned for more innovative digital products by Ad Astra!