Holiday Matrix — PR Article
Meta Title: Stranded Abroad With No Money — Then His Travel Agent Called Back | Holiday Matrix Story Meta Description: How a Meerut proprietor built Holiday Matrix, a Noida travel company where trips are built around people — and no traveller is ever left alone abroad.
HEADLINE OPTIONS (reader-first)
- Stranded Alone in Malaysia With No Money in His Pocket. Then His Travel Agent’s Phone Rang.
- “Anyone Can Sell You a Package. Who Answers the Phone at 11 PM in a Country Where You Know No One?”
- He Studied Commerce, Sold Tours in Meerut, and Now Codes His Own Software: The Unusual Story Behind Holiday Matrix
- His Grandfather Took Devotees to Temples by Train. His Father Did It as a Hobby. He Turned It Into a Company.
ARTICLE
Nadeem, 40, from Meerut, walked out of Kuala Lumpur airport and realised he was alone.
His two friends — the same friends he’d planned this Malaysia trip with for months — had been held back at immigration. He was outside. They were inside. He had no local money, no idea how things worked in this country, and no clue what to do next.
So he called his travel agent.
Now, most of us know how that call usually goes. “Sir, this is an immigration matter, we can’t do anything.” Sympathy, maybe. A solution, rarely.
This call went differently. Within hours, Holiday Matrix had arranged money so Nadeem could eat and get through the day. Then the team sat down and rebuilt his entire itinerary so he could complete the trip alone. At the same time, they stayed in touch with his two friends until both were safely back in India.
“That’s the whole business, honestly,” says Ankit Agarwal, founder and director of Holiday Matrix, a Noida-based customised travel company. “Selling a package is easy. Standing with the guest when the trip goes sideways — that’s where most companies disappear. We decided very early that we won’t.”
It Started on a Train, Two Generations Ago
To understand Holiday Matrix, you have to go back before 2017. Before Noida. Before Ankit was born, actually.
His grandfather had a habit that today would be called a business, but back then was simply seva and a love for the travel: he would gather devotees and take them on long train journeys — to the great temples of South India, to Ganga Sagar. No company, no commission. Just a man who knew the routes, knew the dharamshalas, and made sure everyone travelling with him was looked after.
Ankit’s father carried it forward — taking groups on pilgrimages and leisure tours, purely as a hobby. In the Agarwal household, taking people on journeys wasn’t a profession. It was a habit passed down like a family recipe.
“Travel is in our blood,” Ankit says. “My grandfather did it, my father did it — as a hobby. I’m the one who went all in and made the family hobby a full-time profession.”
The formal version began as a small proprietorship in Meerut, Agarwal Tour & Travels, where Ankit Agarwal— a commerce postgraduate — learned the trade the slow way: one family, one booking, one 2 AM problem at a time. By 2017, after becoming a seasoned holiday expert, he had moved to Delhi NCR and registered Holiday Matrix Private Limited. And he had one strong opinion about the industry he was entering.
At the time, almost everyone was selling the same thing: fixed group departures and readymade packages. Same hotels, same bus, same photo stops. The traveller adjusted to the package — and once payment was done, the relationship was more or less over.
Holiday Matrix was built as the opposite of that. Every trip tailor-made. And the company staying connected before the tour, during the tour, and after the traveller comes home — so that, in Ankit’s words, “the guest should never feel like a stranger anywhere. Not at the airport, not at the hotel, not at midnight.”
The travellers who’ve experienced it tend to stick around. Vibha Rao, 65, from Thirthahalli in Karnataka, was part of a senior citizens’ group Holiday Matrix took to Thailand — every arrangement handled, the team connected at every step, so a group of senior citizen travelling without their families never once felt unsure. Those guests still call and message the office. Mr. Bendre, 76, from Meerut, travelled to Singapore, Malaysia and a cruise — the Holiday Matrix team travelling alongside — and the group has returned for trip after trip since.
The Travel Agent Who Codes
Here’s the part of Ankit’s story you won’t find at other travel agencies.
Somewhere along the way — commerce graduate, proprietor, company director — he taught himself technology, because the software available to travel companies frustrated him. It was built to push packages, not to take care of people.
So he’s building his own CRM, hands-on, using AI-assisted development. Every enquiry, itinerary, payment and follow-up in one system — designed by someone who has sat across nervous first-time travellers for years and knows exactly which details slip through the cracks.
It’s an odd combination in this industry: a man who plans a senior citizens’ tour in the morning and writes code for his company’s systems at night. But it means the technology and the service philosophy come from the same person — and the same experiences.
The Timing Is No Accident
The bet on customisation is looking better every year. India’s outbound tourism market stood at around US$21.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to cross US$61 billion by 2033 — and industry surveys in 2025 show Indians planning to travel more often, spend more per trip, and increasingly demand trips built around them, not around a brochure.
Holiday Matrix doesn’t lean on big claimed numbers. It points to what its guests say publicly: 4.7/5 on Google, 4.7 on Justdial. In a business where trust is the whole product, that’s the scoreboard that matters.
From its office in Sector 62, Noida, the company today plans journeys across India — Andaman, Kerala, Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal, and the spiritual circuits Ankit’s grandfather once travelled by train — and international destinations from Europe, Japan, Maldives, Thailand and Singapore to Sri Lanka and beyond. Three generations after those first temple journeys, the family promise hasn’t changed:
Your trip. Your rules. And someone who actually picks up the phone.
Holiday Matrix Private Limited is a customised travel company based in Noida. Learn more at holidaymatrix.co.in.
