Project Overview

Tour Hoster is a travel marketplace for discovering India's hidden gems — handpicked tours, local guides, stays and experiences. The brand's philosophy says it all: 'Not for Tourists. Only for Travellers.' Stacknyu built the platform across web, iOS and Android on a single PocketBase backend, so travellers can search by location, dates, guests and budget, while hosts create packages across four categories — sightseeing, full packages, stays and guides — and manage bookings, wallets and payouts from a dedicated dashboard.

Challenges & Objectives

1. Authentic Travel, at Scale
   • Challenge: The platform needed to feel curated and authentic while supporting packages from many hosts and categories.
   • Objective: Build a marketplace where hosts create packages across four categories — sightseeing, full packages, stays and guides — and travellers filter by location, dates, guests and budget.
2. Cross-Platform Presence
   • Challenge: Travellers discover and book on the go, so the experience had to work on web and mobile.
   • Objective: Deliver a website plus native iOS and Android apps sharing one PocketBase backend and the same business logic.
3. Host and Traveller Trust
   • Challenge: A two-sided marketplace needs clear journeys and quality control for both hosts and travellers.
   • Objective: Provide 'Become a Host' onboarding with admin approval, traveller tools like My Trips and Messages, and SOS emergency contacts for on-trip safety.
4. Secure, Production-Grade Payments
   • Challenge: Money flows between travellers, hosts and the platform on every booking.
   • Objective: Razorpay checkout with HMAC-signed webhooks, server-side amount validation, per-booking invoices and host wallet payouts.

Our Approach

1. Marketplace Architecture
   • We modelled hosts, packages, categories, package versions, orders, payments and chats in PocketBase, with Go services enforcing business rules and booking flows across web, iOS and Android.
2. Secure Payments & Payouts
   • A Razorpay-powered checkout handles advance and full payments, verified through HMAC-SHA256 webhooks. Hosts track earnings in a wallet and request UPI payouts; travellers receive an invoice for every transaction.
3. AI-Assisted Package Creation
   • Hosts generate complete itineraries with AI — from text descriptions or uploaded documents — then publish through an admin approval workflow with package versioning that keeps live listings consistent.
4. Real-Time Communication
   • In-app messaging with text and audio keeps hosts and travellers in sync, backed by Firebase Cloud Messaging push notifications on mobile.
5. Cross-Platform Parity
   • A SvelteKit web app and React Native apps for iOS and Android share one PocketBase backend, with deep links routing web package pages straight into the native apps.

Technologies Used

• Web: SvelteKit, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS.
• Mobile: React Native (Expo) for iOS and Android.
• Backend: PocketBase with Go services.
• Payments: Razorpay checkout, webhooks and invoice generation.
• Infrastructure: Cloudflare Pages, Firebase Cloud Messaging and Google Maps.

Outcome

Tour Hoster is live as a complete travel marketplace — on the web, in the Google Play Store for Android and in the Apple App Store for iOS — operated by SHARKBONE INDIA NETWORK PRIVATE LIMITED. Local hosts share their world and earn from their expertise, while travellers discover India's hidden gems with secure Razorpay bookings, instant confirmations, real-time chat and SOS support on every trip.