Mr Rafiqul Islam, currently working for a reputed national bank, doesn’t often get enough time to spend vacations with his family.
Last December, after getting a long-awaited vacation, he made a trip to Cox's Bazar. But what he faced there was nothing short of a nightmare. In his own words,
"Our entire family had to stay outside for almost a day because there were no hotels that had vacant rooms. We thought we would not have any problem finding one as this is a really large tourist hub, but never did I know the situation was this dire."
Rafiqul Islam was one of 0.4 million tourists who went to Cox’s Bazar last December and like many others, he was the victim of the mismanagement and hurried booking process which lead to room shortage and an exponential rise of the room fares.
Also, price hike during the peak season is another major concern. If things can’t be managed earlier, hotel rents, during spot booking when there are thousands of tourists, may rise.
Nigar Sultana, a homemaker, faced a problem that was a bit different to that of Mr Rafiqul. She booked a room after arriving in Chattogram with her family in a relatively well-known hotel. But once she got to the room, the conditions totally astonished her.
"The room was supposed to be pretty big and spacious, at least that's what the manager said while handing over the key to us.
“But it was not even close to a big room and there were no amenities like the ones they promised we would have there. I think we should have been more aware of the overall condition before naively selecting a hotel," said Mrs Sultana to the writer.
These problems are common in a country like ours where most of the people go on to visit tourist spots like Cox's Bazar, Chittagong Hill Tracts, The Sundarbans etc whenever they get a chance.
As there is a specific season of tourism due to the fact that most organisations of Bangladesh choose to offer vacations to their employees at roughly the same time, a huge influx of tourists happens which lead to people having difficulties in booking hotel rooms offline.
Nevertheless, these difficulties are completely avoidable with the digitalisation of management.
GoZayaan, the ultimate online platform for next-generation travelling, has emerged to the scene with exactly this vision, to mitigate the major problems that people face while having to deal with the issues of tourism.
People can book hotels while completely being aware of the amenities from their homes with the help of GoZayaan.
The Bangladeshi peak season for tourism is mainly from October to March, and during this period of time, GoZayaan might prove to be handy.
GoZayaan is the first Bangladeshi online travel agency that has come up with an end-to-end automated booking system that addresses all travel issues like flights, hotels, tours, and buses.
Their goal is to empower the travellers which will give them the freedom to make their travel plans on their own.
GoZayaan thinks that rather than being constrained by timetables, travel should be enjoyable. The company aspires to eliminate any difficulties encountered during local and international travel.
During the difficult days of the pandemic, GoZayaan implemented a number of activities to keep up with the changing climate of the travel market.
During rush hours, for instance, the coming 3 days weekend starting from the 17th of March when millions of people are expected to travel, it will be easy for travellers to avail the facilities and book tickets through GoZayaan, avoiding all the offline hassles.
Farzana Bushra, Assistant Manager of Marketing at GoZayaan, talked to the writer about the mission and vision of the company.
"Booking a hotel room during peak season can be exhausting especially when someone has to make phone calls to several properties to ask for availability or find hotels on the spot, which can also be time-consuming.
“One of the biggest pain points, in that case, is paying for a room way higher than usual because of the high demand. Also in most cases, customers do not have enough visibility of the room they want or compare prices. It's also not very clear which amenities might come with the room.”
GoZayaan addressed these issues by bringing all 3-5 star nationwide hotels to its platform. With this, customers can browse, compare and book their desired hotel by looking up the specific destination on a given date.
They can also see the availability of different amenities that come with the room and even set a price range from the filter sorting tool on the website. The same goes for the mobile app.
“This whole process can be done within minutes in a fully automated way online. GoZayaan also adds more flexibility by constantly adding various payment partners to its platform," added Ms Bushra.
Internet usage in Bangladesh is at a record high at this moment. So, with all the inconveniences associated with the tourism industry, it is high time travellers enjoyed all the travel-related services online.
And with GoZayaan being the industry pioneer, a new dimension in the tourism sector of Bangladesh is very well on the rise.
rassiq.aziz@gmail.com