With the onset of winter, the world gears itself for the peak holiday season with the many festivities concentrated around this time of the year. Rightfully so, given the cosy aura and ambience winter brings, it is the perfect season to travel. November through January are most suited for vacations because of the comfortable weather and clear skies across tropical countries.
However, whether planning a trip at home or abroad, the end-to-end arrangements can often be tedious given the many vendors one has to deal with, from transportation to accommodation. While the advent of e-commerce and online services has made our lives easier by bringing everything under our fingertips, the Bangladeshi tourism industry is still in the early stages and needs digitisation.
This inconveniences travellers who increasingly prefer smooth and hassle-free online bookings. GoZayaan is solving this through its tech-led platform to revolutionise the travel experience. With flights, hotels and tours - all in one platform, GoZayaan is a 360-degree travel solution.
The Current Scenario
The Bangladesh travel space is ripe for digital disruption and innovation. It is rather challenging to make bookings online for local hotels and tours in an era where almost everything is digitised. There are several hidden gems as travel destinations in Bangladesh, but most travellers rely on word of mouth to find out about these local tours or when someone within their network posts about them on social media.
This creates an information gap for travellers as vendors can charge varied prices for the tours due to the lack of transparency. We can also not leverage our local travel destinations as foreign tourists who want to travel to Bangladesh have no clear picture of where to visit and how to plan their itinerary safely and securely.
In addition, local travellers travelling abroad are often in a conundrum about flights and hotels as offline vendors offer limited options, limiting travellers' flexibility. There is also no chance to compare the pricing of various airlines.
Coming to hotels, in any given destination, you may have several hotels, but there is limited information about the hotel's pricing, amenities, quality and facilities.
As such, many resort to international travel platforms websites such as booking.com or Agoda but confirming the booking involves further complications. First, a foreign credit card or a dollar-endorsed credit card is required to confirm the booking. Even though some websites offer the 'pay at property' option, exchanging currencies twice results in additional charges. This issue is especially relevant for local travellers looking to travel overseas.
Many travel agencies offer tour packages, but this puts people's vacations in boxes where they cannot choose activities they want to participate in. Often people find themselves in situations where they end up paying for services they do not really want or enjoy. The option to have curated itineraries without having to deal with several vendors offline is rather limited in Bangladesh.
Where GoZayaan steps in
GoZayaan is a pioneer in the country's travel industry as the company is one of the first to attempt to digitise the sector. Starting with flights, the company soon onboarded hotels to facilitate online bookings and introduced curated tours.
To improve transparency and choice for all, GoZayaan even went down to root levels during the pandemic and onboarded local vendors who may not have previously been present online. Specific photos of tours, hotels, amenities and benefits are all mentioned on the website to provide optimal transparency.
Not only that, but to solve the prevalent issues with international hotel bookings, GoZayaan onboarded a massive inventory of 700,000 hotels to enable travellers to complete international hotel bookings from their homes using local currency. Almost all payment methods available in Bangladesh, from card to bKash, can be used to confirm the booking.
An added advantage for travellers is GoZayaan's 0 per cent EMI service for up to 6 months for all their offerings. This significantly decreases the burden of paying the whole amount at once, which was lacking previously for local travellers using international booking platforms.
GoZayaan also provides completely customisable tour packages, so travellers do not have to be limited by pre-planned itineraries. As part of its holistic approach, GoZayaan also provides many value-added services such as travel insurance, 0% EMI, baggage protection and more to make travelling all the more convenient and comfortable.
Hence, this holiday season, GoZayaan is all set to be one's go-to pick to manage travel itineraries end to end, minus the hassle and time. It is well on its way to opening up the pathway to attract local and foreign travellers to Bangladesh's hidden gems.
