GoFro aims to become a 24x7 international travel assistant

Ismita Sarkar, a media professional, had a harrowing time while on a holiday in Russia, last year. Though she had taken an expensive package from a very popular travel site, she had to face difficulty finding her places of stay in a country that doesn’t communicate in English. She had to spend a huge amount on her phone calls to India asking for every minute details.

Like Sarkar, there are several travellers who have to go through some problem or other in a foreign land and have no clue how to get things resolved.

New Delhi-based start-up GoFro is trying to solve these same issues. The company, founded by former Snapdeal CTO Amitabh Misra last year, has launched an app —Companion App — to help travellers with all their queries while on a holiday.

The app’s team comprising travel experts is available 24x7 to help address customer queries on real time — right from suggesting a local restaurant and places of interest, to helping travellers with passport-, forex-, calling cards- or visa-related issues. The app also provides timely alerts and useful information to the travellers.

“We are trying to solve problems beyond normal flight or hotel booking. Several minor issues become major once you are in a foreign land. Our app acts as a 24x7 guide,” said Misra, whose love for travel lead to the travel-tech start-up.

GoFro is a marketplace for local as well as online travel agents and is focussed on international holidays. It doesn’t create holiday packages for travellers; it helps them customise their own plan and gives them flexibility to prepare their itineraries. The firm also allows users to tweak or change their itinerary whenever they want and co-edit it with the help of the travel experts. GoFro aggregates large number of offerings from hundreds of suppliers on a single platform, and carries no inventory.

“The GoFro Companion App requires an active internet connection to operate. At a later stage, we plan on introducing free sim cards as a part of our packages.”

In one year, Bona Vita Technologies, which owns GoFro, has been able to raise a substantial amount from leading travel portal MakeMyTrip. It is a 100-strong team, and is clocking ₹10 crore in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) from about 1,000 transactions in a month.

“We have booked packages for as low as ₹50,000 to high as ₹19 lakh.”

Misra said more Indians are now opting for international travel; hence there are several local agents and travel portals trying to tap that opportunity. But in the process of taking a holiday package, travel becomes an expensive affair by almost 30-40 per cent.

Even though the companycompetes with MakeMyTrip in the holiday booking segment, it has listed MakeMyTrip on its site.

Misra says international travel is a very profitable business with margins ranging 25-30 per cent as against 10-15 per cent in domestic travel.

GoFro already has tie-ups with agents in about 14 countries. The plan is to add 50 more countries in the coming year, Misra said, adding that the international travel market, about $8 billion in value at present, is all set to grow to $24 billion in the next four years.

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