The Hindu Business Line : Delhi m@p

Ever travelled to Delhi and struggled to find your way around the Capital? Or wished you could strike better bargains on your shopping trips? You may find help at Zoomtra.com. Set up by two young entrepreneurs — Vikas Jawa, Director, Zoomtra.com and Avinash Agrawal, CEO, RouteGuru — the Web service promises help with hassle-free travel in and around Delhi and the NCR region.

Explaining the service, Jawa says, “Zoomtra.com is an independent travel search engine that enables travel sellers (airlines, hotels, tour providers and others) to promote their deals in an unbiased and neutral format to buyers. RouteGuru is a leading service for searching maps, directions and related travel information, accessible over the Internet, SMS and GPRS systems. Its services are currently available in Delhi-NCR. RouteGuru pioneered ‘turn-by-turn landmark-intelligent directions’. This technology is pending a patent. We worked together to integrate a widget from RouteGuru that opens up every time someone searches for a flight or train from Delhi. By using this widget, one can easily find driving directions from a location to IGI Airport and any railway station in Delhi/NCR.”

Widgets are basically the plug-ins from an external Web site to your Web site. Users have to log on to RouteGuru and key in the destination (say Connaught Circus to Karol Bagh Western Ext Area). The map shows up alongside details of what your transport should charge you, with the extras also clearly marked.

“We plan to develop this service for other cities in the country too.

This also marks the beginning of our Web-syndication phase. The idea is to extend our product through good third-party applications that would benefit from it,” says Agrawal.

A few offices are using this service to cross-check their employees’ travel allowance claims.

paromita.pain@gmail.com.