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Eyeing a slice of the international leisure travel market, Amitabh Misra, former Chief Technology Officer of Snapdeal, has launched travel portal, GoFro, to service the needs of Indians going overseas.
MakeMyTrip, which owns majority stake in the company, had last year made an initial investment of $5 million (₹32 crore) in GoFro.
“Planning and booking travel is a painful process.You don’t know if you are getting the best deal. I felt that if we bring a marketplace model in the travel sector, it would cater to traveller needs by leveraging technology to fill the existing gaps,” Misra, Founder and CEO, GoFro, said.
The destinations currently listed on the portal are Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Bali, Mauritius and Dubai. GoFro aims to add 50 destinations on the portal by the end of this financial year. “We are starting with international travel, but will also focus on the domestic market later,” he said.
Stating that travel booking is time-consuming and error-prone due to manual processes, he says GoFro aims to offer a platform where travel packages can be built from multiple sources via using technology and in-house product teams and then further customised.
“On our platform, hundreds of suppliers come together and you can go for the best deal. For booking, we have a one-page holiday planner for the traveller,” he added.
The other features of the portal include live assistance for itineraries apart from offering ancillary services, such as visa, foreign exchange etc on the portal. “We will also have a data analytics- driven tool to suggest interesting activities during your stay at the destination,” he added.
The company will also launch a ‘companion app’ by the end of this month, which will help the travellers when they reach the destination.
“We are not actively looking at funding right now. But for growth, we will start looking at it three-four months later,” Misra said, adding that the size of the funding would depend on the traction that the portal sees in the market.
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