GoZayaan brings convenience to travelers by regularly introducing exciting new services. Starting from excellent hotel inventory, flight booking solutions, travel insurance, and baggage insurance, GoZayaan has consistently introduced new innovations. The company says it aims to bring every component of international travel—flights, hotels, tours—under one platform.
If you are a regular traveler, you are well aware of all the challenges travelers like you have to face when it comes to traveling internationally from Bangladesh. Travelers routinely complain publicly online about many of these challenges. For others, it is so frustrating, even complaining is not worth it.
It’s bad for morale to numerate one's own troubles but it helps with developing an understanding and awareness. So in the interest of the common good, here are some of the challenges travelers face while booking international travel services from Bangladesh.
Local offline vendors don’t provide enough options for international hotels or flights, making informed decisions is a challenge. It is often like a blind date. You choose something and wish for the best. Little to no option to see photos of rooms when it comes to hotel booking or learn about specific amenities before going to the venue. Similarly, the option to compare multiple flight prices is limited in the offline-dominated scene in Bangladesh.
Most people can’t access the services of foreign online platforms that offer large inventories of international hotels for various reasons such as payment methods being limited to foreign credit cards or dollar-endorsed credit cards. Now a large majority of Bangladeshis don’t own international credit/debit cards, which limits their ability to pay for these services.
Now many of these foreign websites also offer a “pay at property” option, which means you can pay once you reach the hotel. But it requires carrying and endorsing a large amount of additional foreign currency during traveling. Skyrocketing exchange rates are a great disadvantage in this regard. And you might not want to carry that amount of foreign currency anyway. One option that can make this entire saga super simple for most Bangladeshis is allowing them to pay in local currency. Unfortunately, there is no option to use the local currency or pay through local methods on these international websites.
To avoid many of these challenges, many travelers choose to take tour packages. But tour packages come with their own limitations. For one, package tours often put people's vacation time in set boxes with little freedom. You can do this but not that. You can go to these places but not to those places. The majority of these packages are not customizable. Often you compromise and go grudgingly since there are not many options left. Anyways, life is about bad compromises, you may self-console.
GoZayaan, the Dhaka head quartered travel-tech company, has been an unusual player in this space since birth. Instead of fancying around cool ideas, the company has a knack for taking on the real challenges travelers face head-on. Paying close attention to the long list of solutions the company introduced over the last three years proves that the company truly takes the challenges of travelers into its heart.
Throughout the pandemic, GoZayaan introduced several services to empower local travel in Bangladesh. As we enter a post-pandemic world and international travel returns in full force, GoZayaan has turned its attention to addressing challenges travelers face when it comes to international travel from Bangladesh.
We discussed some of the major pain in the ass for international travelers above. Let’s see how GoZayaan has been designing solutions to solve these challenges.
Let’s start with the final challenge we mentioned — the inflexible tour packages. GoZayaan has since turned tour packages on its head. The company offers completely customizable online packages to provide freedom to travelers. Design your own travel plans. Choose the destinations you want to visit. Foods you want to eat. Adventures you want to take. And simply ask GoZayaan to make it happen.
To offer the ultimate freedom of booking any hotel, GoZayaan has created an inventory of almost 700,000 hotels—the largest for any Bangladeshi travel platform. You can book based on your every preference—price, amenities, location, or any other priorities. Detailed information, photos, and location data are provided about each hotel to make your decision easier. GoZayaan’s platform also allows users to customize their search according to star rating and price. The cherry on top, ratings from other users are visible to determine the quality of the hotel.
For flights, GoZayaan offers comprehensive international flight solutions. You can browse through numerous flight options, compare prices, and choose the best. The process is entirely transparent and puts the control in the hands of the traveler.
Now that you have chosen the hotel and flights, how do you make payment? GoZayaan has made it possible to pay through any local payment method—credit card, debit card, Bkash, Nagad, Upay, Tap, etc. No worries about dollar endorsements or foreign credit cards.
The entire process is automated and does not require travelers to make calls or talk to a representative to confirm bookings. Instant confirmation is provided along with a voucher for the booking.
Most importantly, travelers can take advantage of 0% EMI for upto 6 months for flights, hotels, and tours. GoZayaan is the only online travel platform in Bangladesh to currently offer the 0% EMI service for flights. We also covered GoZayaan's unique EMI facilities before here. It allows you to travel without putting additional pressure on your monthly pay cheque. You can split your expenses and pay in monthly installments.
GoZayaan is venturing forth into a territory that was mostly overlooked before. People used to rely on international websites for international travel services. GoZayaan says it is changing consumer behavior and pushing travelers to book these services through local websites. The company says it aims to bring every component of international travel—flights, hotels, tours—under one platform.
Apart from improving existing travel services, GoZayaan has onboarded many local and international vendors to bring value-added services to its customers. Let’s take a look at several of those services
Travel Loan: Online travel loans can be availed for upto 200,000 BDT. We’ve written about the GoZayaan travel loan before here. It is one of the most interesting service innovations in travel of late.
Travel Insurance: During the COVID times, GoZayaan launched the travel insurance service which could be availed for as low as 10 BDT. This included coverage for upto 100,000 BDT and confirmed proper medical care in case of a traveler contracts COVID during his stay.
Baggage Insurance: Partnering up with BlueRibbon Bags, GoZayaan has become the first company in Bangladesh to provide baggage protection. There is no need to fret over lost luggage anymore as only 300 BDT worth of premium while purchasing tickets can result in a payoff of upto 30,000 BDT in case luggage is lost.
GoZayaan was founded in 2017 with an ambition to empower travelers. Using a combination of innovation and service, the company has experienced excellent growth. But it doesn’t want to rest on its success.
GoZayaan says it aims to provide an end-to-end automated holistic travel booking experience. Whether one prefers relaxing vacations by the beach or daring adventures, travel is for everyone and travelers deserve the freedom to explore every horizon they dream of. GoZayaan says it is here to enable travelers to achieve their limitless dreams.
