Since the time smartphones burst onto the market, developers have come up with an innumerable range of apps designed to make lives easier. Travel apps are no less ingenious, but with the number of such applications on the rise, being simply useful is no longer enough; it also needs to be quirky and innovative (think packing for a pet).

As global smartphone adoption continues to increase, travellers’ demand for mobile apps shows no signs of stopping. According to a report by mobile marketing specialist Somo, 30 million individuals seek travel information via mobile devices and travel apps each month, while 44 percent of travellers even plan their trip via mobile device.

For the social and mobile consumer, apps that provide access to reviews, purchase comparison and local recommendations have become an integral part of the entire travel process. So, while travellers can still glean all advice and itineraries from experienced travellers and popular blogs, the latest in apps offer a way to digitally tap into the expertise of a guide with the advantages of GPS to make the journey smoother and the smartphone smarter.

#1. Guides by Lonely Planet – The city guide app helps users plan trips and learn about worldwide destinations. Launched in 2016 with content covering 38 cities, including London, New York, Paris and Rome, the Guides app includes an average of 1,000 points of interest for each city, and allows users to download individual city guides and access offline maps for these locations. Users can browse points of interest based on categories including ‘see,’ ‘eat’ and ‘sleep,’ among others, and can also browse lists of curated content based on themes.

Users can also browse a city’s map to find attractions in a particular neighbourhood, and can also browse attractions based on their current location. In addition, the app provides an overview of each city, as well as tips for planning a trip on various budgets. Guides has expanded massively since it launched and is now available for 177 cities, and remains free.

Read more about Lonely Planet India’s journey in the country, here.

#2. AudioCompass – Whether you’re looking to try a new adventure sport or simply soak in a city’s culture, this official audio tour app of Incredible India, AudioCompass, is a handy guide for anyone who’s been disappointed by tourist guides. It has well-researched audio guides narrated by local experts, that bring alive the history, culture and heritage of destinations. From the architecture of the Taj Mahal to even homes of Bollywood stars in Mumbai – the app covers everything.

With more than 1200 attractions in different countries including, India, Singapore, Oman, London, and Istanbul, there’s something for everyone. The destinations can be downloaded on phone for offline use as well. While some of the audio on the app is for free, users can upgrade to Pro for just INR 49. Available on iOS.

#3. PackPoint – PackPoint not only helps travellers organize what they need to pack based on duration of travel, it also tells you the weather at the destination and any activities planned during the trip. The app prepares a customized packing list, based on the data it accumulates from the destination. One of the other highlights of this app is its feature that lets travellers create a website for their packing list. By doing so, it allows users to share the website link with fellow travellers in a group so they know what to pack as well.

Available on iOS and Android for free.

#4. GateGuru from TripAdvisor – In addition to offering basic flight tracking, GateGuru connects the dots between many other intricacies of travel plans. The application basically allows users to view their TripIt and KAYAK itineraries, details such as where to check in at the airport, estimated security wait times, and maps of amenities within the terminals, replete with 35,000 reviews and tips and 10,000 photos from fellow travellers on the airport terminal and all its amenities.

The app probably offers one of the most comprehensive listing of airport amenities. The search engine is easy to navigate and also lets users bookmark favourite airports and preferred amenities. GateGuru currently covers 29 Asian airports, apart from other international airports, and is free on iOS and Android.

#5. Trips by Google – Google Trips serves as a trip planner and travel guide for anyone who is exploring a new place. The free app, which is available on Android and iOS, organizes plane tickets and hotel reservations, offers editorial guides to more than 200 cities, and makes personalized recommendations based on a user’s Google history.

While Trips lacks pro-travel features like the ones on TripIt, it makes up for that lack with its useful city guides that leverage a range of Google services. The heart of the app is in its ‘Things to Do’, which builds custom itineraries based on how long a traveller will be in town, popular destinations, and anything that they may have previously starred or saved on a Google service. Moreover, each guide can be edited to include other destinations. Best of all – all of this works offline as well.

Read more on Google’s efforts at reshaping the travel industry, here.

#6. Weather Pro – While nobody can control the weather, this app definitely helps them prepare for a rainy day. Weather Pro offers weather reports for more than two million geographical locations, feeding in everything from cloud formations and atmospheric pressure to wind speed and humidity, all in extensive detail. The core functions of this app should help users sail smoothly and are easily accessible via five main tabs. The most amazing features of Weather Pro include a 3-hourly forecast for one week ahead, a list of chosen favourite locations, alerts for extreme weather conditions and a global satellite to give general weather update in major cities.

A big plus- It is crazily accurate. The app is available on iPhone, iPad for INR 159 and for INR 220 on Android.

The post Six travel apps and why you should have them on your phone this year appeared first on TravHQ.

Building a successful business isn’t easy. The road from having the idea to actually taking the plunge is tough and the journey beyond that is even tougher. Despite that, we learn about a large number of startups everyday, especially in the fast growing travel space. There are many entrepreneurs who choose to address the pain point of masses. While there are many unsuccessful entrepreneurs, there are some who set examples for others. They make mistakes, they learn from them, they improvise and they keep going.

We reached out to some of the travel industry entrepreneurs, who made news this year, to share the lessons from their journey so far. Here are some of them:

Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO Rooms

If there is one startup that stirred up the travel industry ecosystem this year, it has to be OYO Rooms. Ritesh Agarwal started his entrepreneurial journey at a very young age and went on to become the first Indian to win Thiel Fellowship. He started OYO Rooms to address the lack of quality hotel accommodation in India by offering predictable and affordable options. They have a network of hotels across 160 cities in India where they are offering great value to the travellers and the tourism ecosystem. This year, the budget hotel aggregator raised over USD 125 million funding and expanded fast enough to threaten some of the biggest names in the industry.

He shared, “In 2015, we learnt from experience that if you can showcase demonstrable benefits to business-owners, and utilize technology to manage everyday business problems, even a legacy industry such as Hotels can be modernized. In over 4000 hotels across India, hotel-owners use our business apps to manage inventory, revenue and CRM.

Lastly, it is critical to build a great team and stay agile. Our hyper-growth coupled with strong unit-economics would not have been possible were it not for diligent operations focus executed by high-quality talent.”

Yogendra Vauspal, Founder, Stayzilla

Yogendra is another entrepreneur who started his journey at a very young age. He started with various web and e-commerce projects after dropping out of engineering at the age of 19. As he went deeper into this space, he went on to launch an e-commerce portal of his own. Eventually he launched the accommodation portal Stayzilla. With the message ‘Make room for something new’, this year Stayzilla shifted focus to homestays and other form of alternative stays.

Talking about his learning from the same, Yogendra said, “Indians are not really closed minded or fragmented by various lines of preference as we like to believe. We are witnessing a beautiful expression of opening up homes or extra rooms for a variety of demographics and an ease with which homeowners have adopted the concept. Although they can select at deeper levels on basis language and food habits, we are seeing the selections happening at a very broad level of traveller type and there is a larger openness in the people than we actually believe exists. Indian homeowners are much more open when it comes to hosting guests and I believe this was the biggest learning of 2015 for us at Stayzilla.”

Sankalp Agarwal, Co-founder and CEO, TravelTriangle

With entrepreneurship in his blood, Sankalp Agarwal is the co-founder of TravelTriangle, India’s first full-stack holiday marketplace. At TravelTriangle, he leads the company vision and is intrinsically involved in fundraising, business growth & creating a world class team. He held a lucrative post at Adobe before his own entrepreneurial venture. His innovative nature led him to tackle various technological gaps in day to day life during his college days and he is trying to do something similar for travellers with TravelTriangle.

Emphasising the right growth strategy for a startup, he said, “For a business the first and foremost thing is to chase 100 fans. In the category having 100 fans who will talk about you is way better than having 1 million people liking you. As for a startup- look at the growth in this way. One starts from the garage moves on to a small office which leads to a tribe of followers converting into a village and eventually a nation. When you are in garage phase you have to invest in the product, relentlessly pursue the product till there is traction and as you move into a small office get the generalist and right product market fit people. Once you move to a tribe format you will need specialist like Marketing- HR function to take care of your business. It’s a constant process of evolution which comes through growing with right intent.”

Gautam Shewakramani, Founder & CEO, AudioCompass

Born and brought up in Mumbai, Gautam did his undergrad in Computer Science and Film and then went on to business school at MIT Sloan in Boston. After moving back to his home, he spent some time actively working with and seed investing in startups and that is when he got inspired to start AudioCompass. AudioCompass offers audio guidebooks for a large number of tourist attractions through a very simple mobile app. This year AudioCompass expanded to Oman and also won the Start Tel Aviv award.

Highlighting the importance of business associations, Gautam said, “One of the biggest challenges for us in building AudioCompass has been convincing some of the legacy travel industry players that customers are ready for change. In travel, change has been demand driven, i.e. consumers are demanding change before suppliers are offering it. AudioCompass’ early success and validation has come from the fact that we saw a gap and anticipated the consumer need of wanting to be empowered while traveling.”

Abdul Hadi Shaikh, CEO, Fxkart.com

Exchanging money is a hassle in India and there is a lack of information about the processes and formalities. Dr. Mushtaq Shah, who was head of research for Equinox Capital Management, founded Fxkart after facing the problem dealing with individual Forex dealers during his frequent international trips. After founding Fxkart, he got Abdul Hadi Shaikh on-board as CEO. Abdul was the head of research at Ratings Intelligence, an ethical investment advisory firm in London before joining Fxkart. After the launch this year, Fxkart was quick to introduce a mobile app and partner with AirAsia.

Speaking from his experience of building a marketplace business, Abdul Hadi Shaikh said, “As an aggregator our biggest challenge was to work on both sides of the business. We thought that enabling tech for the dealers would be the easier part but we really had to swim against the tide to get 650+ dealer locations while the customers adopted quickly. That was something we didn’t expect but that was ground reality. Learning – Assumptions are good but they are not necessarily the right way”

Sidharth Gupta, Co-Founder, Treebo Hotels

The budget hotel industry has seen lot of activity this year and another startup that stood out in this space is Treebo Hotels. Treebo Hotels officially started in June and raised series A funds from Matrix and SAIF Partners in June itself, making it one of the fastest series A fund raised by a tech startup since inception. The co-founder Sidharth comes with a very strong educational background and has worked with McKinsey and Company for years before joining hands with Rahul Chaudhary and Kadam Jeet Jain to start Treebo Hotels.

Focusing on the value offered by a startup, Sidharth said, “In the current heady environment it’s easy for new entrepreneurs to be misled into doing a lot of jazzy things, quickly. It’s also easy for them to believe that funding and PR are their given rights! But I think founders need to first ask themselves the question – ‘What is our single biggest value addition to the customer’s life?’ ‘What is our reason for existence?’ ‘What is our core?’. They must develop clarity on this, and then relentlessly work on offering this value to the customer over and over again. Once you get this right everything else – growth, funding, revenue, PR, etc. – will follow”

Benny Kao, Co-Founder, TripVerse

Benny has always been fascinated with technology and how it changes the world. He holds experience of working with some big names in the industry. Being an avid traveller, he often faced problem managing his trips with the existing tools which inspired him to start TripVerse. TripVerse allows travellers to discover authentic user generated trip ideas and create their own itineraries to keep them informed even offline. Recently the startup was selected to be a part of Amadeus’ travel startup initiative Amadeus Next.

Emphasising the importance of simplifying user experience, Benny said, “With so much information available on the internet, travel planning isn’t really easier and simpler than before. The information overload we have today might have made travel planning a more lengthy process. I believe true value lies in presenting travellers information that is relevant and actionable”

Kunal Jain, Co-Founder, Your Local Cousin

It isn’t easy to plan activities for your trip when you are travelling there for the first time. The problem takes another scale, especially when you are travelling to an international destination. This inspired Kunal to start Your Local Cousin. It is a peer to peer service which connects travellers to a local expert and as travellers look for the human connect in travel, such services are picking up fast. This allows them to explore like a local and not like a tourist.

Kunal emphasised on the importance of networking and said, “Sitting behind your laptop and plugging away all day is not a healthy way to build a startup / business. You should get out, meet people and have a social life and the sooner you figure this out the better you’ll think and perform mentally”

You can also download our list of travel industry predictions by industry experts for the year 2016 here.

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Marking a major development, the Ministry of Tourism – Oman, has collaborated with AudioCompass thereby including Oman as a destination available to tourists on the AudioCompass app.

AudioCompass, an application available on iOS and Android, assists as an audio guide to travellers exploring tourist destinations at the global level. Through its high-quality, informative and detailed audio-based content, AudioCompass brings alive the history, culture and heritage significance of 1200 tourist destinations across the world. It reveals the closest tourist attractions to the travellers recognizing their geographical location at any given time. It can also be used offline so users won’t have to worry about data costs while travelling. AudioCompass is integrated in holiday packages available at MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Thomas Cook and Cox & Kings.

Within Oman, AudioCompass will offer audio stories for 80+ tourist destinations. The tourist destinations include: Muscat, Al Sharqiyah, Al Dakhliya, Al Batinah, Dhofar and Musandam. Exploring these tourist spots with AudioCompass will be like having a knowledgeable and local friend all the time. The app provides soothing music to enhance the wonderful travelling experience.

According to their press-release, Gautam Shewakramani, the founder of AudioCompass, quoted:

“AudioCompass in Oman is a leap forward to empowering travelers visiting the country. We are thrilled that the Ministry of Tourism has chosen to support us in bringing an authentic Omani experience to travelers via their mobile phones.”

Elaborating on this development, Lubaina Sheerazi, India representative of Ministry of Tourism, Oman, said:

“AudioCompass helps the growing breed of independent travelers from India gain deeper understanding of a culturally and historically rich and vibrant destination like Oman. People want high quality, personal and authentic experiences, and our partnership with AudioCompass helps facilitate this while improving knowledge and accessibility of Oman to travelers from India.”

AudioCompass, founded by Gautam Shewakramani in Mumbai, is the official audio-guide of Incredible India, Government of India. With the belief system of ‘every traveller deserves great stories’, AudioCompass plans to gain a stronger foothold in the travel industry.

To gain more perspective about AudioCompass and their success story over the years, read our interview with Gautam Shewakramani here.

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Personalized audio tour guide app company, AudioCompass has won the India leg of Start Tel Aviv, which was organized at India International Centre in New Delhi yesterday by The Embassy of Israel in association with TIE Delhi-NCR. AudioCompass which made it from over 100 startup entries across the country will now be representing India in the DLD Tel Aviv Innovation festival to be held between September 6 and 12 2015.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tel Aviv Global brings together technology startups from 21 different countries around the world with its global competition, Start Tel Aviv. The participants compete for an opportunity to take part in an all expenses paid, five-day startup experience in Tel Aviv’s unrivaled startup ecosystem.

Image Source: AudioCompass Facebook Page

AudioCompass, started by Gautam Shewakramani began as a physical audio guide business – in partnership with the Archaeological Survey of India before evolving into a mobile app putting together phone tour guides, containing 1000+ audio clips narrated by local, expert guides.

While the app itself is free to download, the users need to pay for the audio tour guide for a POI (Point of Interest). The company’s service spans across prominent sites in India such as the Agra Fort, Taj Mahal, Khajuraho etc.

Also Read: Our Interview with Gautam Shewakramani.

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The much awaited 2-day eTailing and Travel Commerce Conference summit by IAMAI gets underway tomorrow at Hotel Lalit in New Delhi. With a cracking line-up of speakers & panel discussions on some burning topics in the travel industry, the summit holds tremendous promise for all travel marketers, analysts and media fraternity.

TravHQ is the official media supporter for the event and our team will be bringing you the latest news on both days. With less than 24 hours to go for the Conference, here are some key sessions that you should definitely watch-out:

• Our Tourism Ministry has been quite active on the digital front and had launched an Incredible India mobile app last year. Considering that the Incredible India campaign has been offline for quite sometime now, the inaugural session by Guest of Honour, Shri Suman Billa, Jt. Secretary, Ministry of Tourism should give insights into government’s latest initiatives to promote India as a tourist destination

• The morning plenary session, Impact of Travel Market Places for The Online Travel Market boasts of a fantastic line-up of panelists including Sankalp Agarwal, Chief Executive Office of Travel Triangle, Aloke Bajpai, CEO and Co-founder, ixigo, Yogendra Vasupal, Founder and CEO, Stayzilla Deepak Wadhwa, Co-founder, WeAreHolidays. The discussion would focus on building trust & customer retention in the highly challenging online travel space led by instant gratifications.
• For those who love to track emerging travel-startups, the session on Social Travel-How New Age Start-Ups Are Redefining The Travel Industry? is a must attend. The session has Gautam Shewakramani, Founder & CEO, AudioCompass, Paavan Nanda, Co-founder, Zostel & Chitra Gurnani, Co-Founder, Thrillophilia Adventure Tours and Ish Jindal, Co-founder, Padhaaro as panelists.
• We also have a session on Global Expansion In Travel And Hospitality Industry – An Appetite For Growth.
• On Day 2, the session on Social Media Driving Digital Conversations In Tourism And Hospitality Industry will capture the latest trends on how OTAs, online market places and hotels are using Social Media to attract & engage the customers.

That’s not all! Speakers from leading OTAs, Yatra & Cleartrip would be sharing the experience of their respective journeys in the competitive travel landscape. Overall, the summit is a must attend for those who want to stay updated with the latest trends in “Travel & Hospitality” industry.

If you are a Travel brand and have a story to share with us, get in touch with our team at the summit. You can give us a shout-out on our Twitter handle or write at info@travhq.com.

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From providing offline audio guide books at tourist attractions to offering one of a kind personal tour guide for every traveller, AudioCompass has covered many miles since its inception in 2011. The app now offers audio guides for almost all major destinations in India covering the points of interest thoroughly. We got in touch with Gautam Shewakramani, the brain behind AudioCompass to know more about the journey and the road ahead.

Gautam Shewakramani, Founder AudioCompass

Q&A with Gautam below

TravHQ- Tell us a bit about yourself and what made you start AudioCompass.

Gautam- I was born and brought up in Mumbai – I did my undergrad in Computer Science and Film (double major), worked for a little while in management consulting in NYC, and then went on to business school at MIT Sloan in Boston. After business school I moved back home to Mumbai where I spent some time actively working with and seed investing in start-ups. It was around that time that I founded AudioCompass. These days, when I’m not working on AudioCompass I am spending time with my wife and 4 month old daughter, planning my next scuba diving vacation, or tinkering with my Raspberry Pi [sometimes all 3 at the same time]

Like many startups, AudioCompass came from a personal pain point. I found plenty of resources to inspire me to travel, even more to help me book and plan my travel.. but none of them made it easy or more convenient to get information while I was at my destination. I used poor substitutes, like unofficial touts, who condensed 500 years of history in 5 lines and were more interested in taking me shopping than sharing accurate information. I found myself whizzing past sights without learning about them and spending time in tourist shops… I read history off my iPhone screen when I should have been looking around. I felt was that none of these options allowed me to hear and absorb the stories of the destination in a convenient, cost effective manner. With that as inspiration, I started AudioCompass in 2011.

TravHQ- How has the journey of AudioCompass been so far?

Gautam- We started off as a physical audio guide business – in partnership with the Archaeological Survey of India. They made us the official audio guide provider at some of India’s most important UNESCO sites, such as the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort. We learnt a lot about the business during those first few years and then decided to focus on mobile distribution of our content. We are the first and only company to directly tackle this major problem area of travel (especially in India), i.e. ensuring a high quality in-travel experience. Our flagship product, the AudioCompass mobile app, makes your sightseeing experience hassle free. It puts a personal tour guide on your phone, containing 1000+ audio clips narrated by local, expert guides. Users of our product get a one-of-a-kind experience, with story based, informative and accurate content.

TravHQ- Where do most of your users come from?

Gautam- Our users are from all over the world, especially with our recent expansion to international destinations. However, given that at this point a bulk of our destination coverage is in India we do majority of our users being domestic travelers. The age group of our users is very wide – we target travelers from age 20 – 50.

TravHQ- What sources do you use to compile data for the guides?

Gautam- Our product is designed to be like a local friend, while you are traveling. So in addition to facts and information about places, we focus on telling travelers stories that bring their experience alive. Unfortunately, many of the most amazing stories haven’t been documented… so as a result our creative team works with several sources to compile data – we start with secondary research online and in libraries to uncover facts and stories, and we also send our writers to visit destinations and speak to locals.

TravHQ- While the number of solo travellers is going up, a large number of travellers still travel with family or for business. The ‘explorers’ tag continues to be in minority. So how do you plan to expand the market here?

Gautam- Actually, we are seeing fantastic usage among family travelers and first time travelers as well. Our product is included in holiday packages sold by MakeMyTrip, Thomas Cook, Cox & Kings, and Yatra.com – and we are seeing amazing traction from travelers coming through these channels. “Explorers” are of course, heavy users, and they’re the ones that discover us organically. We’re working on features that will appeal to both types of travelers.

TravHQ- You have got guide books for attractions like museums as well. Do you see technologies like low energy Bluetooth / beacons being used sometime in future for indoor navigation data? Do you think something like that can further improve the user experience?

Gautam- Absolutely, we’re already working on integrating iBeacons with one of our on-site partners. More on this in the future!

TravHQ- Do you plan to add foreign destinations as well?

Gautam- We already have! We are the official app for Singapore Tourism and have over 8 tours in Singapore with about 100 points of interest. We’ve got a number of other international destinations in the works, including Thailand, Oman, etc.

TravHQ- Apart from adding new destinations, what are your plans for future? Do you plan to add more features that can be monetized?

Gautam- At this point, we are focused on adding useful features and increasing user engagement in our app- not on adding additional monetization. We already have a strong monetization strategy and revenue model, and don’t see any major changes to it over the next 12-24 months.

The way ahead looks really promising for Audio Compass. IoT will surely gain traction in near future and apps like Audio Compass will best leverage the development. We will keep you posted about the same. You can connect with Gautam here: LinkedIn Twitter

AudioCompass: Website Android App iOS App

(Featured image: Guidebook action by jaymis/ CC BY 2.0)

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