Digital Tourism in Bangladesh: The story of GoZayaan

Digital tourism is a relatively new term in the Southeast Asian region. GoZayaan has been a pioneer of digital tourism in Bangladesh, currently working with less than 5% of the entire tourism industry. However, just focusing on this 5% the company has seen overwhelming growth.

The Bangladeshi travel-tech startup has made significant noise in the past year by showing noteworthy growth. Current funding for the company in the seed round stands at US $8.1 million according to Crunchbase. Keeping true to their motto of  'going limitless', GoZayaan has been constantly coming up with tech driven solutions to problems modern travelers face. Today the future of digital tourism in Bangladesh is discussed in reference to the growth GoZayaan has seen in recent times.

Is Bangladesh ready for digital tourism?

According to Bangladesh Statistics Bureau (BBS), the internet penetration rate among adults in Bangladesh is 37.01%. While many online services have gained popularity during this time, e-commerce has somewhat suffered due to fraudulent activities on some platforms. There is still mass skepticism around spending large sums of money online. The entire tourism industry also faced significant damage due to the pandemic, resulting in a difficult path for GoZayaan.

The company survived smartly during this time by shifting focus from international to domestic. The brand exclusively promoted essential travels and came up with products such as Go-Safe, travel insurance, integrated RT-PCR tests with international flights etc. GoZayaan has even more ambitious goals as they onboarded an inventory of around 700,000 hotels on their platform afterwards. This move has enabled travelers to have far more visibility and options with their travel bookings, which was not possible before on any Bangladeshi platform.

These activities during the pandemic resulted in huge growth for GoZayaan. The company was able to expand at a time when most tourism related businesses were at a halt or closing down. According to current statistics, GoZayaan has seen 10 times growth in the last 12 months. This proves that Bangladesh is keen to shift towards digital tourism in the near future.

GoZayaan's Goals

Moving forward, GoZayaan acquired a Pakistani online travel marketplace in the beginning of 2022. This was the first time in the Bangladeshi travel industry for any travel-tech platform to expand overseas. The acquisition was a smart move at the time due to similarity in geography, user behavior and the utilization of digital platforms in terms of travel booking.

To build trust, GoZayaan started by partnering up with renowned financial institutions rather than only focusing on deals and discounts. Services such as 0% EMI, baggage protection etc. were onboarded to make the entire travel booking experience more convenient. Value added services are even offered to users by partnering up with lifestyle and telecommunication brands to provide further benefits for travelers.

GoZayaan aims to become a 360 degree travel solution for travelers. The platform wants to provide not only flights, hotels or tours - but an end-to-end automated travel booking experience. GoZayaan's platform further proves its superiority by being extremely user friendly.

The Road Ahead

GoZayaan has maintained a steady stream of returning users despite being a new service in both the Bangladesh and Pakistani market. In the months following the acquisition, the rate of returning users for GoZayaan has steadily increased. This indicates acceptance and growth towards the brand in Pakistan as well as Bangladesh.

The brand campaign launched earlier this year encouraged travelers to go limitless. GoZayaan has stayed true to their promise by bringing services that make travel accessible for all. Whether travelers want adventure or leisure, beautiful nature or vibrant city life, mountains or the beach- travel can continue to be limitless.

With steady growth statistics and an ever growing user base, it can confidently be said that GoZayaan has not only survived, but thrived. Now the question remains, what's next for GoZayaan?

Disclaimer: This is sponsored article