By Papri Das

Ever felt the jitters right before you travel to a new place -- be it for work or leisure? And if it's a last minute trip, the planning, hotel reservations, ticket bookings, researching for places to see, all the while keeping the budget in check, complicates things further.

Add to that a huge group of people, each with their quirks and you have yourself a recipe for a pounding headache that will probably last your entire trip. This experience isn?t new to Snehal Dhruve, who was in the corporate world in the US for 10 years before deciding to follow his passion as an entrepreneur. His answer to the travel woes is GoHeroGo, a one stop app for all travel solutions.

?I am an avid traveller and no one app or website could ever help me in the research, plan and booking of my next outing. I?ve always been dependent on different tools and spent a lot of time on it. The intention to solve a real problem faced by travellers i.e. inconvenience while researching, planning and booking a travel activity became my inspiration to build this app,? shares Dhruve.

For his partner Jason Menezes, however, it was all about giving back something to the travelling community, which he has had been part of for several years. Although in line with Dhruve?s plight, Menezes had been personally hassled with the customer experience while booking across channels. ?It seemed as if no travel service provider cared about it while building a platform on mobile, online or offline,? he adds.

These collective discomfort with the way travellers have to plough through several apps and websites to plan a decent trip inspired the two to come up with GoHeroGo, which was launched to the Android and iOS marker on 1 September. ?It took two months to come up with an app powered with artificial intelligence technology. Our initial challenge was to find the right market fit for our product,? adds Dhruve.

So how does the app function? It's quite simple actually. You just have to chat. ?GoHeroGo is a chat-based travel concierge app, which uses artificial and human intelligence to fulfil customer requests across multiple categories like researching, planning and booking,? explains Menezes.

Simply put, just chat with the GoHeroGo team and ask whatever you need for your next travel plan. This includes flight or bus or rail tickets, a to-do itinerary, a cab or auto (subjective to city), trip essentials, restaurants of choice and more. ?Our trained team is standing by 24/7 to handle every request. We simply save you time and money by using artificial + human intelligence to process your request and order via chat,? assures Dhruve.

What sets this app apart from the collective pile of travel apps is the contextual travel information that the app provides 24X7. ?The app completes the booking on the customer?s behalf from the convenience of chat with real humans. Compare this to any travel app in India and you won?t see these offerings. Our app allows users to share their travel service provider preference for smarter response along with responses in beautifully created information cards,? Menezes explains.

Powered by their smart backend engine, the app effortlessly curates through many options and chooses the most relevant for users. ?We also have some tie-ups with selective online travel and product aggregators to provide the lowest price guarantee.?

With so many features, one would wonder how much the app costs. ?The app is free to download and so are its services on iOS and Google Play Store. There are no service charges from us or hidden fees. When you book things through us, you pay lesser than the price if you did it yourself,? comes Dhruve?s surprising response.

Fresh in the market since its launch at the Android and iOS stores, the app has garnered some patronage as well. ?We?ve got 1000 app downloads on Google Play and 1000 on iOS. We get 20 requests a day with 100 per cent response rate and purchase conversion ratio of five per cent per day,? informs an excited Menezes before signing off.

By Jigar Ganatra

RP ? Sanjiv Goenka Group owned music label Saregama India has launched a new mobile app for music lovers. The Saregama Classical App was launched in Mumbai with blessings of the country's legendary classical musicians from the country - Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pt. Jasraj, Gulzar Saab, Dr. Balamuralikrishna, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pt. Ajay Pohankar, Amaan and Ayan Ali Khan.

The Saregama Classical app launch event was a grand affair and began with the legendary sarod player Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and his sons, Amaan and Ayan performing Rabindranath Tagore?s famous ?Ekla Chalo Re? and ?Raag Bhairavi.?

This is a one-of-a-kind and first mobile application, which makes Indian classical music available on the digital platform for download on iOS and Android platforms. The library consists of 8000+ musical works, 400+ artists and 50 radio stations across Hindustani, Carnatic and Fusion music, and is available in 172 other countries.

Saregama India managing director Vikram Mehra said that the app is for all those who enjoy classical music, and not only for those who are have technical knowledge about it. ?Research shows, with the decline of CDs ardent music lovers in India and across the globe find it difficult to discover and consume music by their favourite artists. Hence we decided to launch this unique app both for music connoisseurs, as well as those who want to be exposed to classical music. From the first recording of Ustad Bismillah Khan?s shehnai to fusions by Amaan and Ayan Ali Khan, the app encapsulates, through its radio stations, loads of anecdotes about artistes, instruments and ragas which will surely appeal to the Smartphone savvy music lover,? he said.

Talking about the associations and promotional strategies, Mehra said, ?We will be associating with a lot of concert halls across cities, as the target audience and visitors includes a lot of concert and music lovers, including youngsters too. Further, we have both ambitious targets and marketing budget to promote the application.? According to Mehra a lot of requests come from the market and customers themselves, and the app updates will be catered depending on their needs.

The Saregama Classical App is available for free on a seven-day trial period, post which a cost of Rs 99 would be applicable per month on activating the app. Saregama made this a paid app as not everyone values things available for free. However, Saregama has made sure that a discount of 33 per cent is available to those who opt for the annual plan. Several payment options have also been designed for the app.