TOURISM MINISTRY LAUNCHES HolidayIQ’s OFFLINE MOBILE GUIDE FOR 1300 INDIAN DESTINATIONS

TOURISM MINISTRY LAUNCHES HolidayIQ’s

OFFLINE MOBILE GUIDE FOR 1300 INDIAN DESTINATIONS

·         Next-Gen app to make travel navigation possible without internet

·         Largest database of travel information available offline

New Delhi, Feb 18, 2015: HolidayIQ, India’s largest holiday information portal powered by a thriving Indian traveller community, today announced the launch of the ‘Offline mobile guide’ for over 1300 Indian destinations. Each destination guide will contain details on hotels, sightseeing options, etc, allowing the user to download and access traveller reviews and maps for on-the-go access, even while offline.  The offline guide was launched by Dr. Lalit K Panwar, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, as part of the initiative to promote tourism in the country.

Launching HolidayIQ’s offline mobile guide, Dr. Lalit K Panwar, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, said, “This is a well thought-through innovation by HolidayIQ, aiming to offer travel and tourism information in the offline mode for over 1300+ destinations in the country. It is a commendable effort by the HolidayIQ team to provide access to a large database of travel information, in the offline mode. We are glad that this is in line with the government’s high priority to promote tourism and travel in the country. As the tourism infrastructure gets stronger, we see more and more people wanting to travel within the country.”

HolidayIQ’s offline mobile guide answers the five key questions before each holiday - where to go, how to reach, where to stay, what to do and where to book. The offline feature offers the largest repository of travel information – 37,000+ hotels, 50,000+ sightseeing options across 1300+ destinations, which includes resorts, homestays, serviced apartments, tented camps etc for each destination.

Commenting on the innovation, Hari Nair, Founder & CEO, HolidayIQ, said, “HolidayIQ.com provides highly customized rich information and insights on places, hotels, sightseeing and transport made uniquely relevant, what we call the ‘science of holidays’. We take pride in enabling travellers to discover, plan holidays and share holiday experiences. HolidayIQ’s online travel app received tremendous response within a couple of days after it was launched in October 2014, and it was also trending at the Play store. However, our constant battle within our team was to provide access to this large database of information on-the-go, where internet accessibility is the biggest challenge. Thus, the launch of the offline feature, with a native-mobile experience.”

“With issues of internet connectivity during travel, especially when travelling in rural pockets of the country, jungles, desserts, hilly areas etc, the offline guides will certainly prove to be every traveller’s boon. We have touched 98,306 mobile downloads of the HolidayIQ app so far, and are undoubtedly certain that this offline feature will be an added impetus to every traveller search”, added Nair.

Reviews, photographs, maps to find accommodation, etc have all been mapped and included in the guide, which also allows users to compare prices across 15+ travel agencies along with contact details, so at the click of a button one can reach-out to the preferred choice of accommodation.  It’s not rocket science but close enough!

About HolidayIQ.com:

HolidayIQ is India's largest travel community with over 30 lakh members from 80+ Indian cities and is India's first holiday planning website powered entirely by reviews, photos, videos and other advice generated from these Indian travellers. Currently, around 50 lakh Indian travellers plan their vacations on HolidayIQ.com every month of which 50% activity is through mobile.

HolidayIQ.com is a VC-backed company (invested in by Tiger Global & Accel Partners) operationally headquartered in Bangalore, India.

HolidayIQ.com lists over 2000 tourism destinations & 50,000+ accommodation options (hotels, resorts, home-stays, jungle camps & serviced apartments) in India. All of which are bookable through over 1600 partnerships with leading online travel agencies like Makemytrip, Yatra and Expedia & offline players such as Thomas Cook, SOTC, etc.

HolidayIQ.com is not a travel agency, nor is it partially or fully owned by any travel agency, hotel chain or any other travel industry player. Therefore HolidayIQ.com is fully independent and can provide travellers with truthful information not affected by any requirements to sell specific travel products.