Mygola, which started as a travel planning service with the aim to be a “global uber travel agent” to make it easy for customers to plan their holidays, has changed its model to be a one-stop shop for users to plan their travel itineraries.

Anshuman Bapna: Pivot Mygola into a “global uber travel agent”

In an interview with WIT last July, Anshuman Bapna, CEO and co-founder, had said, “We want to focus on travel planning and make it fun again. Why should it be such a chore? To lean forward, cut and paste, create spreadsheets. It should be a lean back, browse experience.” (read story here)

He explains the pivot. “Around April last year we realised that our happiest users were professionals who wanted us to become a virtual travel booking agent, almost like an American Express lite. Our DNA is product and technology, and we didn’t think we were cut out to deliver such a high-touch experience very well.”

So the team went back to the drawing board and interviewed hundreds of travellers and, in the process, found the importance of itineraries to them.

“People found inspiration from the travels of others – not just friends but also savvy travellers like Seth Kugel at the NYTimes and Nomadic Matt. They wanted actionable and complete trip plans (i.e. not merely lists) that they could then customise according to their interest and put on a calendar. And they wanted to the ability to book these trips seamlessly.”

So they pivoted Mygola into “a next-generation service that combine tens of thousands of inspirational trips in a beautiful iPad-centric interface, an automatic tool that’ll give you an hour-by-hour plan based on your interests, a single page to collaborate with everyone on your trip and a simple interface to book everything in your trip (not live yet).”

Mygola, which now promises “Create amazing trips in 15 minutes”, was launched in private beta two months ago and the company has been focused on the user experience, incorporating an “awesome travel planning engine”.

“Small steps first, but you’ll see quite a few announcements coming up soon,” said Anshuman.

My Experience with Mygola

I decided to give this a test to see if I could create a trip within that time.

On accessing the site, I am asked to sign up either as a new customer or with my Facebook/Twitter account. I am immediately taken to the “Create Custom trips in 15 minutes” page, which asks me where I want to go. Clicking on it takes me to a long list of suggested itineraries, which range from multiple days in exotic destinations or just short stays.

I decide to test out “36 hours in Mumbai” and get an itinerary to spend the day in attractions like Chowpatty Beach, eat at Trishna Restaurant and suggested hotel stay. Clicking on any of the links takes me to a description of the place, restaurants or hotels with photos. If I like the itinerary, I can use it or save it for later.

I decide to create my trip from scratch – a 10-day Indian holiday in Mumbai, Delhi and Goa. It is a simple three-step procedure to package my trip. First I describe my trip, then choose my cities (three days in each), and the site builds my daily plan with the places I want to visit, hotels I want to stay in, etc.

With the created itinerary I can add in my co-travellers or save my itinerary to the cloud. However, there is no booking facility yet. The “Book This Trip” button takes me to a page with the message, saying “Trip booking-coming soon” and instead ask me to fill out a short survey to make my trip “more awesome.”

This is unlike the old model where trips planned could be booked via a traditional travel agent. Anshuman said a booking engine is in the works and should be out soon.

Overall the experience is smooth – the site’s interface is slick, the navigation is hassle free. I can view colourful photos and descriptions of places of interest within a destination, choose whatever I want by just clicking on “Definitely” or “Maybe”. I can field questions to travel experts.

But did I create my itinerary in 15 minutes? Well, I took almost 30 minutes as I spent some time deciding where to go in the cities.

Asked if the “15 minutes” claim has been disputed, Anshuman said, “It has definitely, but almost as a compliment. Some users have told us they ended up spending hours on the site checking out fictional trips.”

“All others are focused on city-level itineraries only. In our research, we’ve found that the biggest pain point is when you’re traveling across cities or entire countries. Not a single site addresses that need.

“Our itineraries are stunningly beautiful. That’s not a minor aesthetic point. In our interviews, hundreds of travellers told us how they thought travel planning feels like they’re filing their taxes! We’ve written scores of algorithms that find the best picture for a museum/cafe/attraction, along with the one best video, great description, opening/closing hours etc.

“The result is that we see our users spending huge amounts of time on the site doing something that comes naturally to them, i.e. browse a glossy, personalized travel magazine that transports them to where they’re about to go.

“We think most travellers want to copy and tweak itineraries from the world’s savviest travellers, not create them from scratch. That’s why we used our patent-pending algorithms to create the world’s largest database of structured itineraries from some of the best sources – NY Times, National Geographic, The Independent and, of course, Lonely Planet. That way, travellers can see what experienced travelers do and then use that as the template for their custom trip. That’s why we think travellers can get to an amazing, completely personalised itinerary in less than 15 minutes on our site.”

The company’s main revenue will be through affiliate fees earned from booking the custom itineraries.

“We might bring back our concierge model where you could ask questions but haven’t decided definitively yet,” said Anshuman

He, however, added that strategically itineraries are the “bucket” in which every other piece of travel should fit in.

“The hotels you choose should be optimised for the places you want to see, the local tours/offers should take into empty blocks of time and even your social feedback loop could be at the itinerary level. Since you’ll take these itineraries with you on your phone, you could use it to get contextual recommendations. We feel there are plenty of other monetisation opportunities because we’ll have the deepest context around a traveller.”

Headquartered in the US with an engineering base in India, Mygola’s main customer base is from these two countries (US 40%, India 30%) with the balance from the rest of the world.

Said Anshuman, “We want Mygola to be the one place where everyone comes to plan their trips.”