The app provides assistance and distress management service to foreign tourists traveling in India.
The COVID-19 lockdowns globally led to a major crisis for travelers. Many people were trapped outside their homeland because of flight cancellations and border shutdowns. Recently, the government of India extended on gratis basis the regular visas of foreign nationals who are stranded in India due to the pandemic.
Thousands of foreign nationals are stuck in India since the imposition of the travel restrictions, and are unable to exit the country. Requests for movement within the country and for transfer to home country of such tourists and other grievance are being addressed by “India Assist,” a young digital startup that provides foreign travelers in India, app-based verified information and on ground assistance.
The app provides assistance and distress management service to foreign tourists traveling in India, by providing travel and tourism information. In New Delhi, it also provides personalized tourism information.
During the period of lockdown and travel restrictions imposed due to Covid-19 in India, this app-based service is helping stranded foreign travelers by providing them verified information from websites of the government and embassies, and coordinating with them throughout.
Hundreds of U.S. nationals and residents have downloaded the app, according to the company.
“India Assist has been very helpful to me here in India, which makes me feel that I have someone to reach out to here in this country if ever met with crisis,” said Scott Cooper, an American currently stuck in Vizag, Andhra Pradesh.
“The service is very dedicated to helping travelers and can be a support system to other travelers in need.”
India Assist, founded by Harish Khatri and Moqierish Tak, has successfully been able to assist a few American tourists stranded in various part of country to get to Delhi and other nearby cities with international airports, by making their travel arrangements with the help of local authorities and verified cab services and helping them procure valid travel passes and providing them the verified information for the same. Due to these efforts and assistance provided they have been able to catch their repartition and evacuation flights back to the United States.
India Assist team coordinated with their embassies to procure travel passes. It provided simple but critical services like helping the stranded travelers recharge their mobiles phone, protecting them from financial frauds and over charging during this period. The team is connected to them 24×7 through the inbuilt chat feature of the app and is providing them verified information.
“Our technology is built for tourists travelling in India. It has the capability of inbuilt chat, which helps us to support multiple queries at one point,” said founder Khatri. “It can capture their live location automatically, which help us to provide on ground assistance swiftly and smoothly. Our technology helps us streamline efforts and create proper eco-system of reaching out to the stranded travelers and giving end-to-end solutions and monitoring every query/solution live. “
Google Ranking places India Assist as the top assistance firm for tourists in Delhi. The app supports Google and Apple platforms, and is extremely user friendly. A backend team which is monitoring the foreigners flow on the app and responding to them 24×7 basis works with empathy as the first response, to put the panic-stricken traveler at ease.
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