Introducing AudioCompass tours, available on Ola Play

I’m excited to announce that AudioCompass is partnering with Ola to power location-aware, immersive, audio-based city tours via their Ola Play in-car entertainment platform.

Each AudioCompass tour is narrated by one or more local experts, who with their own unique style and personality will bring alive stories of major attractions, neighborhoods and monuments.

Unlike hop-on/hop-off buses and tours with human guides, AudioCompass tours are built to help form a connection with the city and its people, and will be accessible on-demand during Ola Play enabled rides.

With the intelligence of Ola Play, we are able to personalize experiences for consumers based on their behavior on the platform. For example, When I drive up to the Taj Mahal, the platform will be intelligent enough to go deeper on the design and construction of the monument, based on my interests. For my wife, and based on the content she typically consumes, the focus will be the love story of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal.

Besides curated tours, AudioCompass and Ola deliver inter-city riders, relevant and engaging stories about towns and attractions en-route. For intra-city commuters, depending on their route, an opportunity to hear trivia and stories that define their city.

This is just the start. Besides multiple languages, consumers can use Ola Play to enhance their out-of-car experience as well — by offering relevant monument tours, entry tickets, and local experiences.

We will be launching these tours jointly with the Ola team, as the platform rolls out across major Indian cities.

Why are we working with Ola?

Much like transportation, tourism has a lot of challenges. Currently, most innovation occurs only around flights and hotels, and to make the booking process for tours & activities easier. There hasn’t been much disruption and change to the in-destination experience as a whole — where travelers spend most of their time and (hope to) create lasting memories.

To add to this, we have unique challenges in India. There are a lack of structured guided tours and a fear of getting misguided by unofficial touts, with the result that the best and most immersive experiences are used by only a small number of travelers.

Ola Play brings innovation to the in-car experience, just like AudioCompass brings innovation to the in-travel experience.

This partnership brings AudioCompass closer to realizing our vision of being a local friend to every traveler, and I’m proud that both companies, born in India, are working closely together with the aim of positively impacting tourism in our country.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this partnership evolves, and would love to hear from you once you have had a chance to sample the experience.