At one particular time, many apps were trying to sell themselves as the Airbnb for activities, but it was not successful for long.
Airbnb has acquired a Barcelona-based company which is known for the activity booking called Trip4Real, the company is worth between 5 million pounds to 10 million pounds.
Trip4Real allows people to book for activities over 70 cities in Europe, in which most of these cities are in Spain, the company is planning to expand its business in Latin America, and it has around 10,000 users across the globe.
About Trip4Real
Trip4Real is an online marketplace that operates globally, which helps to connect travelers with the unique experiences of different places that will be organized by the local experts. It provides income for the locals and also it allows them to show the other side of Spain to the travelers.
The business model of the Trip4Real uses Peer to Peer and Business to Customer marketing techniques. The website will act as a third party entity. The individuals are provided with the title of the locals who can upload their experiences on the website. Trip4Real will review each and every experience listed on the website to verify its conformity, once they are verified, customers can find all the experiences in single space.
Origin of Trip4Real
Gloria Molins founded Trip4Real in 2012. Gloria got inspiration from one of her isolated trips when she was on the trip, she got a call from her father, and he said that, until you know the people over there you will not know that place. So she decided to work on this project. And she traveled to different places for about six months for working on the basics of the project.
she returned to Barcelona, she gathered a group of travelers and the local experts, and she placed the local experts in different sections of the business. Trip4Real won the best startup award of the year. One year later, after purchasing the domain name, the company started to expand its business worldwide.
The companies headquarter is in Barcelona, Spain. The main source of revenue for the company comes from the commissions of the experience bookings through the website. For all the experiences booked through the website the company will charge 18% as commission for all the experiences, without considering the experience price.
Trip4Real team
The team consists of the CEO and founder, Gloria Molins, COO, Veronica Brezzo, the product designer, Anna Canadell, marketing manager, Claudi Peyri, community manager, Matias Vives and another group of interns.
At the mid of July 2013 the company had three investors, they are the president of SCPF, Luis Cuesta, the director of creativity of SCPF, Toni Segarra, and the chef Ferran Adria. For the first time, Adria has invested in a startup.
Operations of Trip4Real
Both the travelers and the locals must register with the site in order to create a personal profile before they book or list the experience.
Locals4Real
One must register as a local on the website in order to upload the experience. With the help of the Facebook account or by entering the email id and password one can create an account in Trip4Real as locals. Locals are the individuals who have the desired knowledge in the certain subject and they know about all the places in Spain and they should have the attitude to share their experience with the travelers.
The person, who is registered as local, must upload his picture and his total biography and he has to answer few questions before he gets approval for uploading the experience. The Trip4Real will use the profile picture, email, password and other details provided for registration requirements.
Once the person who is registered is approved by the Trip4Real then he can upload the experience. Uploading the experience is nothing but, adding two or more pictures about the activity, giving a title for the activity, description of the activity, suggesting the routes and the price, the price may consist of the flat rate or the price for the per person.
A local can upload as many experiences as he wishes to do. Once the experience is approved, then it will be available to the travelers and they can book the experience.
Travelers4real
The persons who book the trips through the Trip4Real they are called travelers. And therefore they become the company’s customers. To become a traveler the person should register with the website, with the same procedure of the local registration. The travelers also have the change to become the local, if they are interested.
By clicking on the reserve button on the site, the travelers can book their experience. From there they will be directed to a page which asks them to fill the details like, name, a number of people who is going to take part in the experience, exact date and time of the experience. Once this process is completed, the traveler will receive an email stating, they have reserved the activity of the particular traveler. After this, the local has the time duration of 48 hours to respond to the traveler, whether they have accepted the request or not.
The communication between the traveler and the local will be displayed in the dashboard. The Dashboard is the home page for the customers of Trip4Real. It also helps the local and the traveler to keep their email address secured and private. Once the local accepts the request of the traveler, then the traveler has to pay through the PayPal, which is the secure online transaction method.
The dashboard will inform the traveler about the pending request; it also shows all the experiences that the local has uploaded; it has a record of all the communication held between the local and the traveler, all the trips that have been booked by the users and it also displays the profile of the customer.
The Outcome of the acquisition
By this acquisition, Airbnb has expanded its business by stepping into the hospitality industry apart from its highly networked lodging platform, at the same way it is increasing its threat to the hotel platform.
Airbnb is slowing moving in the local travel guide platform. The home-sharing company is entered on the line of the traditional hotels and the lodging as it had stepped in the local travel guide services. The company had launched a tool called Guidebooks, which allows the renters of Airbnb to share the information about the local business like bars, restaurants and much more.
Airbnb is also working to develop an autonomous app which is aimed at connecting the guests and the local community. By acquiring Trip4Real, it also helps Airbnb to focus more on the hotel industry, by providing lodging to the travelers.
The major difference between the Airbnb and the traditional hotels is the kind of services provided and the local knowledge about the place. Airbnb recently moved deeper into the hotel industry by connecting the travelers with the local guides.
This is the problem the traditional hotels impose on Airbnb that it is occupying its place in the market place. The traditional hotels should work on the digital tools and methods for satisfying their guests. For example, by offering a booking app will increase the customer engagement than the past. And it will be a chance for them, for making the travelers return to them for the future trips.
Author Bio:-
Anand Rajendran is the Co-founder & CEO of RUTAPP infosystems. He specializes in content marketing and social media marketing. He has written many articles related to ecommerce, marketing, design, development, strategy, emerging trends including omnichannel and cloud replatforming. RUTAPP is a leading Andriod and IOS app development company that has launched Kwizy script which is an Airbnb Clone Script with Mobile apps.
