The Wanderfly Sessions: Talking travel inspiration and discovery with Wanderfly co-founder Christy Liu

Two years ago I started writing about travel discovery and inspiration sites. Interviewing start up CEOs and Chairmen about the future of travel discovery and how to build a start up business under the shadows of Google, social media and the big four OTAs. Start up Wanderfly has joined the race for inspiration in this new wave of online travel search and discovery. I recently spoke with Wanderfly co-founder and Director of Marketing Christy Liu (pictured) about inspirations, advice for start-ups and building traffic.

We have seen a variety of different approaches to the user interface for travel discover and inspiration engines. Joobili asks you start with a date, Triporati start with 64 interest areas and ask you to rank them and Tripbase have five criteria with "sliders" to select a balance. Wanderfly's angle is for a combination of sliders on dates and price and tabs/buttons for twelve interests or activities.

Review of the site

Wanderfly have tried to differentiate themselves with a very slick landing page layout. They have integrated baseline content and descriptions with booking engine feeds and content imported from lonely planet and foursquare. There is also a Facebook connect login reminiscent of the TripAdvisor Tripfriends integrate. To date the Wanderfly destination landing page is the cleanest looking integration I have seen of social media, editorial and pricing/trip cost functionality. Result is a very usable and attractive destination page. I commend them on the UI and layout.

While the page looks good, there is still a lot of work to do around the depth of content. I did a search on Culture, Outdoors, Beach and Eco. Parameters of $5,000 per person and destination Africa. The recommendation was Masindi in Uganda (shot below).

This is an intriguing answer. It is a place I have never heard of in a country with a name that invokes many positive and negative images. It is not on my list of places to go in Africa (top 2 currently are Tanzania and the Okovanko Delta). Unfortunately the Wanderfly destination page for Masindi is light on content and does not indicate why it is that this is the best destination based on my criteria. The layout is clean and clear allowing for ease of use and encouraging reuse but consumers will need more both in terms of absolute levels of content and in terms of explanatory text on why a destination is proposed. For example there is still a bit of work to do around incorporation of and depth of news feeds and improved photo tagging to help indicate what it is that has been photographed (or how to find it).

First thing to fix is the “Change Trip” option top right. This is the button that allows users to find the rest of the recommendations made. Chances are customers wont see it or understand it and assume that there is only one recommendation. Liu told me this was a deliberate tactic. They are modeling Wanderfly after real human conversations. The theory being that a human response would be one suggestion at a time rather than a list. Click tracking should point out soon enough that consumers are not clicking on options past the first one.

Collecting Data

This time last year I published my three rules for what is needed to start a consumer information or UGC based online travel start up.

In it I discussed how important it is for a content company to collect data from outside sources. I talk to Liu about where she was getting her data to build the pages and how hard it was to collect. Liu said that the team has spent part of the last 18 months integrating into more than 20 partners for data including Expedia, Kayak, Yelp, Foursquare and Lonely Planet. Many of these are open APIs but some required customer deals. She indicated that it was also important to add an editorial level. To include a manual review, writing and matching process. Much like my 2007 post on the balance between UGC and editorial content Liu said they were aware of the need for an editorial level – especially when it comes to matching a destination to the twelve designated trip themes

Themes and trip tags

I asked Liu – why twelve themes and would more be chosen. She told me that Google traffic levels were the main criteria for selecting a theme. But she acknowledged that twelve themes were not enough. Wanderfly are planning to launch a ten to fifteen more. We also discussed the challenge in attaching a theme to an individual’s needs when each individual may have a different definition of what that theme. Luxury is a classic example. One person’s definition of luxury is very different to another. Liu is aware of this and is betting that their research and search depth can help solve this.

Company background and advice for other entrepreneurs

Liu shared that the company is 1.5 years old and is working off dollars from a round of angle funding. Liu said they are actively looking for and negotiating for a new round. An announcement was expected before the end of the year - I have not see the release yet. Via email Liu tells me that there should be an announcement coming early in the new year [UPDATE - 1 Feb announced $1mm raised from a series of angles]. Once raised money will be used on product and content – I think that is the right call.

I also asked Liu for any advice she might have for other entrepreneurs trying to launch a product or business. She replied

“the big one is to trust your gut and trust your instinct. Many people offered us advice and guidance. A few times we went through with advice that we did not feel comfortable with and did not end up where we expected.”

My take

The look and feel is great and my support of the inspiration space is well known. To success Wanderfly have three challenges to face

1. Depth of Content – as per above (and my comments in a recent Tnooz search post) the future of search will need lots of content and information but will also need the reasons for the results. Consumers will want to know why a result was chosen. Specifically what elements of the search drove that result and what influencers pushed it. Wanderfly have started the collection part through their 20 plus connections. But more is needed in areas of news, photos and activities. More importantly they need to work on a reasoning index. A method for describing the reasons behind the recommendation
   
2. Distribution - with the revenue model for inspiration and discovery sites still under development and lagging the travel retail sector, finding a voice in the marketing noise of online travel is very hard for value of travel discovery and inspiration sites. This is no greater challenge for Wanderfly than any other site. Liu is aware of this - especially the challenges of search. To succeed in search Wanderfly will need to ensure that their aggregated landing pages are sufficient to meet the unique requirements of Google and can adjust to meet all the changes occurring the page rank algorithms. Liu told me in a follow up email that the longer term marketing plans are to focus on affiliate distribution through major deals and widget/link affiliate programs.
   
3. Reasons for launch “notice a problem while we were trying to book a trip” - Kevin May of Tnooz and Rod Cuthbert of Viator have a theory (that I agree with) that any business founded in online travel because some people were trying to plan a trip and noticed that it was really hard and thought they should build something to make it easier….is doomed for failure because it is being built for a very small audience in mind (ie the founders). Wanderfly will be confronted with this challenge. To ensure that the product is designed with a large enough audience in mind.

Check out Wanderfly and let me know what you think.

The BOOT in the Australian - "search and you shall find"

Travel journo Dave Carroll had a piece in weekend version of the Australian titled "Search and you shall find". In the article he talks about some of the changes in search patterns by consumers in online travel. He interviewed me for the piece. I share my views on different measures for authority, the tastegraph and the sociograph - building on my Tnooz piece "Google instant is just the beginning in the search revolution in travel".

Full piece from Dave with my comments is here. I mention tripadvisor, jetsetter, bonvoyou, triporati. joobili and (in a where did they go moment) gliider.

Tnooz: Four types of non-destination based search and what it means for online travel

Just live over at Tnooz.com is a post by me titled "Four types of non-destination based search and what it means for online travel". In it I look into the new approaches to online travel search and boo king coming from a variety of start ups including Gliider, Joobili, Triporati, TripIt, Traxo, Jetsetter, BonVoyou and many more. From the post and interesting discussion has started in the comments on the future of search. Check it out here

"Smarter" Travel search vs profiling and recommending at the PhoCusWright Innovation Summit

I have been reflecting back on the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit. At this event 33 companies (start ups, established companies and entrepreneurs with ideas) pitched new products seeking fame and recognition for their innovation. The final four will go through the rest of the conference competing for the Travel Innovation Summit winner prize.

At the Summit a series of companies presented on new ways to do online travel search.

Goby presented on a travel search system with three questions to generate search - what, where, when. Aim is to present a more targeted and consolidated results rather than the site list that come from a Google search.

Exalead presented on a search platform that can be used to provide other companies with a search engine with profile saving metrics.

Planetism the first alpha of the presentation (no site live). Comes to search from a budget perspective (see my discussion on that here). You enter dates and budget and then are presented with a list of options to refine and select.

I have also interviewed a number of search and discovery sites - most recently Joobili.

The reason why people are trying to innovate so much in search is that the current search process (type question into Google and press search) was designed to support closed answer questions such as "cheap flights to New York" and "Hotels near the Opera House". Questions where a single site can provide a single answer. This approach is no longer sufficient as it does not answer open ended questions that people are now asking such as "where should I go next", "I have to get away this weekend, what's good and cheap". Answers to these questions will not be found on one single site. They can only be answered by bringing together information and content from more than one place.

My recommendation to the above companies and others trying to innovate in search is to be very careful betting the business on search innovation and make sure you spend time on recommendation and inspiration. The step beyond search. The proactive approach to search. A focus on pure search brings you head to head with Google and might risk missing the real next step.

I am convinced that the answer to the problem matching the excessive amount of content available and the desire for answers to open ended questions is not to reinvent pure search. Instead I think innovators and other online travel companies should focus on developing processes for profiling and recommending.

What do you think? Is there room for search innovation outside Google and Kayak like meta-search companies? Should start-ups steer clear of search?

PS - if you would like to see my pick for the top 4 click here.

Interview with Joobili boss Jared Salter - Part 2 - timed search, refinement and turnips

This is part 2 of my interview with Jared Salter, CEO of time based travel discovery and inspiration company Joobili (pictured here to the right of Joobili Co-founder Tamas Gabor). In Part 1 we discussed the founding of the company including raising money in Budapest with just a powerpoint presentation. In this part Jared and I talk functionality, discovery and inspiration online and turnips.

BOOT: Your site starts of with a time based search rather than destination based search. You need a lot of data to provide consumers with information on every event and activity around the world. Where do you get the data from and how do you plan to get more?

Jared from Joobili: We started off by creating it in house with a team of writers scouring the web, collecting events and writing up. We needed to do this to get us started, however clearly there is a scalability issue with approach. Now we are partnering with local tourism offices to access their content. In this area there is a big advantage is being in Europe. We now have deals with 12 or13 European national tourist offices, 25 regional tourism boards and 75 plus local promoters. They have joined us Joobili pro members. We give them a back end to upload and manage events.

BOOT: Where are you in the evolution of the product?

Jared from Joobili: Very early. We only became visible to Google in the last month as we were so focused on the front end. I am not worried about this as I feel this is pretty common with start ups.

BOOT: A challenge with a discovery and inspiration site is to decide how to balance up front searching and refinement. How much to you request from the consumer before a search is conducted versus how much to you move the consumer information collection to the post search refinement stage. I could not help but notice that in a random search I have just conducted for Nov 11-18, the number one recommended event is the Raben-Chilibi Turnip Festival in Richterswil Switzerland. Clearly I will need to refine this search for there to be valuable information (not that I have anything against the Swiss or Turnips). How did you balance asking for information upfront versus refinement?

Jared from Joobili: It was a big internal debate and am not sure we have found the answer yet. We made the decision to err on the side of simplicity by having only a date search at the beginning. You might seem more filters on the front page in later versions but for launch we erred on simplicity with just time search up-front.

We will need a much need larger content base before pushing the filter angle and profiling. Paraphrasing TripAdvisor’s Marc Charron– when it comes to profiling “rather than figuring out who you are, it is about figuring out when you are”. Completely agree with your EveryYou idea. We are saying to the customer – “tell us when you are and then filter who you are”.

BOOT: Another challenge for a discovery and inspiration site is building customer loyalty. Getting the customer to use the product more than once. How have you through about the challenge of customer retention?

Jared from Joobili: According to Google, the online travel research process is 29 days from inspiration to book. Therefore we are planning to introduce a save search parameter. We know you want to go on holiday on a certain date – so we will let you save that search. We can then provide email notification any time a new event is added to the database. Or eventually build a recommendation engine based on that search parameter.

The next part will be integrating price into the results through partnerships with other sites. One other trend is that price is no longer the sole motivator as discounting becomes permanent. For example we have been working with Wizz air [Low cost carrier in Europe]. They offer a 50 euro flight to Rome. It is always 50 Euro. There is not longer an urgency around the discount or low price because they always a low price. Therefore Wizz need to match the cheap flight with time sensitive inspiration to build in a sense of urgency. Price is an extremely motivator for travel behaviour but it is becoming not enough to drive urgency in consumer behaviour.

BOOT: What else in online travel has you excited?

Jared from Joobili: I am so focused on the discovery space that I have not thought about other areas. Everyone is talking mobile and Augmented Reality which is going to going to be great and interesting. But there are fundamental issues with online travel that we have not yet figured out and discovery is one of them

BOOT: How radical do you think the change will be in how we search and book travel online? Are the big four Online Travel Agents facing the same sort of radical change and industry shift that the offline agents faced in the 1990s and if they are not careful the OTAs could be in real danger?

Jarend from Joobili This period of change is not exactly the same [as the 1990s early 2000s were for offline]. The big OTAs will not be the innovators in the industry but have such a controlling part of the pie. Joobili can innovate the discovery process but need the big guys to make the booking. We hope we generate more interest in the discovery stage.

This will be more than just about content – as consumers have to know what you are searching for. All of these sites are throwing in content for SEO benefits but still asking consumer to type in what they want. Is not about the content it is the interface or experience to help the consumer to discover something new.

My take and summary

I enjoyed this chat with Jared. Not least of which because it was good to get a European perspective on the travel discovery market. Joobili is still in seed stage so we need to be a little bit forgiving on the “turnip” result but it highlights that there is a lot of data collection and back end refinement/recommendation work that Joobili needs to do before the product is ready for any dramatic marketing investment. I think Jared knows this. For more on the challenges in starting a content company see my 3 rules for starting a UGC business.

Part 1 of the interview is here.

Interview with Joobili boss Jared Salter - Part 1 - rasing money in Europe

While the fees, sales and my promo is bigger than your promo claims that are the battle of the OTAs in the US has ramifications for the state of the industry going into the second decade of the 21^st century, I continue to be most excited by the innovation coming out of travel discovery and inspiration sites. Sites set up to help customers answer the open-ended question “where do I go next”. A question that is only now being asked of the online travel industry on Google, Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere. The sites that are at the forefront of data analysis and projections in line with my EveryYou concept of using the technology and social transformation in front of us to develop a specific and targeted recommendation of one based on the unique combination of desires, needs and interests of each individual at any moment in time.

I have already done a number of profiles in this area including one of the Budapest based Joobili (pronounced Jubilee). Now I have had a chance to spend time over skype with Jared Salter the founder and CEO of Joobili to hear about his experiences in founding a online travel company in Europe, on time based travel inspiration, on the balance between pre search information requesting and post search refinement and the rights and wrongs of attending a Swiss turnip festival.

In short Joobili is a time based travel search, discovery and inspiration engine. At the entry screen you select the date range you are interesting in travelling on and Joobili replies with a list of festivals, activities, events and time based entertainment that are on during that time period. Options for refinement are then presented to help narrow down the list to a short list of trips. Joobili starts with the question “when do you want to go?” rather the standard OTA question “where do you want to go?”.

As with other interviews, this is best suited to a two part blog post. In the first part we will talk about the set up of the company especially raising money in and running a business from Europe. Then in part two I will share our discussions on the functionality of Joobili and the travel and inspiration market/industry.

The interesting summary of part one of this interview is that Jared and his partner Tamas Gabor managed to raise seed money for an Eastern European based company without a prototype. They had a business plan and powerpoint that so impressed or struck the Swiss born Esther Dyson that she gave money without a working site and despite the possible challenges of monitoring a business off the beaten track (VC wise).

BOOT: Where did the idea come from? Do you have a history in tech or travel?

Jared from Joobili: I moved to Budapest from a corporate job in San Francisco to do an MBA. There I met my co-founder of Joobili Tamas Gabor. It was his idea to look at calendar based travels. Other sites start with the destination. We spent the first few months scouring the internet but could not find anyone doing calendar search. We built the initial business case during the MBA. The product took off when we secured funding.

BOOT: At what point did you decided to seek funding? Had you built a proto-type yet or did you manage to get funding off the back of a powerpoint deck and business plan?

Jared from Joobili: It is different for each entrepreneur but as neither of us had a tech background we had to raise money with just a business plan. Which was tough. But we needed money to build a beta site.

BOOT: Europe is not famous for lending money on a ppt only. Traditionally Euro VCs want to see something built, if fact more often than not they are looking for series B work. Did you have to go to America to get angel funding with nothing built.

Jared from Joobili: Yes Had been going after a lot of different Euro investors and VCs. We were lucky that Ester Dyson (investor in Orbitz, Flickr, Delicious, Dopplr and more) was coming to Budapest as part of some Euro boards that she was on. We got a meeting with her to show her our detailed plans and forecasts. It ended up being just a one hour but she committed. “This is something that belongs on the web” was her quote.

BOOT: Budapest is not the first place that springs to mind when I think of online travel and tech innovation. What has it been like trying to run a business from Budapest?

Jared from Joobili: From a standpoint of travel and start up it is a bad thing- as you miss out on the networking opportunities. So we do frequent trips to London. Last September we were involved in Seedcamp – one of only two travel companies. This month I will be at WTM so we get out as much as we can. That said there is a reason we started here and I would do it again. It is very cost efficient to develop technology here. There are some talented developers in Budapest. Given the amount of seed capital we raised, we would never able to build this business in San Francisco or London.

BOOT: Are you looking for more funding?

Jared from Joobili Fair to say that any start-up is always on the hunt for more money to develop new features. The list of features we want to build is longer than we can afford. And this is a tough market, especially for the discovery part of travel as it is the least tapped space of the travel process.

In part two we will talk about the Joobili business model and travel discovery and inspiration business.

Update - here is part 2

801 not out

Another 100 posts are live on the InterTubes. Time again for my regular "not out series" recap where I go through the last 100 posts and remind you of the themes that have been dominating the blog. I started almost three years ago with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401, 501. 601, and 701 not out. This comes at a time that the BOOT passed the 100k visitor mark.

Two new segments for the Blog

• Seat Reviews including Qantas Economy, Qantas Premium Economy, JAL Business, BA Business, Singapore Raffles and United Business ; and
  
• Business traveller tips - what to pack, what to wear and getting through security.

Meta search action a-plenty which I tried to summarise in my post "Meta-search vs Online Travel Agents: the three main differences and why they matter"

• TripAdvisor launching air meta-search and received criticism (including from me) for allowing too many reviews from non-travellers
  
• Travelzoo launching Fly.com
• Kayak branching into content and review meta-search through expanded Travelpost
• Yahoo! went the other way and euthenased FareChase
• Cheapflights launched in Australia with a sub-par product
• Car meta-search company Oodles topped the car traffic numbers in Australia
• Sidestep founders came back with the oddly named Voyij
  

While also having time for Travel Discovery and Inspiration sites such as:

• event based search site Joobili
• the high profile Triporati
• data loving Tripbase

...and we found out how much Expedia paid for VirtualTourist and OneTime

BOOT interview mania with start ups and industry shakers

• Alfonso Castellano of TripSay (part 1 and 2)
• AsiaRoom came out of the closet, launched direct contracting and the BOOT found out more about them and their TUI ODS stable-mates including revenue numbers
  
• Jim Hornthal of Triporati
• Yen Lee of Uptake
• Reuven Levitt of Tripbase (part 1 and 2)
• Steve Hafner of Kayak
  

oh...and...a plane actually landed on water

Triporati - Jim Hornthal interview

A new theme for the BOOT has been working on classifying and and analysing the different travel content, planning, community and search sites. Last month I started off this work through a review of Triporati (and drawing a comparison to my favourite non-travel web product Last.fm). This month I was able to continue my investigation into the sector via an interview with Triporati Chairman Jim Hornthal. We cover areas such as the business model, UGC vs editorial, the company and more.

Business Model

Hornthal was clear that Triporati's main distribution and monetisation push will be around working with partners. I have been hearing this again and again with content/planning/community sites. Most recently in my review of TripIt and before that in an interview with TripSay Board Member Alfonso Castellano. The rationale behind this is clear and makes sense to me. The battle for traffic from Google (either paid or organic) is either too expensive for a travel planning/inspiration site (in the case of paid) or not the core competency (in the case of organic). Better to take a great travel planning/inspiration product and add it to other high trafficked travel sites that are focused purely on booking or content (or both).

One of Triporati's first major deals here is with the triple A (Automotive club) network of sites. There are multiple link offs from the base AAA.com site and Triporati hosts the final landing page (here is the AAA Carolinas Example). There is lots of bespoke work for each deployment as it needs the media spaces from AAA, the booking widgets from AAA and trip options from Triporati are redefined for the partner. In effect AAA is the media partner and Triporati plays the content and technology role. Hornthal is particularly happy with AAA as a partner as AAA brings a offline presence as well as online. At the start 250 AAA travel agents are using Triporati to provide the expertise that is taken away from offline agents as the fam trip continues to disappear into the travel industry history books.

On the revenue side, because of the bespoke set up work Triporati is charging a set up fee, monthly fee tied to traffic as well as the obligatory ad share. I am impressed that Triporati is generating upfront payments from partners as this is not a normal practice in online travel where affiliates are used to a rev share only way of life.

[there is also a test version with TripAdvisor from a a email engagement plan]

On Editorial versus UGC

I have blogged before about how content companies need to find a balance between editorial content and UGC. Too much editorial and you risk not being up to date because editors cannot be in as many places as often as the masses out there. Too much UGC and you end up with the masses going off topic and insulting each other.

Hornthal's view on this balance is to have Triporati's technology and their editors as the discovery engine and then the crowd as a validation engine. Is clear to Triporati that you need to link the two parts but also need to keep them separate. I agree with this approach. Hornthal also put it like this "know where the right answer is not what the right answer is".

On the Triporati Company Background

I alluded in last month's post on Triporati to the pedigree behind Triporati - with Triporati founders Hornthal and Sharlene Wang being behind Preview Travel. The Triporati Board is also packed full of high profile names - Tim Draper (of Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Ted Leonsis (former Vice Chairman of AOL), David Patrick (Charles Schwab), Ron Conway (Google angle investor). Impressive.

My take

I get this space. I am very excited about this space. Triporati well placed to take the lead and own it. The product looks good, they have money and a Board stacked full of experience. The only but is that Triporati takes the Vacation Genome approach as the starting point (much like Pandora in music) rather than the user based recommendation editorial control (much like Last.fm in music - see earlier post if you want this explained further). This does not mean I will bet against Triporati as all the pieces are there, the approach is right and I don't see the genome over crowd approach as a fatal flaw. Triporati is the site and business that competitors TourDust, Geckogo, Joobili, TripBase, TravelMuse are behind and have to chase. [have already written a post on Joobili - more on the others soon].

Seems like I am being too nice. Second positive review in a row (TripIt earlier this week). Am determined to find someone to be nasty about next week.

Travel Discovery : Joobili raises money and targets Discovery & Inspriation

alarm:clock are reporting that Budapest based online travel start-up Joobili has raised some funds from Esther Dyson and Hamu & Gyemant (not sure who they are as in Hungarian). Caught my attention for two reasons. Firstly I am always drawn to online travel start-ups with cash, particularly during the Global F'n Crisis. Second because of the timing of this announcement. Joobili (pronounced "jubilee") are in the Travel discovery & inspiration category. Just last week I wrote a detailed post on this category as part of a profile of Triporati. Just yesterday I interviewed Triporati chairman Jim Hornthal (a post of which will be up soon).

Where Triporati came at the discovery & inspiration process through a "vacation genome project", Joobili are targeting "timely travel". One (Triporati) uses the desires of the consumer, matched to the expertise of the content and technology of the engine to recommend destinations. The other (Joobili) uses the dates of planned travel to help identify events that a consumer might want to attend, which then dictates the destination for travel.

In the slider interface on Joobili the consumer selects the date range, hits "inspire me" and then is presented with events and activities which can be refined further. For example I selected 1 July - 21 July 2009 and the first recommendation was the "Benicassim International Fesitval" in Spain. Number two the "Moldejazz festival" in Norway. I like the idea and have seen no one else doing this but think it will only work if the refinement tools are incredible - which means better than they are now. Not sure if it can work with the refinement after the "inspire me" button, not before (site is still in beta). As an Australian based user (and despite my surname) I am unlikely to ever rush off and visit the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in deepest darkest Wales (third choice in my search results). Below is a 2 min video on how the site works.

Don't know much about the founders including CEO Jared Salter and Tamas Gabor. But Jared also runs the company blog and is kind enough to already have the BOOT in his blogroll. Jared - if your out there, tells us more about the company.




PS last minute Google search before pressing publish found that Travolution has also picked up the story.

update Aug 2009 - Travolution have a post "Joobili's design evolution in four screenshots" if you want to see the site design change from private beta to now