TLabs Showcase on travel startups featuring Hong Kong-based PrivePass, a member-only travel service targeting affluent consumers in the Asia-Pacific region.
Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?
We are a startup online luxury travel company, offering VIP access to the largest assortment of fine restaurants, hot clubs, adventure activities and lavish hotels around the world with a strong base in Asia.
Our products range from simple hotel bookings all the way to exciting tailored itineraries.
PrivéPass was founded by a group of western-educated Asian entrepreneurs to address the need for a one-stop shop luxury travel network that could offer value and superior customer service while providing unique, original and refreshing travel experiences that are well-packaged for the international, affluent and cosmopolitan travelers who live across the Asia Pacific region.
- Kit Arunanondchai (CEO), a native of Thailand, has extensive international work experience in investment banking, management consulting, and private equity. His family is involved in the hospitality business and owns several hotels and restaurants. Kit holds a Master of Science in Management Science and Engineering and MBA degrees from Stanford University.
- Jonathan Lin (President) started his career in finance but has since been a serial entrepreneur with several successful ventures in the fields of ecommerce, media, and web 2.0. He has extensive international experience in more than six countries. Jonathan holds an MBA from Yale University.
- Joon Chan (Chief Product Officer) is a native of Malaysia and was educated in the US. He started his career in a venture capital fund, sitting through numerous investments and exits. He is youthful and tech-savvy, taking an active role at PrivéPass developing products and managing production teams.
What financial support did you have to launch the business?The three co-founders and two angel investors invested a total of USD $200,000.
What problem are you trying to solve?
Travel within Asia has always been very opaque due to differences in currency and language. Moreover, we found the majority of travel companies adopt a very traditional way of thinking and tend to gear trips toward an older audience.
There hasn’t been one platform that meets all the travel needs of the young cosmopolitan traveller in Asia – the fastest growing segment.
We are the voice for this target market, personally searching out the best travel experiences and making it easy for them to quickly find out what they can do in their vacation time.
Describe the business, core products and services?
These include the following:
- Entourage: Group trips, where members buy spots in groups of 6-10
- “like-minded urbanites”. An example will be our signature weekender in various cities, which gives travellers a chance to experience a city as a “like-minded” local would – with great night outs and good company.
- Mystery Deals: An experience goodie bag. Members buy an unknown experience, trip or hotel stay for a set price marketed at a deep discount. We underwrite the price, and guarantee the quality as advertised.
- Flash Deals: Limited time sales featuring the best hotel deals, experiences and other special packages.
- Hotel Bookings: A database of more than 500 hotels individually selected by our team. In addition, we plan to implement hotel plus booking in which through our partnerships, we will offer the opportunity to book activities, restaurants and more directly on our site.
- Packaged Getaways: Once in a lifetime experiences secured exclusively for our members. Getaways include beach vacations, adventure trips and art & culture tours.
- Online Journal: Covering Asia’s best hotels, restaurants, clubs, shops, travel gadgets and each city’s daily secret, with content released approximately 1-2 times a week.
Who are your key customers and users at launch?Undoubtedly the American and European online consumer is well served by flash sales posted by online travel agencies such as Jetsetter and Voyage Privé.
However, there is room for much growth in the Asia-Pacific region where no such players currently exist. This is the niche market that PrivéPass aims to carve out and target extensively.
PrivéPass has a wide range of products that appeal to the fastest growing travel market in the world; our current addressable target market includes more than 7.2 million customers who are cosmopolitan, affluent, international professionals and private individuals who live in the Asia pacific region.
PrivéPass plans a gradual rollout based in metropolitan cities in Asia. Targeted cities are chosen based on demographics, international mobility of population and concentration of wealth.
Generally, we plan to target the wealthiest and most developed parts of Asia first with the goal of eventually creating a large scale Pan-Asian presence. Initial target cities/countries will be Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore, followed by Thailand, Malaysia, Taipei, and other Chinese cities.
While PrivéPass targets a wide geographic area, it focuses on reaching a very specific customer: the cosmopolitan middle to upper class elite. These are people who live the "Apple Lifestyle" - they are trendy, affluent and highly mobile. Their purchasing decisions are spontaneous and unpredictable.
They do not travel like their predecessors or even their peers who are happy to go on traditional, precisely planned vacations. Our customers seek excitement and adventure, but always with the assurance of luxury and safety.
Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?
The company website has been live for three months and is currently in its Beta form. A private alpha version was launched for two months for friends and family in Nov/Dec 2011 and generated revenue before going live.
What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?
Agency and merchant revenue model. We take commissions for hotel bookings, and also mark-up our packaged products. We have a similar working model to Jetsetter and Voyage Prive, but with a decidedly Asian slant (guang-xi).
Our small, incredibly dedicated team is highly focused on vendor relationships by building a long-term relationship with suppliers and hotel GMs. This allows us to really take care of our customers if the situation arises; it also lets us squeeze in some extra perks!
SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
Strengths:
- All in one marketplace, guaranteed quality travel products, expert knowledge, content curation, and local resources/concierges in each country
Weaknesses:
- Other established OTA that may get better rates
Opportunities:
- Concentrated target market (they all know each other to some extent), not many similar sites in Asia
Threats:
- International flash sale sites (Jetsetter, Voyage Privé) entering the Asian market.
Who advised you your idea isn't going to be successful and why didn't you listen to them?People said that the travel industry was crowded and rates were hard to beat, but we noticed the selection of products (especially in Asia) does not fit the needs of the fastest growing target market.
Given that well branded luxury travel sites is a proven model in the US and Europe, we figured, with a little tweaking, it could work in Asia as well.
What is your success metric 12 months from now?
We want be the authority on stylish, luxury travel experiences in our target markets, with an established presence throughout Asia. We want to be the first thing that comes to mind when someone says: "Hey, where should we go this weekend?"
NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.