Compathy, a Japan-based travel startup, wants to wade into providing a platform for travellers to manage their post-travel experience.
It also has rather bold plans to shove aside the role of travel agencies in the travel buying equation.
Still, first of all, users will be able to create their own travel "Logbook" by uploading pictures, adding notes, rating each experience, and publishing it for fellow travellers to read through. While creating this, users can also take advantage of their GPS information and timestamps for each picture for better Logbook creation.
While browsing a travel log or a destination, users can add them to various sections - Favorites, Places Visited, and Wish To Go.
Compathy currently helps travellers in the trip planning stage, and post-trip stage. The company is planning to directly connect travellers to suppliers in order for them to book their itinerary.
Founded in late 2013 by Kentaro Horie (CEO) and Masaki Iwamoto (CTO), the company has raised over $500,000 in funding from two Japanese companies - Incubate Fund LLP and Recruit Strategic Partners LLP.
Apart from the two full-time founders, there are also eight interns working at the startup.
Q&A with Horie below:
Tell us how you founded the company, why and what made you decide to jump in and create the business.
I started this company, Wanderlust Inc. (parent company of Compathy), to get rid of racial discrimination and wrong stereotypes from the world.
I have had bad trauma about racial discrimination from my childhood, but I got an idea to solve it by hosting foreign travellers in Japan via Couchsurfing.
If a user's travel experience changes to "meeting local people in the destination for activities", travel industry will get rid of racial discrimination by understanding local people at destinations.
I decided to develop a platform where every traveller can meet local people in their travel destinations.
Now, Compathy is a travelog sharing network, but we’ll release travel planning features soon that will help people around the world to be connected through their travel plans and interests.
Estimation of market size?
In Japan, there are 10 million FIT travellers, and across the world the estimate stands at 700 million.
Competition?
Tripadvisor, Gogobot, and Tripit.
Revenue model and strategy for profitability?
Our revenue model include: Affiliates, advertisements (CPC, CPM), reverse auction - suppliers offering their products for Compathy users. By the reverse auction mechanism, suppliers can connect directly with travellers, thereby removing travel agencies from the equation.
What problem does the business solve?
Compathy solves the issue of travel planning experience which is usually a nightmare. Once users select their preferred travel destinations, Compathy will list the best travel itinerary, along with transportation information and suggest best places to stay along the journey.
How did the initial idea evolve and were there changes/any pivots along the way in the early stages?
Every time I plan my travel, it takes a lot of time to organize my itinerary. Because, there are way too many information available on the internet and no one tells me which travel products are best suitable for me.
On the other hand, there are very few information available about local transportation and local attractions.
Then, the idea of an "automatic travel planning service" was born, but it was hard for users to choose travel products without any reviews, so we changed the model into a travelog service. We are planning to roll out a travel planning feature once we gather enough travelogs.
Where do you see the company in three years time and what specific challenges do you anticipate having to overcome?
In the next three years, Compathy will be a platform where FIT travellers will be able to make their best travel plans and bookings - all in one platform.
What is wrong with the travel, tourism and hospitality industry that requires another startup to help it out?
Travellers don’t need travel agencies anymore, they are valuable when the information they provide doesn't exist or hard to find anywhere else.
But, with internet availability, now travellers and travel suppliers can connect directly through the reverse auction feature. Its very simple - travellers create itineraries, we take it and show it to suppliers for them to offer products to travellers, and hence not involving travel agencies.
What other technology company would you consider yourselves most closely aligned to in terms of culture and style... and why?
Couchsurfing - because this company gave me hints and motivation to start my own company.
I have hosted over 300 foreign travellers at my home in Japan. It was an amazing experience, I also realized that if everyone starts using Couchsurfing, racial discrimination will be eliminated.
Tnooz view
Travel log management and trip planning aren't something new to travel industry. Especially, there are a number of startups in the "trip planning" category. Its been in existence for more than four years.
In the travel experience sharing sector - apart from the travel vertical focused companies like - Travelpod, Tripjournal, and Travellerspoint - we have the industry neutral heavyweights like Facebook, and Google+.
Compathy's service cannot be seen as a Facebook album feature, rather it has got a lot more structure, more features, and the base to scale.
In Asia Pacific, travel content-based startups seem to be on the rise. Apart from Compathy, other Japan-based startups that are competing in the similar space are Trippiece (recently secured $2 million funding) and Smartrip. In Korea, there is Tripvi. In China, there is Breadtrip (received $10 million) and 117go (received $20 million a week ago). In India, there is a travel log startup in stealth mode (tip: Its also funded).
So, the success/failure pattern of travel planning startups in the US/Europe market may not be true for the APAC market.
Given the fact that Compathy has step by step plans to monetize its service, it should be interesting to see the revenue growth graph once trip planning feature is rolled out.
6-second video explaining Compathy's service