[video_popup width="805" height="454" video_link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1siT1kDm_I" video_image_link="https://www.tnooz.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Screen-Shot-2014-01-02-at-11.55.38-AM-e1388685259498.png"]
TripScope is a new travel app dedicated to helping travel agents retail more effectively via dynamic itinerary sharing with customers.
Co-founder Katelyn O’Shaughnessy, a travel planner herself, saw a gap between the available technologies and what consumers were beginning to expect.
"I was tired of people saying my profession was obsolete, embarrassed of giving my clients a 15 page itinerary, impatient to wait around for a client referral, and frustrated with the helplessness I felt when someone missed their flight. So I created TripScope."
The app integrates itself into the travel agent workflow by being a direct connection with the customer - and allows for more seamless updating of travel plans, including relevant in-destination travel content.
The three-person team is rounded out by Peter Kellis, CPO/CTO & Co-founder, and Tessa Gold, VP of Business Development & Co-founder.
TripScope shares its concept via Vine, and explains more in words below.
Tell us how you founded the company, why and what made you decide to jump in and create the business.
In working as a Luxury Travel Planner, Katelyn felt the need to provide clients with a more modern, technologically advanced itinerary that fully encompassed not only their travel bookings; but also implemented destination guides filled with information and recommendations pertinent to the individual client’s interests.
We wanted to create awareness and relevance of the value and services provided by a professional travel agent. We knew the power and reach Facebook had, and wanted to create a tool that capitalized on client’s use of social media to market and provide exposure for the individual agent.
Please explain your funding arrangements.
We're bootstrapped and have prize winnings from CROWDFUNDxLA.
What is your estimation of market size?
The travel agency industry has 105,300 full-time travel agents in the US alone. PhoCusWright estimates there are an additional 30,000 Independent Contractors that typically sell travel from home.
On average, a travel agent puts out anywhere between 5 to 10 itineraries a week; this includes both leisure and corporate travel agents.
If you do the math, 1 agent creates 364 itineraries a year, so 130,000 agents multiplied by 364 itineraries equals a market size of 47,320,000 travel agent itineraries every year.
What's your company's competition?
TripCase- Sabre’s Digital Itinerary & Travel app
TripCase allows agents to send a digital itinerary to clients smartphones. However, agents then have to make all their bookings through Sabre’s GDS system. Many agents create FIT itineraries and book through multiple platforms (i.e. tour operators, DMC’s, consortia or hotel partnerships, and direct). TripScope allows agents to input data from multiple sources and customize the bookings with detailed information.
TripCase gives generic itineraries and guides, guides that agents cannot customize for clients. It lacks human touch and personalization of destinations and landmarks. With TripScope agents can embed pictures, add in hotel amenities and packages, as well as provide personal recommendations directly onto itineraries.
TripCase doesn’t have the same PN system between travel agent and client. TripScope has proprietary software that allows both travel agent and client to communicate with each other from anywhere around the world, allowing itinerary changes and updates to occur seamlessly and efficiently.
The biggest difference between TripCase and TripScope is TripScope’s marketing capability for the individual travel agent. TripScope capitalizes on clients' social media posts to showcase, promote, and directly market the individual travel agent in real time.
When clients share a photo, video, or status via the TripScope app, a hyperlink with the agent's URL will automatically be linked to the post. This showcases the individual agent's value and professional services directly with their client’s travel stories, creating a greater reach of awareness and potential leads.
What is your revenue model and strategy for profitability?
TripScope charges between $10-$15 per itinerary depending on agency/consortia agreements. Agents make the $10 payment using the client’s credit card and add the $10 to the client’s overall package price.
After only 3 months in beta, TripScope has signed a remarkable 67 independent travel agencies in addition to consortia groups totaling 17,000 agents. TripScope’s users are comprised of leisure, corporate and independent travel agents.
What problem does the business solve?
TripScope takes the tools, logistics, and expertise that travel agents have always encompassed, and created a platform that now delivers this content to the consumer in a modern, relevant, and engaging app.
Agents can now service their clients more efficiently and effectively, proving their value for the next generation of travellers. TripScope allows clients to be properly prepared, informed, and connected throughout the entire duration of their travel experience; putting the agent at the front and center of the travel experience.
How did the initial idea evolve and were there changes/any pivots along the way in the early stages?
Initially TripScope was simply a solution to provide clients with digital itineraries, rather than paper.
In working everyday in the industry, and being surrounded by some of the nation’s top producing luxury travel agents, Katelyn continued to see opportunities to take away the pain both for travel agent colleagues and clients.
Today’s travel agents no longer book every destination in the world. They have a niche, an expertise in one area of travel. Agent specialties can be anything from African safaris, to Honeymoons, to Private Jet tours. The point is, these agents are experts. They have a wealth of knowledge, experience, and travel tips; but there was no way to provide all this extremely useful information to clients in a convenient format.
Anyone can go online and book a flight or a hotel. Travel Agents create one of a kind, customized experiences. They are passionate about travel and their job is to qualify each individual client and ensure they create the most optimal travel experience possible.
A cookie-cutter city guide is not going to provide traveller’s with insider knowledge, or local hidden jewels that pertain to their own preferences. The content, knowledge, and human touch effect that agents possess can now be shared with travellers instantly and stored easily and accessibly directly on a smartphone. TripScope allows travel agents to fully service their clients travel needs and experiences from every aspect possible.
Why should people or companies use the business?
85% of travellers use mobile devices during their trips. Travel agencies need to adapt to the digital world in order to stay relevant with today’s traveller.
There are more and more natural disasters and weather related incidents happening that disrupt travellers trips. TripScope gives both travel agents and their client’s peace of mind knowing they are always connected through the PN Messaging system, should there be any travel mishaps.
Travel agents used to grow their clientele by word of mouth referrals, but now with social media, you can reach the masses instantly. There are no other marketing platforms that capitalize on client’s real time posts of their travels being directly linked to the agent who booked it.
What is the strategy for raising awareness and the customer/user acquisition (apart from PR)?
CEO & Founder, Katelyn O’Shaughnessy, is heavily involved within the travel community. She has taken the initiative to further develop the young travel community, and is the National Director for the nation’s largest young travel professionals organization, Millennials In Travel.
She ran the founding chapter in LA, and has since helped expand Millennials in Travel to over 10 chapters across the nation, with a membership of 1,400+ and growing. She was awarded Travel Agents 30 Under 30, Travel+Leisure Magazine’s “Rising Star”, PhoCusWright’s ClassOf35, and is on Signature Travel Network’s Young Advisor Counsel, American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) Young Professionals Society, and Young Travel Leaders Alliance.
O’Shaughnessy speaks at various travel conferences throughout the year, hosts monthly twitter chats for various travel magazines and travel organizations, and teaches educational webinars monthly about TripScope and travel technology.
Where do you see the company in three years time and what specific challenges do you anticipate having to overcome?
In three years we see TripScope becoming not just a tool for corporate and leisure travel agents, but for all consumers to create, customize, and format their own digital itineraries through the TripScope app. Travellers alike will benefit greatly from utilizing TripScope’s PN Messaging software while travelling to communicate with family and friends back home.
What is wrong with the travel, tourism and hospitality industry that requires another startup to help it out?
While at this year’s PhoCusWright Conference one of the Center Stage speakers was asked what he thought about travel agents, his response was one word, “obsolete”.
However, travel agents account for:
- 51% of all Airline Sales = $86 billion
- 87% of all Cruise Sales = $15 billion
- 81% of all Tours & Packages = $9 billion
- 45% of all Car Rentals
- 47% of all Hotel Sales
These numbers can attest that travel agents are still very much alive and thriving (You hear that Obama!?! The president has repeatedly stated that the profession of travel agents no longer exists, yet travel agents are still here!). It’s time these agents get some recognition, and TripScope will create that awareness and relevance to the consumer traveller.
What other technology company would you consider yourselves most closely aligned to in terms of culture and style... and why?
TripIt, because they were the first big innovators to create the digital itinerary concept. Seeing friends post on Facebook from TripIt saying “Jonathan’s planning a trip to New York”. Who doesn’t want to brag about a sweet itinerary and show off all the fun things their about to experience? Travel agents make beautiful in-depth itineraries and with TripScope, client’s can share their itinerary on Facebook, and the best part; the travel agent still gets marketed!
Tnooz view:
TripScope has already shown remarkable growth - having 17,000 agents with access to the tool means that the startup should be generating some actual revenue immediately. Of course, there are no numbers yet as far as number of itineraries that have been Scope-ified. The onboarding is nonetheless impressive in the early stages.
Having a set user base also means that TripScope is able to gather real-time feedback and improve the product iteratively outside of a development bubble. The company can learn what's working, and see how they can improve the tool to be more useful to both travel agents and their customers.
The challenge is going to be going up against any potential incumbents that plan to use their access to travel agents - ie. the GDS - to roll out a product that competes directly. TripCase is in many ways already there, but is less focused on the leisure/luxury side of things, and TripIt delivers almost exclusively on the business travel front.
The social media connection is also unique - travel agents thrive on referral business, and creating an organic means of garnering word-of-mouth attention via booked itineraries is clever.
An impressive start, and definitely great to see a startup innovating in the travel agent space, as that cohort is still thriving as far as total value of travel booked.