STARTUP STAGE: Travogram lets travelers book, share and monetize trips

Travogram

Travogram provides itineraries and tips from travelers that are linked with booking options from partners including Booking.com, Viator and Mondee.

Founded in 2020, Travogram is part of the Amadeus Launchpad 2021-2022 batch.

What is your 30-second pitch to investors?

Travogram is a social platform where travelers can find thousands of inspiring itineraries and tips shared by real travelers that can be used by anyone to easily plan and book trips. The app's unique algorithm makes itinerary sharing super-fast and in return, trip writers earn payouts for any bookings made on their trips. 

We are the first platform where travelers can plan, book, share and monetize trips. In short, our mission is to make traveling easy, fun and rewarding! 

Describe both the business and technology aspects of your startup.

On the business side, Travogram is a travel social network and booking platform. We bring authentic travel itineraries and experiences sourced from real travelers to help anyone plan and book trips. Travogram partners with leading industry players for lodging, flights, transport and activities to simplify bookings with competitive pricing. Beyond B2C, we are also targeting B2B opportunities to partner with travel entities and social platforms. Travogram makes revenue from booking transactions and B2B partnerships. 

On the technology side, the Travogram app and website integrates with cutting-edge travel technologies and booking partners to drive simplicity and ease of use. Technology enables trips to be shared in seconds and be content-rich with day-plans, photos/videos, reviews, maps and booking options. The Travogram platform is built on scalable cloud infrastructure and has deep analytics capabilities to closely monitor adoption metrics.  

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the company.

• Strengths: Travogram’s biggest strength is being that “one place” to easily find inspiring trips posted by fellow travelers, which can be customized and easily booked by anyone. On top of that, providing clear incentives to trip writers makes it a win-win proposition. Bringing this together with simplicity and speed remains Travogram’s unique advantage.
  
  Being part of Amadeus Startup Launchpad (2021-2022 batch) is instrumental on receiving top advisory, industry networking and technology integration support. In addition, partnerships with Booking.com, TravelGateX, Viator, Mondee, etc. have been strong.  
• Weaknesses: We are first-time founders learning the startup ropes. Also, being self-funded limits our ability to launch big marketing campaigns.   
• Opportunities: More than 75% of travelers say that recommendations from friends and family influences them the most in making travel choices, yet there is no easy way to collect/share itinerary routes. Millennials and GenZ are searching to book fresh, exciting and unique travel adventures - as posted by Instagrammers/TikTokers. There hasn’t been a better time to unite the forces of social networks into simplified travel planning and bookings process to unleash this multi-billion-dollar opportunity.
• Threats: Uncertainty still looms around the COVID pandemic, delaying full travel industry recovery and impacting our market penetration projections. 

What are the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate from both the customer and the industry perspective?

Today, travel planning is inefficient and time-consuming. A recent study revealed an average American visits 140 websites before booking a trip. Who comes to the rescue? Research says recommendations from friends and family are most critical in making travel choices. However no easy way exists to plan/book trips based on fellow travelers’ itineraries and recommendations.

When talking about travel bloggers, posting on social media or writing travel blogs is time-consuming and hard to market and monetize. Bloggers need a platform to easily share and monetize travel content.

So you've got the product, now how will you get lots of customers?

Since mid-2021, we have launched multiple small marketing campaigns to discover what works and have crafted a multi-channel growth strategy. Today, we leverage search engine optimization (SEO), paid online advertisement, influencer marketing and strategic B2B partnerships to drive user adoption. Results have been great, and we are ready to launch campaigns at 25 to 50X scale.

Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market.

We, the founders, first-hand felt the critical need of this product while traveling. Meeting many industry leaders/advisors and getting positive feedback continued to refine the idea. We extensively reviewed consumer behavior, market landscape and travel trends from leading research firms to further iron out the need. 

A turning point came when we pitched at Amadeus Startup Launchpad and got accepted to the program. It gave us strong industry validation and significant confidence. Then, the best confirmation came from real travelers, as they begin to use Travogram and gave great feedback. 

The global leisure travel market size was valued at more than $1 trillion in 2019 and is projected to reach $1.7 trillion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 22.6% from 2021 to 2027.

How and when will you make money?

We are already generating revenue. Revenue comes from travelers booking hotels and activities using our platform. We have partnered with industry-leading booking platforms like Amadeus, TravelGateX, Booking.com, Viator and Mondee. Advertisement is another significant revenue channel to explore further.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team?

The Travogram founding team carries balanced consumer-focused startup and Fortune 100 enterprise-grade industry experience. Our founders have played instrumental leadership roles in building and growing successful consumer-focused startups (Redbox, TicketsNow) and have led/managed $15 billion-plus customer-experience product portfolios in large enterprises (Cisco Systems). 

How have you addressed diversity and inclusion within your business?

Travogram is a global platform, and travelers around the world from various nationalities and ethnicities have equal access to all the services. Our influencer collaboration program ensures diversity and inclusion principles to welcome diverse backgrounds. Our workforce is global and spans across multiple regions to bring diverse mindset to Travogram culture. As the company grows, inclusion and diversity principles would remain central to our culture.

What's been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?

The global pandemic has been the most difficult part, specifically to support team members impacted by COVID, continue to drive progress and stay together as a team. Due to the travel industry coming to a halt, it was challenging to drive user adoption and bookings growth.

Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact - so why are you going to be one of lucky ones?

• We have first-mover advantage to solve a real problem with a simple and intuitive solution, validated by the travel community and industry experts.
• We have strong partnerships with travel industry leaders, and venture capital support will further strengthen our execution.
• We are patient, good listeners, tech-heavy and fast to pivot as market needs. Add some luck to it and yes, our odds look good. 

A year from now, what state do you think your startup will be in?

We see ourselves recognized as an innovator in the online travel category with steady growth in user base, trips shared and bookings revenue. On the funding front, we expect to have a suitable seed investor providing strategic guidance and financial support. The platform will continue to expand with more industry partners in lodging, activities and transportation categories. 

What is your end-game? (Going public, acquisition, growing and staying private, etc.)

Our goal is to become a leading travel platform for planning, sharing and booking amazing journeys with ease. Along the way, we are open to evaluate all options and partnering opportunities to help us get there. Right now, we see us growing our user base to capture market-share with the support of investment funds.