The board of Weeva, a sustainability management tool for independent hotels and tourism businesses and a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2024, has called for the closure of the business “based on a considered view of external market forces, associated risks and the path to commerciality of the business.”
In an email to partners, Julie Cheetham, managing director of the startup, said, “We recently concluded an internal review of Weeva to assess the go-forward sustainability of the business. This process was exhaustive and included discussions with partners and potential investors. We have concluded that the Weeva product is forging a path well ahead of the market, impacting the scalability and overall sustainability of the business model.”
She said the board’s decision to close the business took into consideration several factors.
- Addressable market: “The addressable market is well below our initial expectations with market insight and analysis demonstrating that many in the industry are not yet ready to adopt a more rigorous approach to sustainability.”
- Technology stack complexity: “We set out to build an application that supported our aim of setting the global benchmark for a sustainability framework. The product’s coding complexity and the real-time changes required to meet varied needs mean there is a delivery risk and possible impact on the commercial viability of the product suite.”
- Market attractiveness: “Business model commerciality is also undermined by the highly fragmented state of the sustainability-technology market. This is expected to persist for some years to come.”
- Sustainability regulation drivers: “A number of listed corporate sustainability regulations have been implemented. Despite their benefits, the adherence to, and governance of, these regulations will take time. There is a risk that at our targeted non-listed hotel group level regulation will be deferred for years to come, further raising the risk of missing sales and revenue targets.”
She noted, “We are proud that Weeva has built a world-class sustainability framework pioneering as a benchmark for those in the hospitality industry looking to enable real sustainability.”
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Weeva was founded in 2021 “with a vision to create a more sustainable, resilient future for the travel and tourism industry.”
In this interview with WiT, Cheetham said, “We were inspired by Fitbit and Apple Fitness, and we wanted to build a 'sustainability consultant in your pocket' product that would allow hotels to track their sustainability in the same way we track our fitness these days.”
It went on to sign partnership agreements with key tourism bodies such as the Sustainability Hospitality Alliance, took an active part in trade shows and conferences and was vocal in spreading awareness as well as urgency of action in sustainability practices by tourism businesses.
At WiT Africa in March this year, Cheetham pointed out the growing governmental pressure around sustainability issues in Europe and said, “You don’t want your business to be protested at by locals, because you have used all of the water and expect them to conserve water so that your guests can have water. You don’t want to be in the newspaper for writing seasonal contracts and not giving people a decent living wage with benefits. And this is definitely going to endure into the future; it’s not going to go away; and it’s a change that we’re better off embracing.”
*This article originally appeared in WebinTravel.
**Last month at Phocuswright Europe, Weeva's chief technology officer James Lever joined Travalyst CEO Sally Davey in the PhocusWire studio. Watch that discussion with PhocusWire senior report Morgan Hines below.
Phocuswright Europe 2024 Executive Interview: Sustainability sensibilities