Tripology – Travel Lead Generation
There is travel, and then there is travel. The internet has done wonders for the first, the do-it-yourself trips. If there is ever a case-study for how the internet can improve our lives through increased transparency, competition, and empowerment, the travel industry has a strong case to make for being number one. Just as I can’t imagine no being able to buy a domain name online and in real-time, so too can I not imagine the ability to view the travel landscape on-demand and without having to go through an intermediary that in the past has simply served as a gatekeeper earning above average markups doing administrative work. Ultimately, though, for me, any potential issues resides less about the fees they might make and more about not knowing if I am receiving the best deal. For any that have taken trips to destinations that benefit greatly from local expertise, though, the do-it-yourself travel sites, more commonly referred to in-industry as OTA (online travel agencies) come up lacking.
In the category of “real travel,” e.g., vacations to areas outside our commodity zone (going home, on a business trip, and other known places, to name a few), some sites have become clear favorites and pretty impressive tools. Tripadvisor has a strong following and when traveling to a foreign city, has become a tool I couldn’t live without. While it has had issues with review legitimacy, the aggregate power of the crowd and especially the number of user-uploaded photos, adds an incredible layer of confidence when trying to make hotel picks and even restaurants. I used it excessively on a recent trip. Even with the improvement in sites like Hotels.com, Expedia, Orbitz, etc., they still lack the critical mass which translates into seemingly unbiased and useful rankings of places. Unfortunately, for any that have used TripAdvisor and others, the process of planning a trip to a new destination still lacks online. Fortunately, several companies have started to address this, and we met with the most interesting, Tripology, which does more than help out end users, it has become an equally beneficial source for travel agents.
Vacations in particular are higher dollar trips. There are some that fall into the do-it yourself, certain cruises and theme parks come to mind, but a large percentage don’t – single destination trips in a foreign country and anything with greater complexity, such as multiple stops and/or adventure travel. For those who have traveled to new destinations and like to travel outside of their comfort zone, picking the right places during the right time is not only daunting but in many ways also lonely. Who can you turn to for expertise after arriving or if you need advice? The list is few and not always inspiring. That is where experts come into play. The best travel agents, the value-add ones, do more than just book the trip and make a commission for doing so, they provide guidance that get us up the learning curve. The problem in the past was that there was no good way to determine who could add this value and who couldn’t. The fact that you had to use one meant you had many poor ones. The good ones though, no longer have physical addresses as a result of the market changes to online, and many users who grew up in a generation without them, wouldn’t know how to find them either. All of which makes Tripology not just a great business idea but the best kind of online customer acquisition model, one that helps users and businesses connect more efficiently than they would on their own. Given the number of buyers and the desire to be effective, the company focuses heavily on their algorithm for matching requests to buyers, which makes sense given the amount of information that people provide and time invested in the process.
The business was created by Chinedu Echeruo, known better by those living in major metropolitan areas for HopStop (a site so good that Google copied it for their transit product). Like the founding of eBay, Tripology was started to solve a personal problem, a weakness experienced by Chinedu. In mid-2008, the company brought on travel veteran and twice successful travel entrepreneur John Peters to lead the company as their CEO. I heard him speak in New York at an appropriately themed event on Lead Generation 2.0. Tripology has received praise from both traditional media and the travel industry. For travel agents, they have established themselves as the place to connect with potential clients. Much of the company’s challenges are not so much finding lead buyers, a huge testament to their success so far, but a more lead generation wide challenge of making sure their buyers are best poised for success – helping them understand pricing, follow-up, and why they might not even be allowed to buy leads. And, John has done a great job of merging his travel experience with online customer acquisition – not an easy task when you are creating a market that didn’t exist previously. Like any market maker, their position is an admirable one but not necessarily an enviable one. It’s easy to root for them and believe in what they do, as they in so many ways represent all that is good with online lead generation and online customer acquisition.
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