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> Wong and her five-person team often jumped in to directly ask customers what they were looking for, then went out and organized trips themselves. So they've

> Wong and her five-person team often jumped in to directly ask customers what they were looking for, then went out and organized trips themselves. So they've basically re-invented what a travel agent used to do, over the internet?

arbuge 13y ago
This seems specific to custom tours though - travel agents only take care of standard things like cruises, hotels, cars, flights, etc. in my experience.
- ghaff 13y ago
  It depends. A lot of the group adventure travel companies, for example, will arrange private trips for which they can take advantage of the expertise, local knowledge, relationships, etc. that come from running standardized group trips. But those are often setup around having guides. (But not necessarily.) The big challenge is sort of touched on in the article. At the end of the day, most of the agent's money needs to come from hotel etc. commissions. It's hard to charge people a lot for planning a trip--at least to the degree that it's exposed as a discrete line item.
- Matt_Mickiewicz 13y ago
  I never use travel agents for standard things (hotels/flights/cars) and only hire them for long, complex itineraries (2 countries, 8 cities in Asia over 4 weeks, etc.). Both Conde Nast Traveler and Travel+Leisure Magazine publish A-List or "Gold List" travel agents who specialize in a certain region... These are not the guys that work in your local shopping centre or mall.
  - arbuge 13y ago
    True, but what you described are still collections of standard things, not bespoke tours of the kind that this company seems to be doing.
    - lmm 13y ago
      What's the distinction you're drawing here? Surely anything that could possibly be booked over the internet would ultimately be a "standard" thing, and so any "bespoke" tour arranged by internet reduces to a "collection of standard things".
boomzilla 13y ago
I think the main thing is they still function as a marketplace, but the goods now are not prepackaged tours, but travel guide as a service and of course some commission on the package itself too. This definitely scales better than a local travel guide office. I am not convinced that alone will sustain growth though. There will be a lot of issues once they grow past a certain size: quality control for one, fraud, customer experience, etc.
baddox 13y ago
Sounds like a great idea to me.
pbiggar 13y ago
You could describe almost any business with a snarky remark like that. Github: basically re-invented your sysadmin putting up a CVS server, over the internet; Stripe: basically re-invented what a bank used to do, over the internet. Anyway, this is one of those things that works much much better on the internet. In the bad old days, a travel agent was the only option for booking flights and trips. Now that you can do it all over the internet, I doubt there's a market to support that many travel agents: the occasional honeymooners and niche travelers. But the internet is great at turning niche ideas into massive businesses. If there are only thousands of people in your city who need this per year, you'd barely support a travel agency. But if there are thousands in your city, and also in every other city, that's a billion dollar business.
- umsm 13y ago
  Adding the internet into the mix doesn't make anything better. The reason why this "website" grew was because of the human aspect. Regarding travel agents: when I booked my honeymoon, my travel agent was able to get me a better price than an hour on the internet. Not only that, but she was even able to personally recommend hotels and activities.
  - snowwrestler 13y ago
    > when I booked my honeymoon, my travel agent was able to get me a better price than an hour on the internet As an aside, I'm guessing you flew internationally for your honeymoon? International pricing is done totally differently from domestic, which is why typical travel websites like Expedia can't find the best price.
    - umsm 13y ago
      Yes, your guess is correct. Also, we're not talking about $5, we're talking a few hundred dollars for the whole trip.
  - pbiggar 13y ago
    Disagree: the internet makes all the difference because it can scale to a much greater market. You can serve a market of millions instead of thousands. My point about travel agents is that honeymoons are niche. You'll hopefully have one, ever.
pcl 13y ago
Sounds a bit more like a travel agent exchange, which seems super-valuable, especially as they build enough of a data set to intelligently match the right travelers with the right agents, and to deal with agents who receive poor feedback scores.
snowwrestler 13y ago
Would you say they did something that doesn't scale? http://paulgraham.com/ds.html http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
siong1987 13y ago
The first Airbnb room was the founders' pad in SF. Yeah, they are the first people to help out and organize trips for their customers, but I can see this eventually becomes a marketplace for other travel agents to use.

arbuge 13y ago

This seems specific to custom tours though - travel agents only take care of standard things like cruises, hotels, cars, flights, etc. in my experience.

ghaff 13y ago
It depends. A lot of the group adventure travel companies, for example, will arrange private trips for which they can take advantage of the expertise, local knowledge, relationships, etc. that come from running standardized group trips. But those are often setup around having guides. (But not necessarily.) The big challenge is sort of touched on in the article. At the end of the day, most of the agent's money needs to come from hotel etc. commissions. It's hard to charge people a lot for planning a trip--at least to the degree that it's exposed as a discrete line item.
Matt_Mickiewicz 13y ago
I never use travel agents for standard things (hotels/flights/cars) and only hire them for long, complex itineraries (2 countries, 8 cities in Asia over 4 weeks, etc.). Both Conde Nast Traveler and Travel+Leisure Magazine publish A-List or "Gold List" travel agents who specialize in a certain region... These are not the guys that work in your local shopping centre or mall.
- arbuge 13y ago
  True, but what you described are still collections of standard things, not bespoke tours of the kind that this company seems to be doing.
  - lmm 13y ago
    What's the distinction you're drawing here? Surely anything that could possibly be booked over the internet would ultimately be a "standard" thing, and so any "bespoke" tour arranged by internet reduces to a "collection of standard things".

boomzilla 13y ago

I think the main thing is they still function as a marketplace, but the goods now are not prepackaged tours, but travel guide as a service and of course some commission on the package itself too. This definitely scales better than a local travel guide office. I am not convinced that alone will sustain growth though. There will be a lot of issues once they grow past a certain size: quality control for one, fraud, customer experience, etc.

baddox 13y ago

Sounds like a great idea to me.

pbiggar 13y ago

You could describe almost any business with a snarky remark like that. Github: basically re-invented your sysadmin putting up a CVS server, over the internet; Stripe: basically re-invented what a bank used to do, over the internet. Anyway, this is one of those things that works much much better on the internet. In the bad old days, a travel agent was the only option for booking flights and trips. Now that you can do it all over the internet, I doubt there's a market to support that many travel agents: the occasional honeymooners and niche travelers. But the internet is great at turning niche ideas into massive businesses. If there are only thousands of people in your city who need this per year, you'd barely support a travel agency. But if there are thousands in your city, and also in every other city, that's a billion dollar business.

umsm 13y ago
Adding the internet into the mix doesn't make anything better. The reason why this "website" grew was because of the human aspect. Regarding travel agents: when I booked my honeymoon, my travel agent was able to get me a better price than an hour on the internet. Not only that, but she was even able to personally recommend hotels and activities.
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  > when I booked my honeymoon, my travel agent was able to get me a better price than an hour on the internet As an aside, I'm guessing you flew internationally for your honeymoon? International pricing is done totally differently from domestic, which is why typical travel websites like Expedia can't find the best price.
  - umsm 13y ago
    Yes, your guess is correct. Also, we're not talking about $5, we're talking a few hundred dollars for the whole trip.
- pbiggar 13y ago
  Disagree: the internet makes all the difference because it can scale to a much greater market. You can serve a market of millions instead of thousands. My point about travel agents is that honeymoons are niche. You'll hopefully have one, ever.

pcl 13y ago

Sounds a bit more like a travel agent exchange, which seems super-valuable, especially as they build enough of a data set to intelligently match the right travelers with the right agents, and to deal with agents who receive poor feedback scores.

snowwrestler 13y ago

Would you say they did something that doesn't scale? http://paulgraham.com/ds.html http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

siong1987 13y ago

The first Airbnb room was the founders' pad in SF. Yeah, they are the first people to help out and organize trips for their customers, but I can see this eventually becomes a marketplace for other travel agents to use.