Travel Industry Disruptors Poised For Success

Online ‘travel disruptors’ are set to make major inroads into the psyche of the wider population as people prepare to book that next holiday after months of lockdown.

And it’s online operators like ‘Bidroom’, ‘HolidayPirates’ and ‘Twisper’ that are poised for even greater success.They are already altering the travel landscape with innovations that are continually driving change in their dynamic industry.

Here’s a glance into the future:

Bidroom: Bringing fairness back to the hospitality industry?Bidroom is a membership-based online travel club for travel lovers. It claims to offer better hotel deals than anywhere else since hotels do not need to pay a commission for each sale they make so that discount can be passed on to the traveller – real savings on hotel bookings: up to 25% off compared to other platforms. Members also receive up to 50% off car rental deals / travel insurance and more.

By directly connecting international guests and hotels, Bidroom ensures prices stay as low as possible, while hotels retain ownership of their own bookings. “We are a bridge connecting the hotels to their guests directly, giving control back to the hotels and the best prices possible to our members”, said Michael Ros, CEO of Bidroom.

Founded in The Hague, Netherlands with self-developed technology, Bidroom began as an innovative ‘travel start-up’. In just two years the company won over ten travel start-up awards and was featured in WIRED UK’s Top 100 European Start-ups, secured significant investment, and a partnership with Visa. It transitioned from start-up to SME. Today, Bidroom has grown a community of more than 250,000 members.

Cost to join the network £29 a year. Details: www.bidroom.com

HolidayPirates: From a travel blog to an industry leader: building a business on social mediaHoliday Pirates is a free travel deals platform that began as a single travel blog. It now has a community of more than 10 million Facebook followers, achieves 30 million monthly website visits and has 10 million app downloads across all its markets…..and all of this entirely through the power of social media.

Thanks to sharing great deals and highly relevant content, users are willing to share them with their families and friends organically, helping the content go viral. “We don’t invest any money in Google Ads or TV promotion. Before the pandemic outbreak, only 8% of our web traffic came from paid activities,” said David Armstrong, CEO of HolidayPirates.

With this approach, the company has proved that whilst the travel industry may seem to be led by global tech giants, it is still possible to come up with a unique, yet successful, business model. Although the company also uses algorithms to find the best deals on the web, many deals are hand-picked by the team of travel deal hunters (editors). This makes the website authentic and has been key to the company’s success according to David Armstrong.
Details: www.holidaypirates.com

TWISPER: leading a positive revolution by shaking up the online recommendations industryTWISPER is a free social app for users to share and discover only positive and personal recommendations of restaurants, hotels and bars across the world from a community of friends and partners they can trust. Recently launched in the UK and now with over 1.5 million users worldwide, the app aims to revolutionise the online review industry, leaving behind negative comments, unfair ratings and fake reviews, and refuses to use data for revenue purposes.

The app is on a mission to return fairness and positivity to the travel and hospitality industries after a year of uncertainty. Stats show that 92% of consumers will believe a recommendation from friends and family over any other type of advertising. TWISPER gives restaurants, hotels and bars the tools to leverage these positive and personal recommendations, harnessing the proven power of digital word-of-mouth.

Antonio Canton, CEO & founder of TWISPER, said: “Now more than ever, there is an increasingly popular demand for positivity, trustworthiness and transparency. We are disrupting the online recommendation industry with a positive ecosystem that benefits everyone: users, businesses and partners. In the next five years we want to become the leading, most trustworthy social app for users and the number one digital word-of-mouth marketing tool for businesses. We’re delighted to launch the app in the UK and provide vital support to the hospitality sector at this time. We already have many fantastic venues located across the UK listed on the app and we’ll be working with some very exciting brand partners to help us grow our UK community”

TWISPER refuses to use data for revenue purposes, which makes it a unique and disruptive business model, unlike major online recommendation platforms and GAFA’s tech giants, who make huge profits by selling user data.

This is a FREE SOCIAL APP. Details: www.twisper.com