SOCIAL TRAVEL THE HUMAN TOUCH - Triptale · 2016-07-01 · SOCIAL TRAVEL – THE HUMAN TOUCH 6 GP Bullhound LLP THE ONLINE TRAVEL SECTOR HAS NOT YET SUCCESSFULLY INTEGRATED INTO SOCIAL

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SOCIAL TRAVEL – THE HUMAN TOUCH

Arise Social Travel

Social travel is on the rise again and about to finally take the place it deserves

in the social sphere. New and exciting models offer full integration into the

main social network platforms, ease of review / advice upload from geo-

localised smartphones, and easier monetisation.

Reputation and Trust are Key

As with all disruptive business models, initial challenges must be overcome.

For social travel, these are establishing reputation and trust. Companies that

want to embrace the social element must first tackle the inherent concerns

that individuals have when the social internet and offline worlds combine

(especially in the case of collaborative consumption). A large number of start-

ups complement the efforts of incumbents such as TripAdvisor and

increasingly Google, and are creating a healthy disruption.

An Exciting Opportunity for Investors

Now that social networks have evolved and entered the mainstream, social

travel start-ups can prosper. Renewed interest is illustrated by Google and

TripAdvisor’s increasingly serious foray into the sector, meaning this is a

space to keep an eye on. This report presents the main reasons behind social

travel’s coming of age, and analyses some of the more interesting models and

companies.

Sector Initiation February 2012

GUILLAUME BONNETON [email protected]

London: +44 207 101 7578

MALCOLM FERGUSON

[email protected] London: +44 207 101 7595

INDEPENDENT TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH SECTOR INITIATION FEB 2012 SOCIAL TRAVEL

Important disclosures appear at the back of this report. GP Bullhound LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom


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SOCIAL – THE NEXT DEVELOPMENT IN ONLINE TRAVEL?

Travel first moved online in 1996 with the launch of Expedia, providing consumers a more

efficient way to book hotels and flights. In the early days, the services were identical from

traditional bricks-and-mortar travel agencies, but lowered barriers for companies wanting

to target consumers with information on the full scope of travel related products from flights

to hotels. This led to a boom in the amount of travel products and services available and

led to the natural development of travel meta-search engines such as Kayak, which pulled

together the best information and prices from a wide array of different sources, not only

saving time for the user, but also making information much more accessible.

What online travel agencies and travel search engines did well was provide factual

information about the product. They neglected, however to provide independent,

qualitative information, which came into the mainstream with review aggregators such as

TripAdvisor, Zoover and Holidaycheck. Travel reviews are so effective because they

provide would-be travellers with trusted, non-biased information about what companies

trying to sell. Doubts about the quality of the reviews (bias, different demographic profiles

etc.) disappear when you can use your social graph to source even more trusted

information from friends and family motivated to enhance your travel experience.

S O C I A L T R A V E L E V O L U T I O N

Source: GP Bullhound

Many companies use social tools (e.g. Facebook “likes”, viral advertising etc.) in a way

which helps improve their customer acquisition and brand image, but for a company to

fully capitalise on the benefits of social they must incorporate the human aspect (trusted

sharing of information, utilisation of the travel knowledge of friends and family, interaction

etc.). In our opinion, companies have been largely unsuccessful in achieving this goal, at

least in Europe.

Online Travel Social Networks

Social Travel


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THE SOCIAL TRAVEL LANDSCAPE – THEN AND NOW

It has widely been thought that travel lends itself particularly well to online socialisation,

and that as a result it would represent one of the largest and most successful activities for

social web 1.0 and 2.0. This was predicated by several factors.

Travel Online is Huge

The traditional travel industry, with the dematerialised nature of its products, historically

high level of regulation, complex cost structure, myriad of more or less efficient players,

and lack of price transparency, was ripe for a significant web-led shake up. Indeed, it was

more profoundly impacted by the development of the internet, and at an earlier stage, than

most other sectors of the economy. Today, travel represents:

The single largest expense online for European consumers

30% of the total B2C e-commerce market in Europe (source: PhoCusWright,

eMarketer) in 2010

An industry where 35% of transactions occur online (versus 10% for total retail)

(source: PhoCusWright, 2011)

Travel is Social

Travel plans, past, present and future, count as some of the main discussion topics among

colleagues, friends and family. Comparing notes on a destination and dispensing advice

on where to stay are some of the surest ice-breakers in all cultures. People are typically

proud of their travels and like to discuss them. As important as where you travel, is who

you travel with, showing how core socialisation is to travel.

Travel is Heavily Researched and Opinions Matter

Travel, and in particular holidaying, is not only very expensive, but in many cases, people

only get to go once a year. As a result, opinions of trusted parties matter hugely. This

explains why we spend more time researching our travel than for most other expenses.

% O F UK C O N S U M E R S W H O C O N S U L T R E V I E W S B E F O R E MA K I N G A P U R C H A S E

Source: Reevoo, September 2011

10%

11%

21%

27%

23%

26%

38%

41%

33%

37%

59%

68%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Chosing a bank, mortgage or loan provider

Buying or renewing insurance

Buying a car

Booking hotels, holidays or travel tickets

Always consult reviews Often consult reviews


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A Difficult Start

Despite this auspicious environment, social travel has not yet reached the potential that

many foresaw. In particular, the first wave of “Social Travel” start-ups was by and large

unsuccessful. While communities in games and dating benefited from huge viral user

growth and impressive revenue streams, social travel communities such as WAYN and

Dopplr suffered from several challenges in our view:

Lack of critical mass for the communities: Community fragmentation, with a

plethora of sites purporting to connect users to their fellow travellers, and little or

no integration between networks, meant that no particular site managed to reach

the necessary critical mass of travel-oriented members

Limited monetisation: Users who visited the site in search of travel

recommendations were in general only at the beginning of their decision-making

funnel and as such not ready to make a booking through the OTA (limiting ability

to effectively monetise). The main revenue stream was through advertising, but

limited audience, often spread around many geographies, meant that CPMs and

percentage of inventory sold were low

Unappealing community profiles and content: Although most of us travel at

least once a year, frequent travellers tend to belong to rather disparate groups:

backpackers, business travellers and wealthy people. Online communities found

it difficult to segment between members, and built heteroclite communities, less

likely to create adoption and loyalty among users. Also, the social profile of these

communities, with higher representation of frequent travellers, did not reflect the

average person’s network of friends, and made them less attractive to the general

population. As a result, most profiles were inactive, leading to content of limited

interest

Social Travel 2.0: Reload

In 2006, Facebook opened its doors to the wider public (having previously restricted

access to a selection of US universities), making the second wave of social travel possible.

Facebook were able to do what the travel-focused communities had difficulty. It was able

to grow its loyal user base at such a rate that it achieved a critical mass internationally.

Today, Facebook has over 800m users - a reach of almost 40% of the global internet

population.

Today, this new wave of online social travel operators is emerging, which harness the

improved environment and hopefully offer answers to social web 1.0’s challenges, namely:

Critical mass through integration with established generalist social

networks (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google +):

- Facebook is doing to the social travel world what roads did for the

Romans. The Facebook infrastructure and community allows social

travel sites to not only reach a vast number of users, but also act as a

tool for simplified account creation, viral audience acquisition and

granular social information, among other things. And that is without


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taking into account Linkedin (business users) and Google+ (early

adopters)

- On top of this, integration with Twitter will become increasingly

important. This platform has been evolving and is now much more able

to help users discover things in which they may be interested. With the

advancements in semantic search, travel could leverage the platform to

help would-be travellers find new and exciting places to visit

Attractive community profiles and content:

- By mirroring the social graph of the member, the core community of

activity/advice/review sharing offered by social travel operators is much

more likely to fit the member’s interest and profile, create trust and lead

to higher levels of activity and engagement

- What’s more, the development of clever and simple smartphone-based

on-the-go review/advice uploads has revolutionised the content

aggregation and consumption processes, making them easier and more

real-time and relevant

Strong monetisation potential:

- The concomitant explosions of local and mobile advertising benefits

greatly engaged social travel communities

- Targeted social advertising on the large generalist social networks and

their third party apps is fast increasing

- Group buying and collaborative consumption also create new and

important revenue streams

As a result, social travel is on the rise, and the space is becoming crowded again, with a

large number of start-ups complementing the efforts of online travel incumbents such as

TripAdvisor and increasingly Google. However, thanks to the integration within the

generalist social network platforms, the large number of start-ups does not hinder the

development of the whole space by fragmenting the potential audience, as happened

during social travel 1.0.

Travel is still behind in terms of usage on social networks compared to its potential, but is

catching up fast. Indeed, in contrast with two sectors which already successfully harness

the social opportunity, gaming and dating, travel remains behind (if one compares

worldwide audiences on the web and through Facebook apps).


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T H E O N L I N E T R A V E L S E C T O R H A S N O T Y E T S U C C E S S F U L L Y I N T E G R A T E D I N T O

S O C I A L N E T W O R K S

Source: 1) comScore: Worldwide UMVs (million), Nov 2011; 2) appdata: Cumulated Facebook monthly app users (million) of top 120 app, Jan 2012

Likewise, an analysis of the top audiences for Facebook apps reveals the relatively low

presence of travel so far (only 2 in top 25).

T O P 25 F A C E B O O K A P P L I C A T I O N S

Source: Appdata; January 2012

The top 15 pure-play social travel apps on Facebook (excluding the likes of TripAdvisor

and Yelp), have cumulative unique app users of c.4 million in January 2012, still only a

fraction of successful social games like CityVille or Farmville (over 30 million), and social

dating networks like Badoo (9.4 million users), or Zoosk (7.3 million users). This highlights

how nascent the sector still is and the size of the opportunity in the next 5-10 years. One

could argue that dating and gaming are daily activities, whereas one travels only a few

times a year – still, travel, especially if one includes related activities such as visiting bars

and restaurants, represents one of the largest topics of conversation and socialising, and

we believe the killer apps able to capture and aggregate online these discussions and

advice will soon command huge audiences.

844

511

125

376

24 37

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

Gaming Travel Dating

Internet Visitors Facebook App Users(1) (2)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Monthly app users (m)

Gaming Travel Other


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T O P 15 P U R E -P L A Y S O C I A L T R A V E L S I T E S – F A C E B O O K A P P T R A F F I C

Source: Appdata; January 2012

Indeed, the only player of size is TripAdvisor, and the challengers still only attract

audiences on Facebook in the thousands rather than millions. However, an analysis of the

landscape rapidly convinces that a new wave of promising social travel companies has

emerged, leveraging this improved environment, which will lead to improved audience

metrics. This has been seen especially with WAYN who, by changing their strategy to

focus on intentions broadcasting and capturing what users want to do and where they

want to go, has managed to more than double its audience over the last 12 months.

Current Landscape

We include in “social travel” all online platforms, sites and apps that purport to reproduce

online the socialisation directly related to travel. We do not place the use of social

networks for travel marketing activities under the “Social Travel” banner.

Within the social travel landscape, 5 key verticals have emerged which leverage “social” in

different ways and at different stages of the travel process:

1. Discovery – utilising your social graph to be inspired about travel destinations

2. Planning – deciding where / when / how to book using user generated reviews

3. Business trip planning – specific category in our view, with focus on limiting

“wasted” time whilst travelling and optimising opportunities to meet up with

contacts

4. Live recommendations/information sharing – Whilst travelling, finding where to

eat and drink, what to visit, but also who to meet, including in the plane

5. Collaborative consumption/group buying – e.g. private jet charter, hotel deals,

carpooling, short-term private accommodation rental, etc.

2,800

290 290

130 130

6020 10 3 2 1 1 1 0.4 0.4

Monthly app users (‘000)


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S O C I A L T R A V E L L A N D S C A P E


1. Discovery

Four out of ten international visitors (38%) choose their destination based on friends &

relatives' recommendations in 2011, according to global benchmarking survey Travelsat.

This shows the huge opportunity which exists in being able to create a platform which

travellers can use to leverage the knowledge and experiences of their network (a network

which is now far larger thanks to social networks).

Most of the focus in the social travel space has been on providing potential travellers with

inspiration on destinations utilising the knowledge and experience from their social graph.

2. Planning

Review sites in travel have been active and successful for a long time, and to a certain

extent represent the first and most obviously successful social travel business model –

although the social element, represented by the user-generated content, is limited to the

extent that most of the reviews are anonymous for the reader, and do not create any

community feeling.

Discovery

Live Recommendations / Info. Sharing

Collaborative Consumption / Group Buying

Before Trip During Trip

1

4

5

Planning2

Business Trip Planning3


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Reviews are powerful to the travel industry because they drive transactions. High quality

and trustworthy reviews can reduce the time it takes for a potential customer to become

comfortable with making a big ticket purchase, such as the annual summer holiday, and

therefore make them purchase prone sooner.

Arguably the most successful social travel company to-date is TripAdvisor, a site that

aides customers in gathering travel information, posting reviews and opinions of travel-

related content. The website is supported by an advertising business model and is as such

free to users, who provide most of the content. It has achieved clear leadership in the US,

with a reach of c.10% of monthly visitors of travel websites, and is becoming a go-to brand

for travel planning.

In Europe the situation is different, owing to several structural factors:

Language diversity allowing local players to dominate linguistic pools

Higher importance of leisure travel due among others to longer vacation days

Longer stays in resorts, leading to higher importance of package tour operators

Dominance of the independent hotels (2/3 of rooms in Europe) versus large

chains (2/3 of rooms in the US)

Higher proportion of campsite holidays

Two local players in Europe (Zoover in the Netherlands, Holidaycheck in Germany) in

particular are prospering alongside TripAdvisor with a focus on the leisure/resort

accommodation reviews.

In December 2010, TripAdvisor launched an integration with Facebook which instantly

personalises the site, prioritising on the page reviews from friends, popular destinations

among friends and an interactive social map. This functionality essentially pulls together

knowledge and experience within ones own social network, into a traveller friendly

information portal, marking a step towards the holy grain of reviews – to combine search,

social networks and reviews. This enables the provision of fully targeted/relevant and

therefore highly valuable reviews made by those with a similar demographic profile to the

user. It is so popular that after only one year, usage of the TripAdvisor Facebook app was

as high as 13 million people in January 2012, compared to 45 million on the website.

Interestingly though, the app seems to be still mainly used to read reviews, maybe check

where friends have been using the Travel Map function, rather than to upload and share

reviews and advice – a sample of Facebook accounts showed that of the total friends in a

network, over a third are signed up to the TripAdvisor app, but less than 10% had written a

review, much less than on Gogobot, Foursquare or Trippy. There is space for huge

improvement via ease of upload (“postcards”/thumbs up versus full uploads etc.).


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In 2011, Google has shown a keen interest into reviews. It has taken significant steps to

combine social graph, search and reviews:

It recently began beta testing a social travel service called Schemer. Schemer

combines user-generated content and recommendations from friends with

professional content from the likes of Zagat (acquired by Google in Sept

2011), Timeout and IGN among others. Time will tell how successful this

venture will be, although it appears to contain the key ingredients for a strong

social travel proposition

In December 2011, it acquired Clever Sense, the developer of a mobile

application called “Alfred” which delivers personalised recommendations to

consumers, tackling the problem of information overload

V A L U E O F S O C I A L C O N T E N T F O R R E V I E W S


3. Business Trip Planning

Social travel has taken off quickest with business travellers who seek ways of minimising

the “wasted” travel time to be more productive. Business travellers are a particularly

attractive demographic since they are prepared to pay a premium for convenience and

quality. Also, given that they are frequent fliers there are many possible contact points.

The most mainstream social travel integration is the collaboration between Tripit and

Linkedin in the US. This allows people within a network to see travel plans and use time in

airport/on a flight to arrange meetings. Other start-ups in this space such as IMGuest

(share hotel location in order to arrange face-to-face meetings when out of town) and

Plancast (post your conference attendance plans and those attending the same

conference can arrange a meeting), which offer more specific applications on the idea.

Description

Targeted and relevant content from people either in your

social network of those which have a similar social profile

(e.g. age, gender, background etc...)

Commentary

Information is trusted to a higher degree

Information is more relevant

Improved monetisation opportunities

Improved customer engagement and loyalty

VA

LU

E T

O U

SE

R

HIGH

LOW

Reviews

From

Own Network

User-Generated Reviews

Non-Independent Information / Information

From Vendors

Given the significant differentiation in the travel

industry, travellers will typically spend

considerable time online researching a hotel stay

– above and beyond the information provided by

vendors

User-generated information is largely viewed as

trustworthy and non-biased

Product/service related information

generated to help the customer make a

purchase decision

Factual but one-sided

Information lacks qualitative detail/analysis

Largely trustworthy information from customers

and users

An effective source of qualified information for

potential customers to learn from the experiences

of prior users – useful for larger ticket items


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4. Live Recommendations / Information Sharing

Although still in its infancy, the second wave of social travel is far more sophisticated than

the first, taking advantage of the improvements in technology (in particular location-based

technology) and the adoption of smartphone devices to offer users a live service, fully

integrated into social networks. Companies such as Foursquare allow users to read

reviews for a particular restaurant en route and then book directly. Once onsite, users can

even write and upload a review via the application on their mobile device.

A specific impediment in Europe is the importance of data roaming costs. Given that a

large degree of social travel functionality is based on mobile internet usage, costs become

significant once a user exits their domestic market. In markets where people prefer to

holiday internationally (such as the UK), this creates barriers to adoption of the location-

based services on-site/live. Many users will instead wait to use the likes of web-based

review sites once they return from their holiday.

5. Collaborative Consumption / Group Buying

Collaborative consumption was a term first coined by Ray Algar in 2007 and has been

championed by key figures including Rachel Botsman (Collaboration Fund) and Roo

Rogers, co-authors of “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption”.

The term is used to describe an economic model based on sharing, swapping, trading or

renting access to products as opposed to ownership, and is particularly relevant for the

travel industry, especially the accommodation (e.g. Airbnb, Wimdu, HomeSwapping

Company) and car-travel segments (e.g. RelayRides, Whipcar, BlaBla Car).

Collaborative consumption is so powerful because it unlocks value which is trapped by

poor utilisation rates and therefore holds a central role in creating opportunities for growth

within the online travel sector. Utilisation rates and seasonality have always been a major

issue for holiday providers and tour operators, and social travel start-ups within the

collaborative consumption space are now finding creative ways of solving this problem.

Unfortunately, as with all disruptive business models, there are two key challenges which

must be overcome before this segment may prosper; 1) awareness and 2) trust. The first

is an issue which should improve with time as the companies in this space grow their

brand and reach within the community. The second risks being a critical barrier to

development of this industry. Rachel Botsman, one of the thought-leaders on the topic,

understands the importance better than most and frequently highlights that the

cornerstone of collaborative consumption is reputation (and therefore trust). In October

2010, Rachel interviewed Casey Fenton, founder of CouchSurfing, a global movement that

connects travellers with locals across the world to provide accommodation. The core topic

of the interview was how to create trust between strangers via the internet. According to

Carey, the key is to implement various features which try to get different angles on trust,

allowing users to pick and choose which they want to pay attention to and build their own


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perception. On the CouchSurfing service several features have been implemented

including:

Personal profile/personality summary – each person is asked to fill in a set of

open-ended personality questions which gives some insight into their character

“Vouching” – members can be recommended, or “vouched” for by other

members

Official verification – Identity verification via credit institutions, criminal record

bureau etc.

Reputation/reviews – through interaction with the service, users gain references

which are a concrete, recorded form of reputation on which they are judged by

other users. This results in two things; accountability and group consensus

BlaBlaCar, a peer-to-peer ride share marketplace, is a prime example on how social travel

start-ups are approaching the critical topic of trust and reputation. The car-sharing

industry itself requires a higher degree of trust than most, due to the nature of the offering

– joining a stranger, often alone, in their car. Drivers fill in detailed profiles on themselves

and as they complete journeys they receive reviews from their passengers. Prospective

passengers can then choose which driver to travel with based on the driver’s personal

profile and the reviews they have received. Drivers are incentivised to offer a good service

because of the repercussions of not doing so, resulting in the loss of future business. In

order to build further trust between the passengers and the drivers, both parties are able to

communicate on the platform before committing to a journey in order to iron out any

issues.


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Reviews and Collaborative Consumption Combine to Create a

Virtuous Circle

The importance of reputation and trust brings us back to the power of reviews discussed

previously. Reviews and recommendations help overcome any trust issues which then

drives usage of collaborative consumption. This usage generates new reviews further

fuelling the industry. A company who can effectively manage information and trust will reap

the rewards of viral user growth, higher transaction volumes and happier customers – the

virtuous circle of social travel.

V I R T U O U S C I R C L E O F S O C I A L T R A V E L


INVESTMENT ACTIVITY

2011 was the year for the further take off of social-related sectors; Facebook (social

network), Bigpoint and Zynga (social games), PlentyofFish (social dating), Groupon and

LivingSocial (social commerce), Linkedin (professional social network) have all shown how

keen investors are to invest in social sectors in order to take advantage of the cost-

effective viral audience growth that these verticals bring. Although the hype has been in

daily deals and social games, the social travel sector is now finally beginning to see

significant activity; IPO of HomeAway (June 2011), US$100m placements into Airbnb (July

2011), CouchSurfing US$7.9m private placement and conversion from non-profit to B

Corporation (August 2011), TripAdvisor spin-off from Expedia (Dec 2011).

Europe too has seen some strong activity with the $90m investment Wimdu (June 2011),

and equity rounds for HouseTrip ($17m in Nov 2011), TrustYou ($5m in Sept 2011) and

9flats.com ($10m in May 2011).

The social travel space has witnessed a flurry of start-up launches, and we believe we are

far from a “winner-takes-all” situation, à la Facebook for mainstream friends’ updates. We

believe that the importance of independence and the edge provided by technology will

allow brands to exist in the space alongside the likes of TripAdvisor, Facebook, Twitter and

Linkedin, and develop their own profitable models.

Collaborative Consumption

ReviewsReputation & Trust


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Nevertheless, the space is definitely becoming crowded again, and we feel the following

factors must be considered when selecting the future winners:

Trust

− How is trust created?

− Who contacts me via this app?

− How intrusive is the app on my / my friends’ social display?

Integration

− Full integration to the main generalist social networks (Facebook, Twitter,

Linkedin, Google +)

− Local social networks (Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki in Russia, Qzone

and Weibo in China)

− Other social travel apps (Foursquare, Gogobot)

− Depth of integration is critical – friend identification alone is not enough

Features

− Playfulness of the site/app/features

− Ease of info upload (i.e. write only “postcards”, thumbs up etc.)

− Mobile (upload, localisation)

− Local (specific offers, place suggestion etc.)

Value add

− What does it bring me?

New places to try?

Cheap accommodation and new friends?

Suggestions for my next trip?

Meet my friends whilst traveling?

− Quality of data aggregation

Semantic search

Only reviews or stats on friends, quotes from status updates etc.

Network effect

− Deep integration into a person’s social graph inevitably raises privacy

issues

- We will agree to trade our privacy for a few select platforms only, which

will combine trust, critical mass of useful content and brand

- Expect a consolidation, initially by language pools, after the initial “rush to

Oklahoma”

Finally, conditions are finally here for efficient monetisation:

Travel, social and local commerce are now hot spots of digital advertising and etail

All social networks now offer powerful contextual advertising platforms

As a result, it is expected that current monetisation issues will sort themselves out for

those platforms which attain a critical mass of members (and usage therefore does not

constitute a critical factor yet) as social media influence analysis and metrics will improve

significantly. For those succeeding in the space, revenue streams have the potential to

become diverse and large.


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SELECTED COMPANY PROFILES

Business description: Founded in 2008, Airbnb operates a marketplace for people to

list, discover, and book accommodation around the world. The platform connects those

with spare rooms, with those who are seeking a place to stay. Those looking to host, can

upload their room to the website, allowing potential guests to browse and read reviews

from previous guests before booking. Airbnb raised over $100m in May 2011 from

Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global and General Catalyst Partners, and is arguably the

largest and most well-known private room rental marketplace in the world.

Business description: Founded in 2006, BlaBlaCar now has over one million drivers and

passengers and is growing by over 50,000 users every month. BlablaCar connects drivers

with empty seats with people looking for a ride. Drivers rent their passenger seats on trips

they are already scheduled to make and passengers purchase a seat. This means the

driver and passengers all share the cost of petrol and upkeep and not to mention save the

environment and reduce their carbon footprint at the same time.

Business description: Launched in 2010, Gogobot operates a platform which connects

individuals with friends to make planning and sharing your travels fun. The platform

utilises the user’s social networks, such as Facebook and Linkedin, to source travel

reviews. This ensures that the information is trustworthy and relevant to the user.

Business description: Founded in 2009, LoveHomeSwap.com is a homeswapping

exchange that uses social media to assist in finding vacation exchanges worldwide. The

company has combined a proven demand for homeswapping with social media to create a

global reach for a segment of the market that wants to explore living like a local as a

holiday travel concept and save on the cost of vacations. Love Home Swap brings to the

table a series of new innovations that address the traditional barriers to adoption namely a

network with a global reach, trust tools that link you through Facebook to potential

swappers and verify identities of those outside your group.


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Business description: Founded in 2010, the Planely application operates under the

principle of turning downtime into productive time. A user’s profile is linked to their

Linkedin or Twitter accounts. It then allows users to arrange to sit together on a flight, have

a meeting at the airport or share transport to a hotel. The social application encourages

engagement and can be useful to help reconnect people in a user’s network or make new

connections.

Business description: Founded in 2011, Social Flights is a social technology platform

that matches travellers with seats on available private aircraft at competitive rates. Social

Flights currently has over 10,000 social flyers and 90 private aircraft operators offering

hundreds of daily flights throughout the United States. The platform allows individuals to

connect with other members with similar travel intentions to charter a private aircraft. The

more seats that are filled in the aircraft, the cheaper the deal becomes.

Business description: Founded in 2000 and spun-off from Expedia in Dec 2011,

TripAdvisor is the world's largest holiday review site. TripAdvisor offers user-generated

reviews and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features (including Flights

search, TripAdvisor Mobile and TripAdvisor Trip Friends) with links to booking tools.

Business description: Founded in 2006, the Tripit platform helps aggregate all travel

plans for a typical trip into one location. This may include flight details, hotels, rental cars,

restaurant bookings, weather forecasts etc… The Tripit platform will organise all trip

details into a master online itinerary, automatically include maps and directions, and even

provide the option to book restaurants or other activities. The user then has the option of

sharing their travel plans online, with the view of potentially reconnecting with people

within ones network whose travel plans overlap.

Business description: Founded in 2010, Tripl is a social travel service enabling

interaction with recommended locals and travellers connected to via users’ existing


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GP Bullhound LLP

network. It allows users to find out who their friends would recommend as a “must meet”

local when traveling the world. Tripl is aiming to be part of the distribution model, collecting

data from the incumbent travel companies and in return providing them with opportunities

to re-target potential travellers with customised and relevant offers.

Business description: Founded in 2011, Trippy is designed to be a so-called “friend

sourced” travel solution, tying social networks, like Facebook, into its platform to let users

find out which of their friends have been to the destinations they’re considering — whether

it be that they’ve checked-in, lived, worked, or studied there. Through one-click

recommendations and Facebook-style commenting, Trippy lets friends tell the user what

hotels, restaurants, and destinations would be right for them.

Business description: Founded in 2011, Viveunique offers guests a unique living

experience, staying in quality city homes, with hotel-style services. The company aims to

provide a genuine hotel alternative without those pricey room rates with guests able to stay

for from 1 night to several weeks and enjoy a range of In-Home Services.

Business description: Founded in 2002, WAYN operates a travel and lifestyle social

networking community. The company’s Website enables its users to keep track of

contacts, make new friends, and interact with others, as well as to stay in touch, meet

people, and keep friends and family informed of their whereabouts, movements, and

activities. WAYN is present in 193 countries and membership has grown from 45,000

users in March 2005 to over 17 million in 2011.

Business description: Founded in 2011, Wimdu is one of the leading private

accommodation rental platforms in Europe, with the view of providing an alternative to

hotels. The service allows potential guests to search a variety of properties in their chosen

destination. Wimdu raised $90m in June 2011 from Kinnevik and Rocket Internet.


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GP Bullhound LLP

Business description: Founded in 2008, Wipolo develops an offering that allows users

to have their trip and profile details in one place and also offers them the power to connect

with their friends, family and colleagues in order to exchange trip plans, tips and travel

statistics.

Business description: Founded in 2004, Zoover is one of the leading European online

holiday review and weather forecast specialists. The company provides user-generated

travel reviews in 21 European countries and weather forecasts internationally.

For this research, GP Bullhound has interviewed the following:

WAYN

Love Home Swap

Ex-Lastminute.com executive and now internet entrepreneur

Blablacar

Tripl

Vive Unique


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GP Bullhound LLP

SELECTED RECENT SECTOR TRANSACTIONS

Private Placements

Date TTV

Announced Target Investor (US$m) Commentary Geography

Jan-12 Comuto Accel Partners; ISAI; Cabiedes & Partners 10.0 Online car-sharing platform France

Jan-12 9flats T-Venture; Redpoint; Eventure - Room rental marketplace Germany

Nov-11 HouseTrip Index Ventures; Balderton Capital 17.0 Online platform for the rental of vacation properties Sw itzerland

Nov-11 Travellution - -Travel social netw ork providing a platform for trip planning, and

information sharing France

Nov-11 CanaryHop - 0.5 Travel social netw ork connecting travellers w ith locals US

Nov-11 Alltrails 500 Startups; 2020 Ventures 0.4 Travel social netw ork for outdoor enthusiasts US

Oct-11 Mafengw o.cn Capital Today 5.0 Online travel community linking travellers and locals in China China

Oct-11 GogobotBattery Ventures; Redpoint Ventures;

CrunchFund15.8

Plaform for sourcing and sharing travel recommendations

betw een friends and similar travellersUS

Oct-11 World Family Soridec SA 0.7Online meeting/matching platform for travelers/lodgers and home

stay establishments/host familiesFrance

Sep-11 TrustYou Credit Agricole PE 5.0 Semantic user-generated review meta-search engine Germany

Aug-11 CouchSurfing Benchmark Capital; Omidyar Netw ork 7.6 Netw ork enabling travellers to f ind lodging from locals US

Aug-11 BloomSpotColumbia Cap.; InterWest; Menlo; True

Ventures; Harrison Metal; QED Investors35.0

Daily deals w ebsite in the US, also offering group buying deals

on travel experiencesUS

Jul-11 Hopper Atlas Venture L.P.; Brightspark Holdings 8.0 Travel information database w ith natural language search Canada

Jul-11 Tripping International Quest Venture Partners LLC 1.0Platform to connect travelers and locals for travel tips, meetings,

and homestays w orldw ideUS

Jul-11interactive MOBILE

@dvertisingConnecticut Innovations, Inc. 0.2 Geo-intelligent mobile content management platform for travelers US

Jun-11 TravelShark DLA Holdings 5.0Online global travel netw ork comprising of location-based travel

Websites for destinationsSingapore

Jun-11 WimduInvestment AB Kinnevik ; Rocket Internet

GmbH90.0 Room rental marketplace Germany

Jun-11 Cash Flights Media - 3.0 Travel focussed daily deals site in US US

Jun-11 Trip Alertz - 3.7 Travel focussed daily deals site in US US

May-11 AirBnBAndreessen Horow itz ; DST Global ;

General Catalyst Partners112.0 Room rental marketplace US

May-11 Expert MediaSutter Hill; General Catalyst Partners; PAR

Capital Mngt; Felicis Ventures10.5

Provides online information related to travel (review s sourced

from Tripadvisor)US

May-11 Tripl - 0.3Online travel platform that utilizes social graphs, interests, and

locationsSw eden

May-11 9flats Redpoint Ventures; eVenture Capital 10.0 Room rental marketplace Germany

Apr-11 HouseTrip Index Ventures 2.7 Online platform for the rental of vacation properties Sw itzerland

Mar-11 Tickengo Kima Ventures - Online car-sharing platform US

Mar-11 Hopper Brightspark Holdings 2.1 Search engine for planning travel trips Canada

Jan-11 WanderflyCharles River Ventures; MentorTech

Ventures; StartupAngel.net-

Online travel recommendation engine that suggests travel

destinations to users based on their budget and interestsUS

Dec-10 Wimdu Rocket Internet GmbH - Room rental marketplace Germany

Dec-10 HouseTrip - - Online platform for the rental of vacation properties Sw itzerland

Nov-10 AirBnBGreylock Partners ; Sequoia Capital ; SV

Angel ; Youniversity Ventures7.2 Room rental marketplace US

Jul-10 Kukunu Jaina Capital; Kima Ventures; Seedcamp 0.4Platform for sourcing travel planning and location

recommendationsUK

Jun-10 ComutoISAI GESTION; Quadriplay Venture;

Investments Search Friends1.5 Online car-sharing platform France

Jun-10 Gogobot Battery Ventures; Innovation Endeavors 4.0Plaform for sourcing and sharing travel recommendations

betw een friends and similar travellersUS


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GP Bullhound LLP

M&A Transactions

Source: Capital IQ

Date EV

Announced Target Buyer (US$m) Commentary Geography

Dec-11 OffAndAw ay Lockerz - Travel site that focusing on travel experiences US

Dec-11 Gow alla Facebook 3.0 Location sharing service and travel guide US

Sep-11 Review Analyst TrustYou -Online review and social media monitoring tool for the hospitality

industryUS

Jul-11 Where I've Been TripAdvisor -Platform enabling travelers to share their travel profiles and

facilitates sharing travel trips and discussionUS

Apr-11 Second Porch HomeAw ay 3.0 Vacation rental site US

Jan-11 TripIt Concur Technologies 118.0 Online travel itinerary platform w ith social features US

Nov-10 RealTravel UpTake Netw orks -Online travel community facilitating the sharing of travel

experiencesUS

Oct-10 HomeAw ay Google Ventures - Online marketplace for vacation-rental US

Jul-10 nextstop.com Facebook - Online travel recommendations platform US

May-10 Ruba Google -Operates as a travel guide site, allow ing users to f ind and

share travel destinations and informationUS

May-10 Sprice Travelport -Online travel search platform w ith user generated review s,

photos and ratings Singapore

May-10 Localyte The Nile Project -Online community that connects travelers w ith locals in travel

destinationsUS

Mar-10 TravelPost.com New Travelco -Online application that collect and organize user-generated

travel informationUS

GP Bullhound LLP

THE GP BULLHOUND BANKING TEAM

GP Bullhound is a research-centric investment bank with offices in London, San Francisco and Stockholm.

Hugh Campbell

Founder / Partner

Guillaume Bonneton

Partner

Manish Madhvani

Founder / Partner

Lord Clive Hollick

Partner

Claudio Alvarez

Vice President

Remy Valette

Associate

Christian Lagerling

Founder / Partner

Julien Oussadon

Vice PresidentJustine Chan

Associate

Martin Smith

Non-exec Chairman

Alec Dafferner

Partner / Head of US

Antony Northrop

Senior Advisor

Carl Bergholtz

Vice President

Florent Roulet

Analyst

André Shortell

Partner

Per Lindtorp

Director

Sasha Afanasieva

Associate

Alessandro Casartelli

Analyst

Graeme Bayley

Partner / CFO & COO

Malcolm Ferguson

Associate

Simon Nicholls

Partner

Per Roman

Founder / Partner

Viktor Fritzén

Analyst

Disclaimer: Information contained in the

document does not constitute an off any securities. This document is made available for general information purposes only and is intended for a high degree of financial sophistication and knowledge intended for the use of retail investors in the UK. Although all reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information contained in this document is accurate and current, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made by GP Bullhound Ltd. as to its accuracy, completeness and currency. This report contains forward differ

significantly from the results described in the forward you should be aware that statements of fact or opinion made, may not be up public or confidential) of GP Bullhound Ltd. In addition, opinions and estimates are subject to change without notice. This reconstitutes a specific investment recommendation or advice upon which you should rely based upon, or irrespective circumstances. Use of this document is not a substitute for obtaining proper investment advice from an authorized investment professional. Retail investors are

urged to consult their own authorized investment professional before entering into any investment agreement. Past performance of securities is not necessarily a guide to future performance and the value of securities may arise. In particular, investments in the technology sector can involve a high degree of risk and investors may not get invested. OBS Fyll I rätt text, gick inte att kopiera korrekt från pdf:en

Disclaimer: Information contained in the document does not constitute an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of any offer to buy or sell any securities. This document is made available for general information purposes only and is intended for professional investors who have a high degree of financial sophistication and knowledge. This document and any of the products and information contained herein are not intended for the use of retail investors in the UK or any other territory. Although all reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information contained in this document is accurate and current, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made by GP Bullhound LLP as to its accuracy, completeness and currency. This report contains forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ significantly from the results described in the forward-looking statements. In particular, but without limiting the preceding sentences, you should be aware that statements of fact or opinion made, may not be up-to-date or may not represent the current opinion (whether public or confidential) of GP Bullhound LLP. In addition, opinions and estimates are subject to change without notice. This report does not constitute a specific investment recommendation or advice upon which you should rely based upon, or irrespective of, your personal circumstances. Use of this document is not a substitute for obtaining proper investment advice from an authorized investment

professional. Potential retail investors are urged to consult their own authorized investment professional before entering into any investment agreement. Past performance of securities is not necessarily a guide to future performance and the value of securities may fall as well as rise. In particular, investments in the technology sector can involve a high degree of risk and investors may not get back the full amount invested. GP Bullhound LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom and is registered in England No. OC352636 Registered office: GP Bullhound LLP, 52 Jermyn Street, London, SW1Y 6LX http://www.gpbullhound.com, [email protected], +44 20 7101 7560 GP Bullhound LLP is or has been engaged as an advisor in the past twelve months to the following companies mentioned in this report: Zoover

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