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Investors believe Instagram may be the next Google when it comes to promoting travel.
The most recent evidence is a new $10. 3 million venture capital circular raised through Tripscout. The Chicago-based startup has built its long-term career with what it says is 30 million fans in its more than one hundred Instagram feeds. Next: its first foray into the sale of hotel rooms, through a personal feed that users can access to obtain different rates of unannounced rooms.
“The fact that we have 30 million subscribers opens up a whole new channel,” said Konrad Waliszewski, CEO of Tripscout (pronounced Wall-uh-shev-skee). “This is the chain of the future. TripAdvisor dominated search engine optimization in the early days. We do it by Instagram.
Of course, Instagram has long sought to advertise travel, largely through paid influencers through destinations to post wonderful tourist photos. But Tripscout’s strategy goes beyond comfortable marketing.
At Thursday’s launch of its Instagram-based agency, @hotel Tripscout will have access to discounts at tens of thousands of hotels through partnerships with Hotelbeds and HotelPlanner. These come with channels and independents, Waliszewki said. Users can access discounts by sending a “hotel message to Tripscout’s Instagram accounts.
The circular led through Chicago-based Corazon Capital, which supports hotel booking site RocketMiles and garage parking app SpotHero, and Boston-based Accomplice, which funded Hopper and DraftKings.
The circular was the so-called Series A, the instant circular that the company raised after raising $2. 3 million in the past. Tripscout also raised $3. 5 million in debt.
“As consumers devote more and more time and attention to social media, there is obviously an opportunity for new players to provide consumers with better tools,” said Mauricio Prieto, who writes the Travel Tech Essentialist subgroup and former chief marketing officer of online firm eDreams Odigeo. He said social media had underperformed due to poor technology, while other critics blamed weak advertising methods or brands’ reluctance to marry extravagant content on TikTok. “It turns out that Tripscout has figured out a wise way to solve the challenge of visitor acquisition even before its launch.
TripScout has grown its Instagram audience during the Covid pandemic, with a focus on video after Instagram introduced its Reels product in 2020. And it exploded people’s nostalgia for traveling when they couldn’t, Waliszewki said.
Because other people have to apply for the unannounced rates offered through its new channel, Tripscout exceeds the requirements that require online travel agencies to offer the same value as everyone else and the online page runs through the hotel itself.
In Chicago, for example, this weekend, Tripscout offers rooms at the Godfrey Hotel starting at $357. 49, while Expedia advertises the same hotel for a “member price” of $524.
The hook for hotels is Tripscout’s huge subscriber base, which is developing at two million per month, Tripscout said. Waliszewski says Instagram has overtaken Google in the No. 1 position where consumers start searching for travel.
The fact that consumers have to apply for the discounts can help Tripscout avoid the effect of apple’s privacy policy changes, allowing Instagram users to restrict the number of advertisers tracking their use of the service, Prieto says.
“This is something that can influence tripscout’s relative advantage,” Prieto said. “Industry players who rely on classified ads can face challenges. user organization costs through personal booking links. It will be attractive to see how this plays out.
Curacity has a similar idea, offering discounts for Instagram influencers who post experiences, said President and co-founder Nick Slavin, whose network also includes established media partners like Conde Nast. Hotels recorded a 67% occupancy rate in April, according to STR. Even with 3% fewer issues from the same month in 2019, many can use Instagram to profitably move $25 billion in unsold goods, he said.
For influencers, Curacity can save time and money spent preparing media kits for suppliers to look for gifts. And they can increase their audience when Curacity promotes their posts on their own account, Slavin said. The company says it uses knowledge about the content. the express audiences of creators to suit hotels looking to succeed in demographics like yours. Curacity charges a 10% commission on the bookings it can generate, well below the profit margin of the rooms of the main online agencies.
“Hotels can leverage unsold assets with content, and we can attach that content to the profit it generates,” Slavin said.
Curacity claims to demonstrate a 10 to 1 return on investment for its guests, who are mostly independent hotels. The company raised $7. 3 million in three rounds of funding, according to Crunchbase, an independent data provider and has 15,000 content creators on its network.
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