Postmii offers a tricycle based photo-printing service with which you can take photos and print-it on the location. As a traveller can we take photo with us immediately or do we have to wait for delivery?
Actually you can do both, either get the printed postcard with you as a souvenir without sending it or the tourist can send it directly from the Postmiibike.

How many tricycles do you have currently and in which all cities?
We currently have 3 Postmiibikes in Portugal (2 in Porto and 1 in Faro) as well as 2 Postmiibikes in Paris.
Moreover we have done test in south of France (Avignon for a month, Saint Tropez, Saint Raphael and so on…)

How many photos have been printed so far?
More than 5000 since beginning of june.

What are your marketing plans/expansion plans?
Our marketing plans is to be in every touristic related event or big event like Websummit, CES Vegas and so on to show our products and then to launch our crowdfunding campaign to allow everyone to buy our license.

Please share some background about yourself and your team.
Geoffrey Costilhes, 28, co-founder of Postmii, winner of “our neighborhoods have talent” (where it all began), incubated at Station F and passionate about travel and photography! I always liked sharing my travels with my loved ones, younger, it was my polaroids that I transformed into a postcard, simply sticking a stamp on it! I find that the paper and more precisely the postcard is a wonderful way to convey his emotions, to freeze for a moment, an atmosphere. It is this unique and intimate side that I like … In our time, I find that it makes more sense than sharing a photo on social networks.

Postmii has a wonderful team. 4 partners who don’t have the same background but the same spirit. All together we are complementary. This is what makes our strength!

Postmii is a travel-startup based out of France. To hear the story of Postmii, follow Travel Tech Con Russia 2017 conference coverage.

The post Postmii, a French travel startup places the delivery tricycles in the best touristic attractions appeared first on TravHQ.

This leg of The Asian Travelpreneur series, is slightly different from the rest. While one of the entrepreneurs featured in this story is from Asia, the travel business that they are running is in Europe and the entrepreneurial tale that they have is very inspiring.

Meet the founders of Tourboks – Uni Cui, who is a Korean-Chinese, and Chryssa Oikonomidou, who is Greek.

An unusual tale of running a travel-startup in Denmark??

Chryssa: I wouldn’t say it is unusual – does it sound unusual? Visit any startup in Copenhagen and you’re bound to find international employees from across the globe. Copenhagen has become a pretty cosmopolitan city and Denmark is famous for being the happiest nation in the world, with strong social benefits. Until a couple of years ago the local startup scene was very dispersed, but this has dramatically changed. Within the past couple of years Copenhagen’s startup scene and the local tech ecosystem has really taken off. Today there are several startup communities, events, co-working spaces.. And of course there are a lot of successful Danish startups that are attracting investors’ attention.

What I would say is special, and not really unusual, is that we are a very diverse team with 2 women founders trying to succeed in a competitive industry.

Uni & Chryssa

Denmark, isn’t supposed to be on the startup map in a big way when compared with other nations in the EU. What made you choose Denmark.

Uni: I did not actually choose to start a startup in Denmark particularly because it is Denmark. It is mostly because I have established myself here with my own tour operator company Uniko. I have been here for about 2 decades and I enjoyed living here. While operating my tour operator company, I realized the increasing needs of FITs (Free Independent Travelers), thus I found Chryssa and we co-founded Tourboks.

We commonly felt like there was a clear need in the industry for the tours and activities segment to be digitized and distributed online especially for Asian customers on a B2B and a B2C level. That said, I strongly believe that Copenhagen will be the uprising star in European startup scene. As Chryssa mentioned, things are evolving.

Pros/Cons of running a travel startup in Denmark. 

Chryssa: Besides the above mentioned facts that make Denmark being a startup-friendly country, I would say the lack of bureaucracy is a very important benefit. Setting up a company in Copenhagen is very easy and you can do almost everything online. I would also put in the pros the fact that English is widely used in this country. Finally, on the pros side, the government is becoming very supportive. Before 2014 you needed 80,000DKK (approx. 10,700EUR) to register a company, whereas nowadays it is just 1DKK (10 cents).

On the cons I would definitely mention that, even if the welfare system is great, the money to support it comes from high tax rates, which lowers the profits of a company and makes it is super expensive to employ people.

Tourboks & Uniko Team

One of the co-founders, Uni moved to Denmark about 2 decades ago. The initial period as you’ve mentioned was quite challenging. Take us through the days.

Uni: During my childhood, China was very poor. I remember days that my family couldn’t afford rice. Growing up with these financial difficulties, made me want to try harder. I had big dreams and I wanted to achieve greatness. So I decided that I had to go to Europe to explore the world and create a nice future for myself. I came to Denmark with all my savings and I remember immediately being disappointed. Copenhagen airport seemed so small that I thought I landed to the wrong country!

My plan was to study at a Business School in a city outside of Copenhagen, called Kolding, which is much smaller than Copenhagen, and find any kind of job to support myself.

I managed to find a job to deliver newspapers during my studies. I was waking up at 01:00, 02:00 in the morning, delivering newspapers and then going straight to school. After one year, I realized that if I wanted to achieve my goals and realize my dreams, I needed to move to the capital.

But I was out of money and I did not know anyone, I had no friends in Copenhagen. I arrived in the central station of Copenhagen and I stayed there for several days searching for a job and a place to stay. Eventually I found a job as an Assistant in a Travel Agency and I have been working in the industry ever since. After working in various agencies for several years I started my own company Uniko.

Everybody talks about success as an entrepreneur. Let’s talk a bit about failure – When was the time you felt you’ve failed in your initiative. Lessons learn from that experience.

Chryssa: Building a company from scratch is not easy. You will hear a lot of “No”s, you will struggle a lot, you will find a lot of obstacles in your way and you will battle with failure on a daily basis. At least I did and sometimes I still do! Managing a company comes with anxiety and responsibility. In our journey with Tourboks so far, we have experienced several disappointing or difficult moments.

One of our greatest achievements so far, was to convince our 300+ suppliers to put their trust on us, to use our SaaS and upload their products at Tourboks. It was very challenging to convince these companies to trust us and invest their time and products on us. But we persisted with professionalism and it paid off.

A failure I remember was also one of the most important turning points for Tourboks: our focus. In the beginning we tried to focus mainly on a B2C level and we were investing in SEM and Google Adwords. We quickly noticed that we had very low ROIs and very high Customer Acquisition Costs. We addressed the reality: the travel industry is dominated by giants and at the time, with our small marketing budget, there was no way of competing against these companies. We agreed that if we would continue like that we would fail and immediately switched our focus and energy on B2B sales and the creation of strong alliances with other companies.

From that day we saw our sales going up and our Customer Acquisition Costs drop.
The main lessons learnt from building a startup company and the “must” tips of what every entrepreneur should do:
· “Listen” to the results
· Be flexible & agile
· Admit failure & change when needed – do not be afraid of change!

You have a successful venture in the form of Uniko. What made you startup Tourboks.

Uni: Uniko is indeed successful and a very healthy company financially speaking. But Online is the future. First of all, the market size is there: Tours & Activities online market is worth more than US$ 26B. From this amount, US$ 11B are spent from Asian travelers an amount that is increasing tremendously fast by the years.

We also noticed that there is a gap between Asian and Western players: Western players are not tailor making for Asians successfully and they have a lack of understanding how Chinese or Koreans work. Thus we decided to brand ourselves as The Asian Partner In The West and offer an Open Gateway to Tours & Activities Worldwide to companies that want to resell online in Asian audiences.

The main benefits for our B2B partners are:

• Big network of western suppliers with whom we can negotiate easier, faster because of our positioning and therefore acquire more complete product portfolios at better commissions
• B2B Distribution Solutions that are Open & Available To All without any bureaucracy: our Chinese competitors do not offer easy “on board” processes for B2B customers
• Competitive Commissions for our Partners

Your 2 cents to those who dream of pursuing a travel startup.

Chryssa: Choose the right, niche target market focus on a small segment first to validate your concept. Find your Competitive Advantage: what do you have that others don’t offer already? Finally work hard and get ready for a tough ride!

About the Founders

Uni Cui: Uni came to Denmark 20 years ago, leaving her small village in China, and bearing the dream to succeed in the west professionally. When first arrived in Denmark, things were definitely not easy. She was even homeless for some period, but with persistence and hard work, she managed to get a job in the travel industry in Copenhagen and eventually established herself by starting her own business 7 years ago. She currently owns a successful inbound travel agency called Uniko, handling Asian groups in the Nordics with a turnover of more than 1 million euros per year. She realized the increasing needs of FITs and the potential of the online Tours & Activities market, especially in Asia, thus co-founded Tourboks with Chryssa Oikonomidou. Currently she is acting as an advisor at Tourboks.

Chryssa Oikonomidou: Chryssa is Greek and moved to Copenhagen 5 years ago. She has extensive experience in marketing and sales positions in multinational companies like the energy group TOTAL. She is acting as the General Manager of the company and she is pretty hands on, managing Tourboks operations, sales, writing specifications for Tourboks platform and much more.

The featured conversation is a part of ‘The Asian Travelpreneur’ series. If you are a travel startup founder from Asia, and have an interesting story to share, send us a note at info@travhq.com.

The post From being homeless on the streets of Copenhagen to running a travel agency with a turnover of 1mn euros, the inspirational story of Tourboks founders appeared first on TravHQ.

In this leg of The Asian Travelpreneur series, we spoke with Mr. Ming Chen, Founder & CEO, KKday. KKday is the leading platform for travel experiences in Asia connecting travellers with over 6,000 travel experiences from all over the world. Since the official launch in 2014, KKday has expanded to Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and launched in Singapore last week.

Ming Chen, Founder & CEO, KKday

You have spent more than 16 years in travel industry. That’s a long, long time indeed. How did KKday happen? What does “KKday” mean?

In these 16 years, I have witnessed the process of transformation in online travel business in Asia. I realised that “personalised and localised in-depth exploration” is a growing need among travellers. However, 10 years ago, the technologies were not convenient enough to fully support the need.

Now, with the advancement of the Internet, it is easier for travellers to search and plan their trip online. Even if they don’t plan in advance, because of mobile technology, they can book tickets or check Google Map for destinations whenever they want during the trip. Besides, with the emergence of budget airlines and hotel booking sites, travellers in South East Asia gradually gave up travel package and are embracing independent travel, booking flight tickets, hotels, and local tours separately.

We aimed to go global at the very beginning, so the name should be easy to remember in by people who speak different languages. We feel that the letter K is similar to the pronunciation of syllable of “ca” from the word casual, and casual is the feeling that we hope ​travellers ​have in their trip. Compared to travel package provided by travel agencies, by using KKday, travellers can plan and experience their own trip casually.

100+ employees across South East Asia, 4.5mn dollars in Venture-funding, the growth has been truly phenomenal since launch. Did success come to you naturally?

Success never comes without failure. In the process of building KKday​’s business model, we relied heavily on trial-and-error​. We tried hard to create​ the safest e-commerce platform, to ​contact the licensed local tour providers, and to​ shape​ the most attractive brand image for people to put KKday into their consideration set.

Has there been any point of time in your entrepreneurial career where you felt that it’s not working out or the road is very tough?

It is said that “We don’t grow when things are easy; we grow when we face challenges.” There were countless challenges in K​Kday’s entrepreneurial career, but knowledge and countless happy moments also came from facing challenges and resolving problems. I think the toughest was where to find talented people, how to build up strength of the team, and how to effectively work together on the road.

Among all the countries you’re present in, which are your top markets? What is the sort of traction on your website right now?

The market of South East Asia is quite fragmented, which consist of various countries that need different strategies for business to develop and market. We have created a three-phase strategy. At first stage, about Q1 in 2016, our top markets are Hong Kong and Singapore, which are both ​mature consumer markets with higher GDP and motivation to travel. At second stage, about Q3 in 2016, we entered Malaysian ​market ​not only because of ​its growing GDP but also ​for its larger population compared to other countries in South East Asia. Our next step is to make progress toward Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Philippines, trying to stimulate their interest of travel.

What are the important points to consider while running a travel startup in South East Asia?

How to find the suitable local staff is the most important consideration while running business. As I mentioned earlier, unlike the United States or China, which are single and big markets, South East Asia market is fragmented. For example, the successful experience in Thailand market could not be “copied and pasted” to Indonesia. Every country in South East Asia is viewed as an individual market due to different languages, cultural backgrounds and customer behaviour. Therefore, we tend to hire local people to plan and execute marketing strategies because they understand local market the most.

In order to tackle each single market, we search for local marketing professionals, establish talented person’s database, and maintain the effective and efficient multinational communication between KKday’s headquarter in Taiwan and every branch offices in various countries.

How does the travel startup ecosystem look like in Taiwan right now?

The travel startup ecosystem in Taiwan started early in 2000, proceeding at the same pace with the United States and China, which is formed by Taiwanese government, customers, and companies.

Taiwanese government started boosting travel industry in 1956. Then it opened policy on Taiwanese traveling abroad in 1979, which made people soon embrace and get used to new ways of travel-independent travel. Under these circumstances, online travel agencies (OTA) grew in response to the proper time and conditions.

The ecosystem in Taiwan is innovative and creative. Compare to other countries such as Hong Kong, which has more financial service professionals, Taiwan has more talented engineers, which is beneficial in creating e-commerce platforms for online travel agencies.

However, the travel startup ecosystem is still growing in Taiwan. There are several travel startups in Taiwan, but it lacks the perfect venture capital ecosystem and talent to support the growth. We are looking forward to seeing more job seekers and investors to give attention to travel startup in Taiwan.

Ming Chen is the Founder and CEO of KKday, the popular platform for travel experiences. He is a travel veteran and before KKday, he has founded multiple travel platforms that were massive success as well.

The featured conversation is a part of ‘The Asian Travelpreneur’ series. If you are a travel startup founder from Asia, and have an interesting story to share, send us a note at info@travhq.com.

The post “We don’t grow when things are easy; we grow when we face challenges”- Ming Chen, Founder & CEO, KKday appeared first on TravHQ.

In this leg of The Asian Travelpreneur series, we catchup with Matthew DeSantis, founder, MyBhutan that makes traveling to Bhutan easy, cost-effective and personalized.

Matt, take us through your early life and what brings you here from Accenture. After all, it mustn’t have been easy to quit the company?

From an early age, my interests were to explore, assemble things and meet people.  For this reason, it was only natural that my career would eventually include travel, innovation and social impact. After graduating from the College of the Holy Cross and Columbia University with degrees in economics and engineering, I worked as a business strategist and IT specialist for Accenture. Unknowingly to me, this experience would become a core foundation in developing skillsets to identify gaps in existing infrastructures and develop practical solutions as an entrepreneur.

During weekends while at Accenture, I spent my time photographing people in different social spheres around the world. This hobby served as a catalyst in supporting my decision to leave the corporate lifestyle in search of a more creative endeavor that involved interacting with different cultures and less frequented landscapes. The following year I dedicated myself to a series of multi-month treks in various mountain ranges with a few waves surfed in between; all in the good company of two close friends. During this year, my passions became much more transparent.

Disconnected from a normal societal lifestyle, I grew a very intimate connection with my place in nature. I concurrently realized that I wanted to share this comfort with others and began to design methods for developing economies to participate in the globalizing world while still preserving its peoples’ original space. This exercise soon spurred my interest in socio-economic development. So I decided to venture to the Royal Kingdom of Bhutan at the invitation of a Bhutanese friend  to introduce baseball to Bhutanese kids.

While there, I dedicated extra time to providing ministries with high level IT and management consulting. It was during this rotation that I stumbled upon a pressing issue that limited the healthy growth of Bhutan’s tourism industry.I was tempted to apply my professional background to solve this technical problem, but this reason alone was not substantial enough to cause me to invest a good portion of my life in a country far from family and friends.

There had to be greater reason. This is how the project’s social impact component came into play. With help from my Bhutanese and international team, we developed a model designed to support booming industries while also sustaining local non-profits and boosting traditional markets. This resulted in forming a partnership with the Tarayana Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Her Majesty Queen Mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck to protect the vulnerable communities of Bhutan.

This, coupled by endorsements from His Royal Highness Prince Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck solidified the decision to dedicate my time towards the establishment and success of MyBhutan and, ultimately, the will to better the livelihoods of Bhutanese nationwide. Simply put, the transition was fueled by an itch to explore, a passion to innovate and a wish to do good.

Ever imagined that you will be in Bhutan one day, doing what you are doing?

If you asked me as a child where I’d be when I grew up, I’d likely have told you that I’d be inside a fire truck or a spaceship. Bhutan was not in the plan. However, during my first prolonged stay in Bhutan, I discovered great beauty in the Kingdom’s people; be it through the sincerity of personal relationships, the enthusiasm from children to whom I taught baseball or the friendliness of random encounters.

Observing Bhutanese interact with their surroundings made me realize that Bhutan was a natural fit for our work. The Kingdom’s primary objective to promote Gross National Happiness comfortably complements MyBhutan’s mission; to nurture emerging markets while simultaneously supporting traditional industries — with the aim of reducing social inequality and preserving ancient culture and pristine landscape.

As for the future, I will continue to pursue MyBhutan’s mission in Bhutan and other countries that would be positively impacted by this model.

As an expat, you’re trying to solve the travel industry’s problem in Bhutan. Did you at any point of time, face resistance of sorts from the locals?

Any large-scale technology that enters an existing industry is met with certain resistance to change. However, in addition to building a solution that optimizes efficiency, we focus on optimizing opportunity. Making industry players key beneficiaries makes change more widely accepted. Some great startups fail not because their product/service does not improve the existing system but because the product/service doesn’t seamlessly integrate with it. In regards to being an expat, it takes years of dedication to earn the respect and trust necessary to introduce new platforms in countries foreign to your own. My advice: prior to initiating a business in a foreign place, live in it. Become a local. It is only after you fall in love with your surroundings that you will be able to make purposeful decisions to improve its wellbeing. This profound interest to positively impact the community will stimulate the support required for success.

For those of who don’t know how does the tourism industry look like in Bhutan?

Bhutan’s tourism policy is high value, low impact. All tourists are required to pay a minimum government tariff of $250 (peak) or $200 (off-peak) per day. This tariff includes all accommodations, meals, transportation and your Bhutanese tour guide. All services must be operated by Bhutanese agencies, not international agencies. The common misconception that international agencies can operate tours has resulted in a large majority of tourists spending excessive premiums to book through international agencies for the identical service that they’d receive if they booked directly with a local agency.

However, local agencies do not have the infrastructure to support secure customer information processing and effective customer support for trip planning. This limitation caused 85% of travelers to pay excessive premiums for an identical service and, consequently, made a huge dent in market demand. Headquartered in both Bhutan and internationally, MyBhutan has become the solution to this half-century old issue.  We serve as the bridge to connect tourists with local agencies all while providing an unparalleled combination of knowledge and support hosted on smart technologies with the most strict security standards in the industry, all at the lowest rate allowed by the government and with no additional fees!

Which are the top contributing countries to the travel roadmap of Bhutan?

People from the United States are quickly becoming the most frequented international travelers, alongside China, Japan and various European countries. The largest group of regional travelers are Indians.

On the internet, there are several stories about Bhutan’s Paro airport. Such as the skill of pilots, connectivity hassles as well limited months etc. What’s the best way to arrive in Bhutan and the time to be here

The best way to arrive in Bhutan is undoubtedly by plane. I spent roughly 20% of my life in the air early in my career. As you may imagine, flying becomes rather mundane.

However, each time I fly to Bhutan I am practically glued to the window like a first time flyer. Endless views of the Himalayas are simply divine, with the most fascinating being a long flyby Mount Everest. Here, the skies always seem to be painted in different colors and the clouds in different patterns.

It’s a photographers dream, really. Seeing the small mountain villages while curving through the valleys at landing is also exhilarating. The pilots are some of the most qualified worldwide. The hosts and hostesses welcome you with a “Kuzuzangpola” and a hearty Bhutanese smile. The planes are well conditioned and clean with soothing Bhutanese melodies playing in the background. Overall, it is a very comfortable and enjoyable ride. Most tourists visit in the spring or fall for cultural festivals and nature in full bloom.

However, the thick clouds that contrast the lusciously colorful landscape provides a perfect setting for photographers in the summer. With rivers in full figure and valleys filled with flora and fauna, adventure sports like white water rafters, kayaking and horseback riding are exceptionally enjoyable in the summer. Winter is also a wonderful time to visit: become enamored by the mystical snow-capped mountains, relax in hot stone baths and soak up the sun in southern Bhutan.

Other than adventure freaks, help us understand the diverse traveller-types in Bhutan.

Bhutan’s travelers are as diverse as its landscape. Whether you are looking for luxury, adventure sporting, photography, eco-travel, nature, your honeymoon, religion or spirituality or to observe pioneering government policies, there is no place more unique than Bhutan. That, coupled with its 2016 Global Peace Index ranking as the 13th safest country in the world, makes Bhutan an ideal destination to travel alone, with family or with friends.

You have an interesting team composition in the form of explorers, creatives and more. How have you built this and are they working full-time on the project?

Though my colleagues come from different technical backgrounds, they all share one striking similarity – they are visionaries. Working alongside such progressive leaders and innovative minds is unquestionably my favorite part about working at MyBhutan. While our core team is full-time, we also invite creators (photographers, videographers, influencers, writers, etc) to work with us short-term in Bhutan.

How is the state of data connectivity in Bhutan. That’s one thing most travellers can’t imagine being without. Are the Bhutanese locals as social media savvy as rest of the world?

One would never guess that internet was introduced to Bhutan only in 1999. There is an abundance of internet cafes in the capital city and locals roam the streets pulling 4G from their iPhones. There are even WiFi hotspots scattered throughout the city! While internet in rural areas is limited, most 3 to 5 star hotels provide this amenity. If you don’t believe me, hang out at the restaurant ‘The Zone’ (located in the capital city) and you’ll cross paths with a frequent customer; a young boy nicknamed ‘Chunku’ who can recite Russell Peters’ entire standup routine!

How has travel tech entrepreneurship taken off in Bhutan? What are the current challenges?

With the world becoming increasingly smaller through advanced channels of transportation and communication, I believe the future for travel technology is quite promising for entrepreneurs not only in Bhutan but in developing countries worldwide. A common constraint for tech entrepreneurs in many countries is the lack of automation to handle work processes between parties, be it private or public. With considerable manual processes comes longer turnaround times and more errors.

This was the biggest challenge that we – along with the rest of the industry’s players – faced in Bhutan. However, our system has finally resolved this issue with a sophisticated platform that automates and manages work processes conducted by the government, tour agencies, tour guides, hoteliers, restaurants, banks, airliners and customs. As our platform becomes further integrated to meet the requirements of the private and public sectors, it will allow for local parties with limited IT support to build off our core technology to create innovative solutions to support their businesses. We plan to continue to share our expertise to build the technical skillsets of Bhutanese in order to improve technology across all industries in Bhutan.

Is MyBhutan a VC/Government backed project? If no, are you looking at raising funds. If yes, what for?

We are 100% privately funded. We are not actively looking for investors but are always open to entertaining the possibility. As the government heavily screens and limits the number of foreign parties allowed to operate or invest in Bhutan, MyBhutan also specializes in bridging relationships and providing the supporting infrastructure to enable this opportunity. We welcome parties to email us at contact@mybhutan.com with any project proposals or investment considerations.

Matthew DeSantis founded MyBhutan as a global portal for social enterprises in Bhutan that aims to develop local working communities and aid the philanthropic activities of local nonprofit organizations. The first enterprise is a travel platform that makes traveling to Bhutan easy, cost-effective and personalized. 

The featured conversation is a part of ‘The Asian Travelpreneur’ series. If you are a travel startup founder from Asia, and have an interesting story to share, send us a note at info@travhq.com.

The post ‘An itch to explore, a passion to innovate and a wish to do good fueled my transition’, Matthew DeSantis, MyBhutan appeared first on TravHQ.

In our second edition of The Asian Travelpreneur series, we speak with Mr. Amornched Jinda-apiraksa (Taro) who is currently the CEO & Co-founder of TakeMeTour, which is the largest online marketplace for local tours with more than 10,000 local experts from 45 cities across Thailand.

TravHQ: You co-founded TakeMeTour in 2014. Is that right?
Taro: Yes & No. TakeMeTour was founded in 2012 targeting Thailand’s outbound segment. We pivoted the concept to the current version of TakeMeTour (focus on Thailand’s inbound) in late-2014.

TravHQ: What is your background, do you come from the travel industry.
Taro: I have got a technical background which is totally different from travel & tourism. After receiving a masters degree in Robotics, I worked as a software engineer. At the same time, I co-founded TakeMeTour as a side-work to follow both of co-founders passion. Later on, I felt like I needed to learn & have more hands-on experience in business & management.

I moved to work as a senior online advertising & marketing specialist at Google Singapore, where I’ve got first-hand experience and learnt a lot about the business-world. Once TakeMeTour was about to secure seed funding, I moved back to Bangkok to hyper-focus on the business in order to leap it forward.

Amornched Jinda-apiraksa (Taro), CEO, TakeMeTour

TravHQ: Tell us about the highs and lows at TakeMeTour during this 2 year old journey.
Taro: The high was when we reached the point where we had more than 10,000 registered & verified local experts from 45 cities (out of 77 in Thailand). We have managed to keep the local expert signup rate grow organically. Thanks to all of the press & media who have supported us. The low would be around the beginning phase, where most people still didn’t get what we were doing and how this could impact the travel industry as a whole.

TravHQ: You are currently funded by 500 TukTuks, dtac Accelerate, and Mr. Ittipat Peeradechapan. How did the opportunity come through?
Taro: It started when we were selected as a finalist of dtac Accelerate and joined the program for 4 months in 2015. We were introduced to many interested angels & VCs. This was when we got connected to 500 TukTuks & Mr. Ittipat.

TravHQ: The general perception is that the whole Startup ecosystem in Thailand isn’t as bright as Singapore. Your views?
Taro: People might perceive it that way. However, I think that Thai startup ecosystem is improving and developing very quick, especially in the past few years. There is currently many support coming from all related parties, i.e. government, banks & private sectors.

I can see that “startup” concept is widely known and discussed among many Thais, which wasn’t the case 3-4 years ago. The overall landscape might be behind Singapore in some aspects, e.g. law & regulations or investment. However, I feel like we are catching up and heading into the right way.

TravHQ: Other than TakeMeTour itself, which are your favorite travel startups.
Taro: Globally, I like Airbnb. I like the concept of sharing economy & utilizing the exceed resources. TakeMeTour is also considered as a sharing economy in services sector also.

TravHQ: As an entrepreneur, your biggest strength is?
Taro: Passionate & Creative thinker

TravHQ: and weakness would be …
Taro: Not coming out of travel background (this might be a strength in some sense)

TravHQ: Your advise to those thinking of doing a travel startup?
Taro: I’d advise them to validate their idea quick and just do it! It will definitely be very challenging, especially at the beginning. However, there are also  large untapped market opportunities waiting for those who see them.

TravHQ: Looking back at the years, are you satisfied with where you are?
Taro: I’d say I’m satisfied with what we have achieved so far as a no.1 and the largest marketplace for local tours in Thailand. However, I also feel like we could do better, faster, and more efficient moving forward.

Travelpreneur Bio:

Mr. Amornched Jinda-apiraksa (Taro) is currently the CEO & Co-founder of TakeMeTour, which is the largest online marketplace for local tours with more than 10,000 local experts from 45 cities across Thailand. He takes a leading role in strategic planing, partnership, business developments, and marketing as well as managing the company’s daily operations. Prior to TakeMeTour, he was a senior advertising & marketing specialist at Google Singapore where he was training & coaching thousands of small & medium businesses (SMBs) to grow and succeed online. Prior to Google, he was a software engineer focusing in robotic research and published his work in various international journals. He holds a Masters Degree in Robotics from the Heriot-Watt University, the United Kingdom.

The featured conversation is a part of ‘The Asian Travelpreneur’ series. If you are a travel startup founder from Asia, and have an interesting story to share, send us a note at info@travhq.com.

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In our journey of over one year, we have been extensively tracking travel startups from India, Singapore and Hong Kong among other countries of SEA. However grass-root innovation in the travel & tourism sector across emerging economies such as Laos, Vietnam, Thailand etc. has been equally impressive as well. The development in these regions comes in at an interesting time – When the governments of these respective nations are making constant endeavours to promote the tourism economy and improve the destination’s image among international travellers.

At this juncture, we would like to start a new content series ‘The Asian Travelpreneur – Conversations with Asian Travel Startup Founders’ with the aim of bringing to limelight, travel industry innovators from across Asia who have been making a dent in their home-country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are kicking it off with a conversation with Prakash Neupane, tech entrepreneur from Nepal, who co-founded the Award Winning Company Nepflights.com. Here is an edited excerpt from the conversation:

You have built NepFlights. How old is the venture and what problem are you solving for Nepali travellers? 

2.5 years ago, when I used to travel to different countries to participate in various events and meetings I found strange that more people knew Mt. Everest and Birth Place of Gautam Buddha than the country Nepal itself. It gave me the impression that there is huge potential to get people interested in visiting Nepal if we can show people what Nepal has to offer. We have lots of unexplored natural beauty, adventures, culture, tradition, food, festival, lifestyle and people themselves. So when I came back home, I talked to my team and started exploring the options to build an online platform to showcase Nepal. The reality was much different from what we assumed initially as there was complete lack of information online. So we started from scratch, first by enabling realtime domestic flight booking online. We have now reached a point where we are ready to launch International flights, rentals, buses, holiday package booking. NepFlights.com is now the online platform for booking travel services for Nepal.

We solved the problem of travellers by providing easy access to flight information and booking options. Before Nepflights.com, people had two ways to book domestic flights in Nepal. Either they could visit their nearby travel agency to seek flight details or they could email the travel agency seeking the details. Both these processes were time consuming and uncertain and we managed to address these issues with our venture.

This also allowed us to solve the problem of B2B market. In Nepal more than 2000 agencies didn’t have access to airlines system and had to reach out to other agencies to get prices and book. NepFlights.com has helped them get all airlines on single platform for free.

What does your team look like and what sort of traction you’re getting on Nepflights?

The team is a combination of travel experience and technology expertise. One of the core team members has more than 15 years of experience of travel industry and others have expertise of building the solutions that can transform traditional tourism industry into innovative technical solution which perfectly help to build the platform to sell travel service. We were able to bring most of the travel service online by convincing the offline players to adapt to the change. We connect more than 2000 offline agencies to provide direct access to flight booking, We have partnerships with 2-3 international brands to extend our service and serve more than 5000 customers. Also, we were recently awarded for Best ICT Startup Award 2016 of Nepal and Top 100 Asian Company from Red Herring.

How big is the OTA market in Nepal? 

Currently there are not many major examples of OTAs in Nepal and we are trying to set one with our venture. There are few international platforms which collaborate with local companies here and help sell directly to their customers. Over the last 2-3 years, we have seen some initiatives that have got potential but they will still need some time to get a firm hold in the market. We have also seen airlines changing their model and promoting online booking.

How is the travel market in Nepal growing?

Nepal has long been attracting heavy spending tourists, looking for trekking, expedition and adventure activities. Europe and United States have been the source markets for ages. But things have been changing constantly over the past 5-6 years. More people are now looking for city tours, eco-tours, culture tours, food and shopping. India, China, SAARC and East Asia are now seen as the growing markets for travel providers in Nepal.

Investments are also growing in luxury tourism, especially in accommodation industry. Industry is investing primarily on wildlife activity, adventure activity and government has started to develop and promote sustainable tourism and community tourism.

Outbound tourism is also growing significantly every year, with people travelling mostly to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and some European countries.

What are the travel aspirations of a typical Nepalese millennial.

I see two tribes of travellers if we talk about Nepalese millennials, Social Capital Seeker and Simplicity Searcher. By nature, Nepalese millennial are always busy along the same regular routine (study, job, business) and are very competitive with-in circle. Simplify Searcher millennial want to travel to utilise their vacation in between their schedule. They want to either go for the luxury and short trip or long trekking, depending on the season and vacation duration. They look for suggestion from OTA, Travel Agencies, friends and family.

Social Capital Seekers are looking for value that travel can create, They put effort in extensive research and go through the experience of similar mind set. These kind of travellers seek support from community wherever they can. They are looking to explore new things and at times even create some buzz. Along with this, you will often find them leveraging social media channels and their blogs to document and share their experiences.

Nepal is sandwiched between India & China, two of the most disruptive markets in travel-commerce and venture funding. Does it provide strategic advantage to Nepal in any way?

Not yet, but it will eventually. We see lots of investments and startups growing in India and China. Because of large value that these two counties can make, lots of investment opportunities help the industry in these two countries grow rapidly. But Nepal seems different, I don’t think Nepal will be a similar market anytime soon. However, there can be significant advantages if:

1. Nepal can start building product/service along with China or India,
2. Nepal starts putting strong focus on tourism value which only Nepal can add

But it is not limited, We see lots of similar startup in Nepal like China and India, The idea, learning and implementation challenges are good reference to build upon. It also shows what the global demand is and how startups in Nepal can build solutions.

All over Asia, tourism boards are embracing digital platforms to change the way they communicate with travellers. How is NTB (Nepal Tourism Board) gearing up for this? 

Yes, NTB is already taking this seriously and is leveraging digital platforms wherever required. Especially after the recent earthquake, NTB endorses NepalNow.org (Online platform to share realtime status and travellers’ stories) to help provide right and updated information after earthquake directly to the tourists who are considering Nepal. Nepal Tourism Board is closely observing and learning from digital initiatives of Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

Nepal Tourism Board is already started to build Digital Marketing Strategies with different national and international Digital Experts and there will be very strong Digital Marketing Program coming very soon.

Lastly, what are your views on entrepreneurship in Nepal? Is the ecosystem (VCs, accelerators) supportive for travel startups? What’s the ground reality like?

There has been a very encouraging environment for entrepreneurship for the past few years in Nepal. We saw lots of new startup trying to solve local problems and some with global. We often see people meeting and sharing ideas with each other, supporting each other. There are multiple entrepreneurship events hosted every week where people get knowledge, network and explore other opportunities. However, due to the lack of proper supporting ecosystem, most of startups are not growing enough. There are only few accelerator (with no specific focus) which are not enough to fulfil the demand, no incubators, and very few VC or investment opportunities. So most of the startups have been started by bootstrapping, and using personal network for mentorship. There is also a good side to it as people do prepare well before starting up. They meet other entrepreneurs and industry leaders, do ground research and validate their idea, which helps at least to bring very serious entrepreneurs. Last year, few startups raised good amount of funding from local business houses and I believe this trends will grow further.

Prakash Neupane, Co-Founder, NepFlights.com

About Prakash Neupane

Prakash is the tech entrepreneur from Nepal, who confounded the Award Winning Company Nepflights.com: online platform for booking travel service of destination Nepal. He believes Nepal has lot of potential in tourism industry to bring millions of tourists to the country. Before starting Nepflights, he was working the with national and international organisations to create social impact using ICT .

He is handling the technical and strategic development of NepalNow.org, Government program to build online platform to share realtime status and traveller’s stories after earthquake in 2015. Currently, he is associated with Nepal Tourism Board for their Digital Marketing Strategy.

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