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.

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Airbnb has gathered accolades in short term rentals and is in no mood to stop exploring the horizon. It raves about guest experiences it offers beyond the bland stay at the forgettable hotel room. The consumers are super excited about the company rolling out its testing phase of an entirely new experience. This is more or less similar to getting guided tours except that the host gets to be the guide here.

Airbnb has launched the new program called the City Hosts which allows the tenants to experience a new side of being in the city. The program has been launched in private beta mode and currently allows major towns like San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris, London and Los Angeles to be on the platform.

This program gives the user an ability to customise their own experiences in an entirely personal format which looks super fresh move in terms of exploring new things for the company. There are currently 36 experiences available which sound ecstatically awesome such as; adventures with a kite surfer in SF, Vietnamese cooking lessons with a Parisian chef and tours through London’s Grime music scene with a record scout. The experience could be entirely exclusive or shared depending on the number of guests the host has taken. The experiences are charged per guest where the tenant would pay up if he chooses to stay in the City Host specific city.

For instance; if someone wants to explore, let’s say, party culture in Tokyo, all they have to do is find a City Host experience that says Party Animal and pays $250 per guest and as it turns out Ken would host you to amazing bar crawls and clubbing options.  Usually, the guests get to spend about 3 hours a day for the entire stay time, hence getting a local like feel to the place of stay.

This initiative gives guests a more activity-focused way to select when and where they travel. After booking an experience, the site could list down few options where one can possibly stay close to where they’ve booked heir entertainment options. The site had come up with a Guidebooks option with their oh so lovely Live There campaign until recently. Such interesting gradual steps are a surer way for the company to increase its scalability in the minds of the consumers.

The experience handling is a new way in for the company and it surely has its own set of queries. Would hosts be open to such kind of model? This program is in its incredibly early stages and it’s highly uncertain what the fate would hold.

Source: Techcrunch

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Itinerary planning is an exhaustive task. Everybody is on a look out for some authentic experience when they plan a holiday. But what do they mean when they say authentic? Authentic here means to get to go around like a local or experience stuff that makes them feel like a local. The peeps at TravoAsia have kept in mind these worries and the team has come up with a peer-to-peer platform that allows you to book activities with the locals, experiencing the newness in the culture and the way we look at it.

TravoAsia was founded in late 2015 and their concept was to give travellers a unique taste of local experience with the ease of flexible. Travellers have a full control on what they love to do on a trip.  They can book a private dinner cooked by a Korean in the afternoon so that they can enjoy it after a busy day of work or a couple can choose a full day mountain climbing course during their 5 days’ vacation to Thailand. The demand for a more in-depth experience on the trip is what TravoAsia brings to the table.

The founders, Tom and Stephen, started off with the gaming industry. They had been travelling a lot in last few years to attend business conferences and meetings with game publishers in different cities. While they spent most of the time during the days on works, they always felt that they had no ideas where to spend the time after the busy work which sometimes finished up early. They had started to wonder is there a way that they could book a local activity instantly on web or mobile. That way, they didn’t have to worry about the planning and time and more importantly arrange their own activities according to their own schedule. This is how TravoAsia was born.

Initially, they had planned to target Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The reason behind that was that they have some of the highest outbound travellers spending in the region and the inter-travel between these four countries are extremely high. At the moment, they have more than 50 activities listed on TravoAsia. Most of them are from Korea and the variety of the activities included paragliding in Seoul, rock climbing in Hallyeo Maritime National Park and K-pop culture tour. They aim to reach over 100 unique experiences to start with.

Founders of TravoAsia

TravoAsia launched their website in February 2016 with managing to put over 30 activities online in one month. They offer at least 5 different trail walking and climbing activities in Seoul and not many people know that activities like this even exist in this busy cities. They want to test out the “taste” of the customers and see what types of experience they love and then fine tune the types of activities that they have on their platform. More important, they would like to offer as a one-stop service for sole and self-planned travellers where they can find the most updated attraction in their distinction.

They are planning to go full scale in Korea and hopefully expand to Japan and Taiwan by the end of this year. They plan to launch their services in Hong Kong market and prepare for fundraising. In long run TravoAsia would cover all major cities in Asia.

For more information on how to book, you can visit their website or check out their Facebook page.

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There has been a significant rise in the demand of experiential travel. Today’s millennials don’t just plan to travel anywhere but wish to explore areas that can give them unique experiences. They are adventure freaks and love to involve themselves in activities like scuba-diving, skydiving, rock climbing, para-gliding etc. There are a bunch of exciting travel startups in the experience/activity planning segment that are catering exclusively to this category of off-beat and adventurous travellers with their line-up of activities:

If you are a travel junkie and love to adventure and involve yourself in activities native to different countries, we have listed a few stunning experiences you can include in your travel plans:

#1. An escape in the modern villa by a pristine lake (Spoty.com)

Founded by Pavel and Vali, Spoty has an experience that you will cherish for a longtime. Hosted by Catalina in Tesila, Romania, an exquisite villa with an admirable contemporary architecture and a comfortable environment awaits your arrival. This boutique hotel can accommodate up to 28 guests. It is surrounded by green hills, a dense forest and a clear lake which will give the travellers an opportunity to disconnect from the city life and embrace the beautiful nature. Adventure-seekers can get an adrenaline rush by activities such as kayaking, horse-riding and boating.

Amenities offered: Food, Free Parking, Sauna, Gym, WiFi, Garden, TV, Air Conditioner, Dryer, Free bikes to enjoy the nearby landscapes, Fishing etc.

Price: US$104 (1 Guest for 2 Days)

For more details, you can visit the Spoty.com webpage.

#2. Have a 3-hour off-road adventure in the Nevada Desert (Peek.com)

Wish to drive a fully equipped jeep in the deserts all by yourself and not just be a passenger? Peek, an exciting startup providing high-quality activities with best vendors across the globe, gives such an offer to its customers. The destination – Nelux Apex – is located 20 miles away from Las Vegas. The travellers can navigate on the sand dunes and rugged roads of this region with experienced guides who will give directions and inform the people with him about the scenic routes. The travellers will get a chance to closely observe the native desert wildlife.

Price: US$432 (Per Person)

For more details, kindly visit the webpage here.

#3. You might have had plenty of wine but do you know its history and how it’s made? Get to Nandi Hills for all your answers. (Thrillophilia.com)

Thrillophilia, an online website that hand-picks the best activities at every destination from local suppliers, offers to its customers wine tour in Nandi Hills, near Bengaluru. It’s one of the rare places in India where travellers can learn the art of wine-making and get the real idea of understanding a good quality of wine.The vineyard is spread over 400 acres in the sloping green hills surrounded by beautiful scenery. This will be a 3 hours activity comprising of video presentations and a tour with the complete practical explanation and demonstration of processes carried out for manufacturing wine. The travellers will be allowed to sample five different forms of wine amidst pleasant music. Lunch overlooking the vineyard will be provided to them.

Price: 840 INR (Per Person)

For more details and booking this tour, click on this webpage.

#4. Bibap Show in Seoul (Klook.com)

Hong Kong based Klook, founded in 2014, was established with an aim to provide travel-related service to English-speaking and travel enthusiasts.It offers fun and thrilling activities in 21 countries.

Do you know what’s unique about ‘Bibap Show’? Hosted in Seoul, Bibap Show quite distinctively combines cooking, break dancing, martial arts and singing. This new concept has been named by the cast as ‘Eatertainment’. It is a theatrical performance based on Korean dish performed by talented actors who display their skills in the kitchen area while interacting with the audience all the time. ‘Bibap Show’ has gained international audience very quickly. Since it is a non-verbal show with the use of memes language is not a barrier. The show has elements of both humour and surprise in it.

Price:  US$24- US$34 (Per Person)

For more details and booking tickets, click here.

#5. Walk 13-feet underwater on the ocean bed to enjoy the aquatic life (Triposo.com)

Last on the list is Triposo: a travel guide that has listed more than 15000 destinations in 200 countries. A unique experience that this website offers to its customers is ‘Underwater Sea Walking’. The travellers will get to enjoy the safe and fascinating 20-minute walk on the ocean bed (10-13 feet deep) underwater. They will get an opportunity to witness underwater plant life, corals and beautiful schools of fishes around them. These travellers don’t need to know/learn swimming. A simple training of a few minutes will allow you to be a part of this interesting activity.

Price: US$47.85 (Per Person)

For more details and booking tickets, click on this webpage.

How many of these experiential activities would you like to add to your bucket list?

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