TripWolf is a website that combines travel tips from two different kinds of travelers. In one hand we have travel experiences and reviews from professional travel writers with a vast collection of travel information, and in another hand we have feedbacks from a worldwide community of thousands of travelers who have already visited the places and countries you want information on. “TripWolf is like a big word of mouths traveler association.”
The website offers the possibility to browse through more than 400,000 locations, city guides, personal recommendations and travel blogs using the TripWolf travel map (google mal). Tips are given by professional travelers (“trip gurus”) for very specific travel advice in order to find favorite spots in any city. Then, we can also create, download and print our free PDF travel guide! And even Import our friends through facebook and share our travel pictures.
TripWolf is offering a complete range of information about almost every destination; in few mouth clicks we have a full access to a lot of tips posted by worldwide travelers and their recommendations on each destination, then the customer can also plan his next trip step by step.
The site also searches the best hotel rates and flight rates for travelers across more than 40 hotel booking sites and travel agencies (Such as fastbooking.com; lateshomes.com; ratetogo.com…) Which allows to those different partnerships to have a biggest activity and consequently more revenues.
The main asset of Tripwolf is that the platform is completely free, there is no subscription fee for consulting advice and feedbacks, the site is evolving thanks to travelers that want to express their feeling and share their experiences. So according to the article about the 9 business model of the web, we can assume that TripWolf is using a community model. Indeed information are not verified and checked by Tripwolf but only by posters. However, the site is a lot more that a community model, it is also part of the infomediary model. Why? Because travel journalists are employed by TripWolf and give information and advice to people that surfs on the website, It’s a bit like “Le Guide Michelin, but for free…
There is one question that should come directly: If this business is part of those models, how can it make money and be profitable? Very simple: TripWold is using another business model which is advertising. Indeed, the website is full of ads during the research of trip advices, those advertisements are certainly their main source of revenue.
We can be tempted to say that Tripwolf is also using broker business model, however, Tripwolf is not selling anything. There are just advising and redirecting people to hotel booking platform (which are brokers themselves). We can pretend that they eventually take a commission on each sale from partners booking sites or a partnership fee has been set up previously. We will see further how they can improve their revenue and maybe become a broker.
Tripwolf is already taking the wave of the I-phone market, they have created an application that can be downloaded to Iphone and then travelers can have direct access to tips and advice during their trip or just before to be on the departure. This application is also free for customers but is also full of ads.
Tripwolf is not unique on the market; TripAdvisor is already well set up and well known by everybody as well as Lonelyplanet. Both of those competitors have also an Iphone Application.
This business model is definitely not applicable offline, even more with I-phone app, which is using 3G connection. Internet is fast. Nowadays, customers need to find information and real advice of people that have been there before us very quickly, they want real witnesses. Why? Thanks to the TV and their reality show and especially to information TV magazines that show people real life and experience. They want those can of information in live or at least very accessible.
To my mind, TripWolf is sustainable business; internet is becoming more and more common through people. As I mentioned it before, people need to have access to living information and real feelings from others. They don’t want to be had! Furthermore tourism is a sector with a hug growth year after year. Customers will always need to be helped through more and more tourism offers that came up every day. However, there is a lot of competitors on this” tips market”. They will have to differentiate themselves by different offer:
- For example they could become a broker instead of redirecting travelers to hotels booking platforms.
- They can also take the wave of sustainable tourism and become and expert of that niche. This way they will hit other people and other customers.
- They could advise people on fair tourism and help people to choose among different fair programs in the same way as today (community model). A fee can be asked as a donation to help a population and a % can be taken by Tripwolf to help developing new destinations and new partnerships.
