Triporati - Jim Hornthal interview

A new theme for the BOOT has been working on classifying and and analysing the different travel content, planning, community and search sites. Last month I started off this work through a review of Triporati (and drawing a comparison to my favourite non-travel web product Last.fm). This month I was able to continue my investigation into the sector via an interview with Triporati Chairman Jim Hornthal. We cover areas such as the business model, UGC vs editorial, the company and more.

Business Model

Hornthal was clear that Triporati's main distribution and monetisation push will be around working with partners. I have been hearing this again and again with content/planning/community sites. Most recently in my review of TripIt and before that in an interview with TripSay Board Member Alfonso Castellano. The rationale behind this is clear and makes sense to me. The battle for traffic from Google (either paid or organic) is either too expensive for a travel planning/inspiration site (in the case of paid) or not the core competency (in the case of organic). Better to take a great travel planning/inspiration product and add it to other high trafficked travel sites that are focused purely on booking or content (or both).

One of Triporati's first major deals here is with the triple A (Automotive club) network of sites. There are multiple link offs from the base AAA.com site and Triporati hosts the final landing page (here is the AAA Carolinas Example). There is lots of bespoke work for each deployment as it needs the media spaces from AAA, the booking widgets from AAA and trip options from Triporati are redefined for the partner. In effect AAA is the media partner and Triporati plays the content and technology role. Hornthal is particularly happy with AAA as a partner as AAA brings a offline presence as well as online. At the start 250 aaa travel agents are using Triporati to provide the expertise that is taken away from offline agents as the fam trip continues to disappear into the travel industry history books.

On the revenue side, because of the bespoke set up work Triporati is charging a set up fee, monthly fee tied to traffic as well as the obligatory ad share. I am impressed that Triporati is generating upfront payments from partners as this is not a normal practice in online travel where affiliates are used to a rev share only way of life.

[there is also a test version with TripAdvisor from a a email engagement plan]

On Editorial versus UGC

I have blogged before about how content companies need to find a balance between editorial content and UGC. Too much editorial and you risk not being up to date because editors cannot be in as many places as often as the masses out there. Too much UGC and you end up with the masses going off topic and insulting each other.

Hornthal's view on this balance is to have Triporati's technology and their editors as the discovery engine and then the crowd as a validation engine. Is clear to Triporati that you need to link the two parts but also need to keep them separate. I agree with this approach. Hornthal also put it like this "know where the right answer is not what the right answer is".

On the Triporati Company Background

I alluded in last month's post on Triporati to the pedigree behind Triporati - with Triporati founders Hornthal and Sharlene Wang being behind Preview Travel. The Triporati Board is also packed full of high profile names - Tim Draper (of Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Ted Leonsis (former Vice Chairman of AOL), David Patrick (Charles Schwab), Ron Conway (Google angle investor). Impressive.

My take

I get this space. I am very excited about this space. Triporati well placed to take the lead and own it. The product looks good, they have money and a Board stacked full of experience. The only but is that Triporati takes the Vacation Genome approach as the starting point (much like Pandora in music) rather than the user based recommendation editorial control (much like Last.fm in music - see earlier post if you want this explained further). This does not mean I will bet against Triporati as all the pieces are there, the approach is right and I don't see the genome over crowd approach as a fatal flaw. Triporati is the site and business that competitors TourDust, Geckogo, Joobili, TripBase, TravelMuse are behind and have to chase. [have already written a post on Joobili - more on the others soon].

Seems like I am being too nice. Second positive review in a row (TripIt earlier this week). Am determined to find someone to be nasty about next week.

PhoCusWright: Trying to sort out the travel planners - Travelmuse, TripIt, GoPlanit, entrip, YourTour, NileGuide etc

Am at the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit. 32 companies - mixture of start-up and mature companies- are pitching a new product in the hope of gaining industry support. We are half way through the summit and a theme is emerging very quickly around travel planning. No surprise of course. Again and again at non-travel internet events it has been the trip planner that has generated the buzz. Witness TripIt and the 2007 TechCrunch40 event and GoPlanIt at the 2008 TechCrunch50 event. Today at PCW we have already heard from TripIt, TripJane and Travelmuse (update and now YourTour update 2 and now NileGuide). At WebInTravel we also heard from entrip. Common functionalities are coming through each of these companies - the ability to integrate and add trip elements and content from other websites; the ability to share and build a network; and the ability to build a "living" itinerary with all elements.

The differences are just as stark as the similarities. Each of these companies (and others) are approaching the business from a different angle.


In the case of TripIt - the experience starts with using TripIt to combine the disparate itineraries that appear in email from an airline, hotel provider, destination service etc.

With entrip - the experience starts with a map. Consumers connect the points they wish to travel between and entrip provides (or facilitates) the content and booking functionality.

At GoPlanIt - the experience starts with a destination. Crowd sourcing and social networking elements recommend a trip itinerary including details on activities.


For Travelmuse - the experience starts with content. A regularly published online travel magazine that has morphed into a trip planning and sharing system.

With YourTour - the experience starts with traveller desired experiences . Building a trip recommendation based on the broad trip desires entered by the consumer.

Through NileGuide - the experience starts with the desire to build a guidebook for a destination. One document to replace the the myriad of documents that even the simpliest of trips end up generating.


And finally for TripJane - the experience starts with Facebook.



I was working on setting some criteria for judging which of these will be the most successful. Trying to set up a scoring or ranking system to judge on areas such as technology, UI, marketing, business model and people. I realised that if I continued with this thinking, then I was setting me up for a very complicated task (lots of work). Critically I quickly came to the realisation that this list of judging criteria was all but irrelevant because there is one success factor that is more important. I call it "survivability". It seems circular that the most important cirteria for success is the ability to survive but in the case of a travel 2.0 start ups that are content heavy I see the most important factor for success the ability of the company to survive for a the next two years. To keep the product up, live, growing, changing and adapting. Staying alive while the long path to consumer acceptance is trod. Giving the company time to test itself and prove that their approach is the right one. I have a personal favourite in the list and there one that I don't get but that's not important. What is important is that these companies need to make sure that they have a lot of runway (ie can survive for a long time on the money that they have) and are able to change and adapt on a dime.

What do you think?

UPDATED - to include YourTour

UPDATED 2 - to include NileGuide

Little deal updates and staff movements

Have been caught on the blog talking about the big deals more and more such as Rakuten's big profit from Ctrip, Sabre & Amadeus in a tie for non-air sales and the collapse of Flight Centre's multi-billion dollar buy-out. Time for a couple of smaller deals.

First an announcement this week that Travel Publishing group Questex Media Group has snapped up "Five Star Alliance". Five Star Alliance (foundered by Cal Simmons and Eric Koefoot) is a listing service devoted to luxury properties. Not convinced that a simple listing service targeted at a particular price/quality can survive without a twist - something different to just listing. Maybe this is the hope in tying up with a media company. If you want an example of a price/quality site with a twist see Tablet Hotels which has a range of search options that match the thought process that a luxury hotel hunter goes through.

Second announcement from alarm:clock was further recruitment efforts at stealth mode start up Travelmuse. There has been little out of this start-up to date other than general claims around improving the booking process and sharing experiences. But they are now up to a team of 5 having added ex-Peerflix CTO and ex-Hotwire staff member Cyril Bouteille.