Trip by Skyscanner

Trip by Skyscanner
Type of business Private
Type of site
 Travel application
Headquarters Palo Alto, California, United States
Area served International
Owner Skyscanner, a subsidiary of Ctrip
Key people
  • Travis Katz, co-founder and CEO
  • Ori Zaltzman, co-founder and CTO
Industry Travel services
Services Social travel planning and business review/rankings
Website www.trip.skyscanner.com
Launched November 1, 2010 (2010-11-01)

Trip by Skyscanner (formerly known as Gogobot and Trip.com) is a local discovery and travel research application and website headquartered in Palo Alto, California.[1][2] The company is acquired by Skyscanner, a subsidiary of the Ctrip Group.[3]

Trip by Skyscanner allows users to research destinations and places to go, including hotels, restaurants, bars and attractions in more than 60,000 destinations, and its users can share reviews and pictures from their own travel experiences.[2][4] Forbes has referred to the company as a "social network for travelers."[5] Founded in 2010,[6] Trip by Skyscanner is the fifth most visited travel-planning site in the United States.[2]

Description

Trip by Skyscanner is a travel-planning and local discovery service that is available both on the web, and via iOS and Android applications. It allows users to research hotels, restaurants, and activities at destinations around the world, reading reviews from Trip by Skyscanner's community of travelers and browsing photos.[7] Trip by Skyscanner's community is organized into 19 "Tribes" that allow users to see reviews and opinions from people with similar tastes and interests.[8] As part of the planning aspect of the application, Trip by Skyscanner users can plan out itineraries, organizing them day by day and syncing them to multiple devices.[9]

Registered users can choose to link to their Facebook and Twitter accounts, but it is not required.[10] Rather than searching for destinations and information, users can choose to post questions in a forum-like format in which other users can then reply and provide specific reviews or recommendations.[10]

In September 2014, Trip by Skyscanner debuted a feature called "Gogo This Week" which showcases handpicked events happening that week in large destination cities including Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City, and London.[6] The application is available online as well as on iOS and Android devices.[9]

Company history

Originally launched as Gogobot, Trip by Skyscanner was founded in 2010 by Ori Zaltzman and Travis Katz.[4] Prior to founding Trip by Skyscanner, Travis Katz was the senior vice president and managing director for MySpace International,[10] and Ori Zaltzman was the lead architect for Yahoo! BOSS and lead technologist at Yahoo! Answers.[11][12] Katz came up with the idea for Trip by Skyscanner while working at MySpace, citing an observation of how long it took to make travel plans while noting that online trip planning lacked "personal relevance."[4][10]

The company secured $4 million in its first round of venture funding from Battery Ventures.[5] The website launched in November 2010 and Trip by Skyscanner released the iOS application in October 2011.[13] The same year the site was launched, Trip by Skyscanner was awarded a Crunchie award for best design by TechCrunch.[14]

In 2011, Trip by Skyscanner announced several system integration developments with companies including Flipboard, Facebook, and Foursquare that would allow users to connect to their friends and other users through aspects of other social media platforms.[14][15] In 2011, Trip by Skyscanner was ranked among the top 50 websites by Time magazine.,[5][14] and in October, 2011, the company raised an additional $15 million in venture capital in a series B round of funding led by Redpoint Ventures.[11]

By 2012, the Trip by Skyscanner user-base had grown to over two million members within two months.[16] After identifying that almost 44 percent of the site's users were coming from Europe, the company established a European headquarters in London in April 2012.[1]

The Trip by Skyscanner Android application was released in January 2013.[17] Later that year, Trip by Skyscanner announced their partnership with HomeAway, a vacation rental company.[18] The partnership led to the launch of Trip by Skyscanner's "Insider Guides," combining data and advice from HomeAway with Trip by Skyscanner's editorial content and reviews.[18] The company became the fastest growing travel website in 2013 achieving 3.7 million users.[11]

In 2014, Trip by Skyscanner crossed 720,000 reviews, and 4 million pictures.[2][9] The company launched a redesigned mobile app in 2014 in response to users increasingly using the service for local discovery, rather than simply travel planning.[19] The new site design also included a revamped company logo and a new "Tribes" feature that helps users filter places based on what is popular among people with similar interests such as foodies or adventure-seekers.[19] In November, 2014, Trip by Skyscanner secured an additional $20MM in venture financing, led by HomeAway with participation from Redpoint Ventures and Battery Ventures.[20]

In 2016, the platform was rebranded from Gogobot to Trip.com.[21]

In 2017, Trip by Skyscanner announced that they had been acquired by the Ctrip Group. On November 1, 2017, it rebranded from Trip.com to Trip by Skyscanner. The former name and domain, Trip.com, was reused by Ctrip as a new subsidiary company for their global markets.[22]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Ingrid Lunden (17 April 2012). "Gogobot Opens For Business In Europe (Smart Move: 44% Of Its Customers Are Here Already, Says CEO Travis Katz)". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Julie Bort (8 August 2014). "The New Yelp? A Million People Are Using This App To Find Restaurants And Fun In Their Hometowns". Business Insider. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  3. ↑ "Tiny startup Trip.com has been acquired by Chinese travel giant Ctrip – a move that could shake up the travel industry". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
  4. 1 2 3 Jeff Hughes (12 October 2012). "Gogobot brings social touch to travel". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 Trefis Team (7 April 2011). "Expedia Could Lose A Little Lift From Gogobot". Forbes. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  6. 1 2 Jessica Plautz (11 September 2014). "Travel Planning App Gogobot Hand-Picks Which Events to Hit Up". Mashable. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  7. ↑ Michael Arrington (18 January 2011). "Gogobot Adds Passport Travel Review Collections". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  8. ↑ "Gogobot's New Tribes Feature Finds Opinions From Likeminded Travelers". Retrieved 2016-09-07.
  9. 1 2 3 Jen Leo (25 May 2014). "Gogobot app has been overhauled to make travel planning easier". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Shivani Vora (15 April 2011). "Gogobot, New Travel Site, Gets Personal". New York Times. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  11. 1 2 3 Julie Bort (30 August 2013). "Gogobot, The Travel Site Where Friends And Experts Plan Your Vacation, Is Growing Really Fast". Business Insider. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  12. ↑ "Meet Gogobot's Team". Gogobot. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  13. ↑ Stuart Dredge (25 April 2012). "Gogobot social travel service talks apps, expansion and competition". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  14. 1 2 3 Rip Empson (8 December 2011). "Gogobot Partners With Flipboard To Turn Your Travel Photos Into A Digital Magazine". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  15. ↑ Michael Arrington (3 May 2011). "Gogobot Gets Lots More Interesting With Foursquare & Facebook Integration". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  16. ↑ Frederic Lardinois (19 July 2012). "Gogobot Launches Its Redesigned iPhone Travel App, Hits 2M Registered Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  17. ↑ Robin Wauters (23 January 2013). "With 10% of its 2.5m users booking hotels on the go, Trip.com brings social travel app to Android". The Next Web. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  18. 1 2 Brian Patrick Eha (25 April 2013). "HomeAway Partners With Trip.com to Gain a New Edge in Vacation Rentals". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  19. 1 2 Jon Swartz (15 May 2014). "Gogobot has a new look, feel in online travel wars". USA Today. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  20. ↑ Lawler, Ryan (14 November 2014). "Gogobot Gets $20 Million In Strategic Investment Led By HomeAway". TechCrunch. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  21. ↑ "Gogobot Rebrands to Trip.com With Artificial Intelligence App". Skift. 2016-11-17. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
  22. ↑ O'Neill, Sean (1 November 2017). "Ctrip Buys Trip.com for Skyscanner to Enhance Local Recommendations". Skift. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
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