30 September 2009

The trials and tribulations of a recession start-up

Welcome to the first of a series of columns exploring the trials and tribulations of launching a start-up travel company in the midst of a recession.

About U Travel sales and marketing manager, Emma Russell, tells all....

Ã¢â¬ÅâœSo, whatÃ¢â¬â¢s unique about About U Travel?Ã¢â¬~ slurred the pompous journalist, with a red wine ring round his mouth.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœWeÃ¢â¬â¢re the only travel website launching whilst the rest the economy is crashing to the ground!Ã¢â¬~ I replied.

We are About-U-Travel.com, an online tour operator specialising in tours and accommodation to Latin America, Africa, India, The Indian Ocean Islands, and The Caribbean.

For the last year, we have been setting up the business, and oh my, itÃ¢â¬â¢s been a journey. IÃ¢â¬â¢ve been asked to go through the setting up process with you and tell you the problems weÃ¢â¬â¢ve had. Hopefully, youÃ¢â¬â¢ll find it useful and a guideÃ¢â¬~¦for what not to do!

The idea was for the public and independent agents to be able to buy tours and accommodation online, in the same way they would buy books from Amazon. Customers, both trade and consumer, can select different tours in whichever grade of accommodation required, adding to the shopping basket, or suitcase, to make the trip a more personalised experience.

We were two girls whose knowledge of websites stretched to buying a pair of shoes or a flight on easyJet, proficient at Word, and with the ability to do a lovely spreadsheet given time.

We had travel expertise and personal knowledge of our toursÃ¢â¬~¦surely that would be enough. All we needed was some techy guys to help out.

What we really needed was a website designer and a booking engine company, then to learn how to upload our tours and accommodation, get friendly with a couple of banks, find 40 ground handlers in every country to work with us, meet them and get to know their products, get sloshed at as many travel dos as possible, initiate some advertising and marketingÃ¢â¬~¦then bingo, find some customers.

Fortunately we were very lucky with our designers, who have literally held our hand throughout and provided chocolate brownies at meetings when itÃ¢â¬â¢s all become a bit much discussing Wireframes and HTML.

At the end of the day, though, it was incredibly exciting to see the concept come to life on the website with the copy and pictures starting to take shape, all in such a user-friendly design.

The first booking engine company we employed caused us a major set-back and headache. Ã¢â¬ÅâœNo problem,Ã¢â¬~ they reassured us, when we explained what we wanted. A hefty deposit was taken to get us started, and we were ready to be wrapped in a lovely warm blanket of support. However it didnÃ¢â¬â¢t turn out that way.

The kind voice of reason on the phone turned into an impatient tutor attempting to teach us how to set the software up for our tours and accommodation. It was hideously confusing, difficult to grasp on the phone and more nerve racking than a driving lesson with my Dad. Ã¢â¬ÅâœI need to be taught in person,Ã¢â¬~ I said. Ã¢â¬ÅâœNot possible,Ã¢â¬~ I was told.

I seemed to be such a problem student that our phone calls slowly diminished and I was told all my communications should be conducted by Skype chat. Quite hysterical by this point with the slow progress and amount of information I needed to upload, we looked into the companyÃ¢â¬â¢s background further and learnt the system was generally used for caravan parks!

It was time to drop the companyÃ¢â¬~¦and obviously get our Ã&#pound;5,000 back. Well that hasnÃ¢â¬â¢t happened. Our big mistakes were not drawing up a proper contract, failing to set clear deadlines, and not doing our research properly.

We now use a different booking engine company and they are a vast improvement. They are also not keen on too much human contact, especially in the form of daft questions on the phone.

Lessons have also mainly been via phone or Skype chat, but this has kept our costs down. WeÃ¢â¬â¢ve got used to no meetings, rationed phone calls, and occasionally an irritated voice on the end of the phone, but we must share the blame here as I realise we have been quite a challenge.

Next time, IÃ¢â¬â¢ll be reminiscing about our first press evening, meeting more charming journalists, and our preparations for spreading the word about the company.