Culture Trip launches OTA a year later than planned
Culture Trip has taken the ‘first step’ towards rolling out its online travel agent, a year later than scheduled.
The travel media brand, which publishes inspirational articles, photos, videos, illustrations and animation, had been due to launch an OTA in the summer of 2018.
Founder and CEO Dr Kris Naudts had announced in March 2018 that it was working to build a ‘one-stop platform’ for its millennial users and company directors had attended ITB to contract hotel accommodation to sell through the site.
But Andy Washington, senior vice president travel, said the development had taken longer than expected because it hadn’t taken the easiest or quickest route.
"When we first started on this project over a year ago, we thought carefully about what we wanted to do. We could have simply plugged in a traditional OTA onto the Culture Trip site, but instead we decided we wanted to solve for the customer’s wants and needs," he said.
"This business model isn’t just completely different from anything the company has done before; linking inspirational content with the ability to book is a fairly new concept in travel generally. And the reality is that being a pioneer is never easy.
"Most OTAs take between 12 to 18 months to build and launch, and we are excited about what we are bringing to market, starting from today. A feat that wouldn’t have been possible without the talent and heart of the engineers and creatives working at the intersection of media, entertainment and travel."~
This summer’s small ‘soft’ launch will see it gradually adding bookable places to stay with plans to have more than 10,000 places on the site in the next six months.
After this it will add bookable experiences, which will be a key focus in 2020.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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