pocketvillage

Inspiring travel activities metasearch

pocketvillage.com is a metasearch engine that aggregates the broadest choice of 100% extraordinary travel activities, tours, and places to stay. Its visual 'Inspire Me' process lets travelers easily find the offers that best fit their individual interests. More and more people are looking for extraordinary travel experiences off the beaten track. The problem they face is obvious: It is (still!) very difficult, time-consuming, and dizzyingly complex to research and book unique in-destination activities and tours on the internet. Those offers are scattered across the web and there was no place to systematically find them. Now there is. What does pocketvillage actually do? // Metasearch engine: Through partnerships with dozens of niche market leaders and specialist vendors pocketvillage aggregates a combined inventory of 30,000+ activities and tours from 3,500+ local operators (de-duplicated). Most offers are conveniently bookable online. // Selection & curation: Through a multi-step process pocketvillage hand-selected and rated 5,500 extraordinary activities and tours and 5,500 unique places to stay, enabling 100% adventurous, cultural, eco, responsible, or off-the-beaten-track experiences. The user can select out of a variety of 60+ themes. An algorithm will ensure that the most relevant and extraordinary offers stay on top. // 'Inspire Me' process: The visual 'Inspire Me' process lets you browse and filter intuitively through the 1,000s of offers and makes it easy to find the most relevant ones. The user can playfully draw the landscape of his dreams or pack a virtual suitcase with the things he is interested in. As the database is fully indexed, the system will then come up with a list of matching offers. Key customers are grown-up backpackers, jobholders and families who have less time than they used to, have an increased demand for pre-arrangements but actively want to experience unique holidays and exciting new destinations. The market for in-destination activities and tours is a 'fantastically fragmented' and surprisingly large, accounting for $26.8 billion in the US alone (study by PhoCusWright). Sales via online intermediaries are projected to double by 2012. As a metasearch engine pocketvillage earns money by referring users/customers to partners' websites. The usual model is revenue sharing, which is 8-15% for activities and 5-10% for multi-day tours and accommodation. With some partners there are pay per lead or pay per click agreements. The team behind pocketvillage is a diverse mix of travel addicts, technology geeks, and social media enthusiasts. The five co-founders have been working (and travelling) together for many years on various projects and make a strong and well-proven team.