Social Media and Marketing

IN-DEPTH: InBed.me, a social booking platform, believes that the widespread of open social networks has reached a tipping point that makes possible for first time the emergence of social commerce on the web.

By Ritesh Gupta

The travel industry is witnessing the early steps in the social graph providing real utility when it comes to helping people plan and take trips.

The start-ups in this industry believe that as the social graph matures and becomes as robust as it has, everyone’s becoming very interested in getting more utility and value out of it. With travel being so inherently social, it’s an attractive space to create useful applications that combine the social graph and people’s natural desire for travel to be social.

One of the new ventures focused on making trip planning more social is InBed.me. It is being described as the first social booking site for hostels, beds and couches. The venture originated from the idea of building a tool that helps travellers choose social and fun hostels, while enabling travellers to connect before they arrive to their destination.

The company says its goal is to empower travellers to find the perfect lodging, whether that means pure luxury or the most socially and environmentally friendly accommodations available.  

New companies focusing on understanding social’s role in innovation acknowledge that by making the travel planning and buying process social, it becomes more fun and inspiring.

Diego Saez-Gil, Co-founder and CEO, inbed.me acknowledged that still everything is very new.

“We are at a very early stage, but if we manage to implement our product roadmap and figure out what is valuable for the users in terms of social booking capabilities, we are definitely going to set new benchmarks for others to follow in the travel industry,” says Saez-Gil.

“I think we will keep seeing new interesting offerings in this front from many different players in the industry and new startups coming up. I believe that it will be a healthy exercise for the industry as we will be proving new value for the users. It will be super interesting to see what are the features that users value the most and what are the companies that figure it out first,” Saez-Giltold EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta.

Saez-Gil spoke about the venture and the status of the industry. Excerpts:

How do you think the online travel industry progressed on the whole in 2011? What according to you were the developments that are going to shape the travel planning process in a new way from here on?

Diego Saez-Gil:  

I think that 2011 has been a very exciting year for the online travel industry. We’ve witnessed bold moves from big players like Google’s acquisition of ITA Software and it’s first steps into travel search, Expedia’s spin-off of TripAdvisor going public.

Furthermore we’ve seen the startup scene blooming, with HomeAway achieving a great IPO, Airbnb raising $120m of investment and a lot of new startups coming to scene rapidly. To me these moves are a signal of an industry in profound transformation.

In terms of disrupting developments I consider the ubiquity of the web via mobile devices in critical mass and the consolidation of the social web will shape the future of the industry. Other big trend I see is the rapid growth of the industry in the emerging economies.

What is your offering all about? What factors did you take into consideration while coming up with this offering?

Diego Saez-Gil:  

InBed.me is a social booking platform that allows travellers to connect and interact while they are planning and booking their stays. We are initially focusing primarily in Hostels and Bed&Breakfasts. We believe that the widespread of open social networks such as facebook, twitter or foursquare have reached a tipping point that makes possible for first time the emergence of social commerce on the web. We are re-designing from scratch the planning-booking cycle with the social web in mind. We have a strong product roadmap in this direction.

What issues are you trying to address in the current planning and buying cycle in the travel segment you are focusing on?

We believe that information empowers consumers, and that is the beauty of the web. The online travel industry has done an amazing job by providing consumers with tons of information about options, prices, quality and even users reviews. Now knowing who else will stay in your accommodation or where you friends or their friends have stayed are important pieces of information for users. The social web gives us the chance to bring the information empowerment to a new level. That is what we are trying to address with inBed.me.

It is also pointed out that the overlap between a prospective traveller’s social graph and the travel options in consideration set is actually pretty thin. What do you make of so called limitations for such ventures?

I think that companies trying to provide travellers with information solely based out of the user's social graph will have a hard time being relevant for the users. We consider this information a piece that needs to go together with other pieces of information and tools relevant for the users in the travel planning cycle.

From consumers’ perspective, how do you think they perceive content based on “friends or their connections” vis-à-vis content they read on OTAs’/ hotels’/ review sites?

It is natural that users find more relevant the opinions of people they know and/or trust, than those coming from others they don’t. TripAdvisor for example is doing a great job at prioritising reviews from trusted connections. We believe we will see this trend growing.