Apply HN: Wanderlust – Travel recommendations based on your budget and interests

15 points by kuisch 10 years ago | 22 comments

Wanderlust is a website that helps you find out where you could travel to based on how much you can spend and what you like to see. A new way to plan and book your trips. An answer to the question of ‘where should I go?’.

The majority of traditional online travel websites (e.g. Booking, SkyScanner) work under the assumption that you know where you’re going. But what if you don’t know this? We don’t always have a destination in mind, but what we typically do have is a general sense of how much we can spend, what we like to see, and when we’d like to travel. Taking these variables into account, Wanderlust provides you with a complete trip - including destination, flight, accommodation, and an overview of the best things to do and see while you’re there.

To be sure, it’s still a little rough around the edges, but here's a quick demo: https://vid.me/TnZL

Our Product Hunt feature a while ago: https://www.producthunt.com/tech/wanderlust-pre-launch

Happy to answer any questions you may have!

(A bit about the team: Technical founder, BSc & MSc in Engineering physics; PHd in Artificial Intelligence. Business founder, Background in Communications; previously at Google, Vodafone.)

venkasub 10 years ago |

From my experience, there are 3 kinds of traveller: 1. People who know where they are going for a stipulated period of time 2. People who know which region they are going to over a long period of time 3. People who have taken a sabbatical or couple of years off or have decided that they are going to be on road for a long period of time.

For #1 - hotel and flight deals matter the most For #2 - they figure out most of the stuff while on the move and do not want to plan much. they pretty much buy to-fro tickets from their base and figure out everything else on the move.

Monetizing the idea of 'where should i go' looks pretty tough to me. My pals tried a venture wherein based on the region of interest the website would come up with an itinerary, they couldnt do well and had to fold.

Travel industry needs technology and some disruption; it hasn't seen anything 'interesting' other than the known Skyscanner, TripAdvisor, Agoda etc for a long period of time now.

kuisch 10 years ago | |

Your characterization of travellers seems a bit off to me. Along those dimensions, there'd be at least two or three other categories of travellers. Not sure how to respond to that.

As for monetization: we don't plan to rush this. Once we have our recommendation engine built out and fleshed out, we will build business around it. But to optimize for revenue in the short term would probably be to diminish our chances in the long term. We want to prioritize consumer experience over everything else. And then only once we have that ramped up to a good scale, we could leverage the customer relationship to move down the funnel, closer and closer to the transaction itself.

Having said that, we're exploring multiple paths to monetization. For example, we think that Wanderlust will have an interesting advertising opportunity, with 1) high ARPU, 2) high purchase-intent, and 3) a user still open to suggestions (a bit like Pinterest's opportunity). One other stream we're thinking about is offering hotels an annual/monthly flat-fee to be featured on our platform.

tedmiston 10 years ago | | |

I agree that the parent comment's three types of travelers isn't quite right -- I'm curious to hear what the archetypes that you have in mind are though.

[I'm a huge fan of spontaneous travel and have some side projects in travel destination/activity discovery myself. Happy to chat more via email.]

venkasub 10 years ago | | |

Your reply was EXACTLY what my pals who started a similar firm gave me!

If you cannot monetize from Day-1, then it's going to be very difficult unless you repivot and change your biz-model; and also, ofcourse if you are not too keen on monetizing itself.

Hotels will not list unless there are network effects. Already there are tonnes of listing services. An average hotel in South East Asia lists in Agoda, TripAdvisor, Booking.com and many more!!

I would recommend this : take a few months off and travel across South East Asia(or atleast Thailand & Vietnam - as they are well connected to Internet) and hear the challenges faced by hotels and guesthouses. You will be surprised to hear what they say. Remember that whole of the Western World descends down in this region to escape winter.

(Call me short-sighted, but making money from Ads is not 'monetization' as per me)

brudgers 10 years ago |

How big is the market for travelers who don't know where they want to go?

Could there be a market for alocal version of this? Something like an Uber that takes people to 'arbitrary' restaurants. If not, why would people who will risk flying and hotels but not a "cab" ride and a dinner?

kuisch 10 years ago | |

A PhocusWright study from 2010 found that 40% of (EU) travelers that plan their trip online don't have a destination in mind beforehand. I imagine that this number would be slightly higher for a younger demographic (18-35), which we aim to address initially (thinking 'I don't specifically care where I'm going; I just want to see something new'). The European online hotel & flight sale market itself is valued at roughly $210B. I also expect Wanderlust to be used mainly for shorter city breaks (4-5 day trips) as opposed to actual summer holidays, where most of us tend to have at least some idea of where to go.

I am not sure if the analogy you draw to a local equivalent (and if that fails, surely this would fail) is entirely fair. It's an area I didn't look into specifically.

brudgers 10 years ago | | |

I wasn't trying to be unfair with the analogy, my apologies.

My purpose was to drill into what phrases like "not having a destination in mind", "new experience", and "not caring" mean and expose the assumptions about human behavior under pinning them.

It's a thought experiment. The scenario is simple and concrete and reduces the likelihood of wishful thinking about human behavior. By lowering the risk/reward ration, it is easier to see the economic model.

The first question then becomes, why would Ubering to random restaurants work or not work?

And the second question is, how is the market Wanderlust wants to tackle similar to and different from the Ubering to random restaurant market?

A third question, if Ubering to random restaurants is a viable market, given the greater economic activity and higher recurrence of restaurant dining, would it be a more scalable model, and if it isn't what makes Wanderlust's market more scalable?

_ak 10 years ago |

> The majority of traditional online travel websites (e.g. Booking, SkyScanner) work under the assumption that you know where you’re going. But what if you don’t know this?

Actually, lots of online travel agencies and aggregators have a "discovery/inspiration" phase in their overall booking flow. At most you can say that they're not doing it that well because you didn't recognize it as what it is. Or maybe they are doing it well because the user is just led through their flow and gets interested in certain destinations without realizing he's being influenced.

How much research have you done what existing travel websites have done in these regards?

kuisch 10 years ago | |

That's fair. To be clear, we're very much aware of the 'inspiration' features that the existing players offer (e.g. kayak.com/explore or booking.com/destinationfinder.html). Perhaps I could have worded it differently.

I do think there's a significant difference between adding the capability onto your core, legacy product line vs. starting from scratch and making it the central focus, the thing the entire venture revolves around. Most travel agencies are still optimized for conversion (i.e. the bottom of the funnel); not for planning.

VuongN 10 years ago |

I've been a little confused because I've seen the name "Wanderlust" somewhere before. http://wanderlust.com/ isn't yours is it? If it's not, then I would seriously consider a different name since .com domain name combined with the fact that it has been around a little longer as well as the (almost similar?) "explore something/somewhere" mission. Other than that, your chance is as good as any one's. Good luck!

kuisch 10 years ago | |

Yes we've been thinking about this as well. On the one hand, it's not being able to get the .com domain as well as the fact that people might confuse it with the Yoga festival you linked to (although we're primarily focused on Europe, at least initially, and the festival is US only). On the other hand, the word perfectly captures the essence of our solution. 'Wanderlust' means 'a strong desire to travel' which is exactly the feeling that we mean to associate ourselves with -- the feeling of knowing that you'd like to get away for a few days, but not knowing where to go. And thank you!

aramos 10 years ago |

Travel planning is so time consuming, this seems the right way to search for a trip. I've been using http://www.tripaya.com for a while, and love their user experience, it's like I'm already traveling. Good luck guys, travel industry real needs disruptive solutions!

NeatoJn 10 years ago |

Wherefor (https://www.wherefor.com/) does provide traveling suggestions based on budget. However I think factoring travelling interests is a nice idea. Maybe there can be more keywords for exploring? I also quite like the minimal design style of the website.

kuisch 10 years ago | |

Yes, there are definitely others in this space exploring the same angle -- this is our take. And I think a broader category of interests is something we're moving towards, but not our main priority at the moment.

fitzwatermellow 10 years ago |

Good idea to focus on the European market first. So jealous when I hear my EU friends talking about day trips to eat at a new restaurant in Copenhagen, or a long weekend in Istanbul or Corfu ;)

brudgers 10 years ago | |

Do you think these trips are likely to be more the result of research and interest by someone in the travel group than a blank slate?

singold 10 years ago |

Previous submission https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11448307

atduarte 10 years ago |

Exists already: http://www.tripaya.com/

kuisch 10 years ago | |

I'm familiar with Tripaya. As pointed out earlier, there are a few others with a similar approach. There's no real network effect here, so I expect that 1) there will be less of a winner-takes-all dynamic (i.e. room for more than 1 player) and 2) it won't be so much about who gets there first as about who gets it right.

khalloud 10 years ago |

Looks very cool. When do we expect to use it?

kuisch 10 years ago | |

Thank you - we're aiming for the end of April!