Airbnb acquires travel marketplace, trip4real – TechCrunch
Airbnb bought a Barcelona-based travel start-up that it was advising and in partnership with: Trip4real offers an Experiences Marketplace that tourists can browse and book in advance to give their trip a little local color / flavor (via tapas tastings, paella cooking classes, barrios tours, etc.) .
There are obvious synergies with the sharing economy giant which presents its platform as a way to escape the usual tourist traps by staying in a real house rather than a clinical hotel (albeit its platform also welcomes many professional owners, so the reality is a little less clear…).
Airbnb has also started expanding into travel services, offering an Airbnb Trips app last month and testing a City Hosts guided experiences program this summer. So it’s not hard to see how trip4real’s platform is fueling its plans. Nor why Airbnb chose this startup over others in the space, given that it was already in partnership with the web platform (and the two were seen by its rivals as “aligned”, notably visually).
Other startups playing in what remains a very dense and difficult space include well-funded platforms like Berlin-based GetYourGuide (which acquired rival Gidsy). There is also Vayable, GuideMeRight, Glance, entertainment, LovliLocals and MeetingJune, to only cite a few. Another pioneer, Viator, was acquired by TripAdvisor in 2014. Yet another, AnyRoad, has gone from independent travel experiences to selling a b2b “experience management platform” for tour, course and private event providers.
Airbnb confirmed the acquisition to TechCrunch, emailing the following statement: “We are delighted to welcome Trip4Real to the Airbnb family. [Founder] Gloria Molins and her team share our vision of a different, local and authentic travel experience. Their experience and expertise are a great complement to our ongoing efforts to transform the way people travel. “
Trip4real was founded in 2012 and had raised $ 3.1 million in four rounds to date from investors including Kibo Ventures and Caixa Capital Risc, according to CrunchBase.
The price of the acquisition was not disclosed, although we have heard that it is very low, with one source putting it at between $ 5 million and $ 10 million.
The deal was reported earlier by the local newspaper La Vanguardia, which reports that trip4real had around 40,000 users at the time of acquisition and offers around 10,000 activities.
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