February 4th, 2010
Photo taken by Shay Haas
For those of you who are keen followers of Zoombu, you will have seen that this week has been a busy one for our team. We have just opened a mini version of Zoombu to the public, in the form of Zoombu Ski.
This side product has the functionality of the main Zoombu service, but a subset of the coverage. With Zoombu Ski you can find the best end-to-end way to travel from your home in the UK to a resort in the French Alps. We search a range of modes of transport and will pick out the cheapest, fastest or greenest end-to-end route for you.
With Zoombu Ski we want to find out what you the users like, don’t like and want to see improved about Zoombu. We are very keen for your feedback on the product and we listen to all of it. We meticulously log, debate and prioritise all of the points raised and this directly influences the product development plan.
Search speed is something that many of you have raised as important, and we are working on this as we speak. Shortly the Zoombu search will be noticeably faster. We’re also just about to add coverage to a bunch more ski resorts so look out for this in the next few days.
For those skiers amongst you, if you haven’t had your powder fix for the season yet, or you could be tempted to take another trip, then run a Zoombu search to find the best way to get to the slopes. There are some bargains to be had: we found a search result for door-to-door transport from Oxford to Chamonix over a long weekend in February for £100 including a flight out of Luton.
Happy planning!
- Posted by Rachel
Tags: French Alps, Ski Planning, Zoombu Ski
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December 15th, 2009
We are delighted to announce completion of an investment by the Saïd Business School Venture Fund in Zoombu. We were selected as a winner of the SBS Venture Fund final in May 2009, which was judged by the fund’s benefactors, Sir Philip Green and David Bonderman. After a rigorous due diligence and evaluation process, the Venture Fund Committee, which consists of MBA students and fellows of the Saïd Business School, approved Zoombu for investment.
The Saïd Business School Venture Fund originated in 2006 when the two benefactors collectively donated £1 million to fund winning early stage businesses of members and alumni of the Saïd Business School and the University of Oxford’s Entrepreneurs Society. Alistair and I both studied Engineering Science at Oxford University, and more recently Alistair obtained his DPhil from Oxford, so we qualified to applyto the Fund. We are excited by the opportunities the funding presents us to expand the team and accelerate development of our service, which is currently in private beta.
- Posted by Rachel
Tags: funding, Said Business School Venture Fund
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December 4th, 2009
Image by Alain Bachellier
Approximately 30% of web traffic related to travel is channelled through Google. Travel is the most searched for category on Google. So it’s not surprising then that the giants of search are especially keen to help travel companies (and ultimately their clients) to figure out how to navigate their way successfully through the economic crisis. [This crisis, according to EuroMonitor, has affected the travel industry worse than the aftermath of September 11th]
On Tuesday 1st December Google held ‘Travel Think 09′ where a couple of hundred industry leaders in the travel sector were invited for a day with Google and others to share insights and ideas for the future of travel.
I was proud to be invited to speak on their panel entitled “Innovate to Capture Consumers”, alongside Marko Balabanovic of Lastminute, Paul Kemp-Robertson of Contagious Magazine and Fergus Boyd of Virgin Atlantic. Richard Seymour (of Channel Four “Better by Design” fame) chaired the panel which drew on some key themes about current innovation in travel:
- Consumers no longer want to have to visit lots of separate sites to fulfill a search for travel – they want to have relevant results served up to them from a single place [Enter Zoombu; helping people to search "from A to B" instead of having to look for a flight, Eurostar, train, bus, or driving directions in many different places and piece search results together by hand]
- Mobile and location based services are becoming ever more important to travellers who are armed with iphones and the like. Augmented reality apps are becoming popular to assist travellers on the move
- Established brands need to engage with new and innovative concepts and companies in order to keep up with consumers and ultimately to survive
- Power and knowledge is now in the hands of the consumer and not the brand, thanks to the wealth of real-time, social and search apps
Other speakers included Google’s UK MD Matt Brittin, Tamer Tamar, President of eBookers and Danny Barrasso, Head of eCommerce at Hilton and a fascinating talk by Ben Schott (writer of Schott’s Almanac). The event was held in the Royal Geographical Society, which is arguably the most significant institute of travel and exploration in the UK having supported such famous names as Livingstone, Stanley, Scott, Shackleton, Hunt and Hillary.
Thanks to Google for inviting me along.
- Posted by Rachel
Tags: Google Travel Think
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November 12th, 2009
We’re delighted to post some travel tips from our MBA intern Sharad Piplani. Sharad has travelled widely within the Middle East and India and has recently started living in Madrid. He shares his recent experiences as a first-timer with Ryanair…
This week, I took my first Ryanair flight. I have long wanted to experience flying with the notorious airline first hand and I finally got my chance today on a flight to Rome.
I type this post on the flight, cramped up on a seat that refuses to incline. That said, I feel fortunate to be sitting at all, having heard the rumours that Ryanair is challenging regulators to allow standing tickets; just another O’Leary innovation for the low cost flying model!
Here are a few of my personal first-timer tips for surviving Ryanair:
- While booking your Ryanair flight, use a Visa Electron to pay or be prepared to pay another 5 EUR per person per one way flight at a minimum with any other card.
- Beware of the Ryanair voucher. The voucher is designed to book flights in one go and cannot be used again later as it expires
- Ryanair now charges EUR 40 if you forget to print your boarding pass, a charge that could be more than the cost of your flight!
- You are now allowed just 10 Kilos of cabin luggage on the flight. This is just one bag inclusive of your laptop and other electronic goods. You pay for any bag you check in.
- If you think that your bag is slightly over-sized and will not fit the baggage slot at the boarding gate, then be prepared to layer up with extra clothing or discard a few items. My friend had a hard-bound bag with wheels and the bag would not fit in. The lady at the counter would not budge either and insisted on a fee despite the bag weighing less than 10 kilos, which is the new allowed limit on Ryanair flights. Tip: Tilt the bag with the wheels up and the bag slides right in.
- The life vest being used during safety demonstration may look extremely weathered! I managed to locate my life vest above me after five minutes of feeling the underside of my seat.
- If you’re a smoker and you’re desperate for your fix whilst on board, believe it or not, Ryanair now sell smokeless cigarettes (as well as a range of average drinks and food for top end prices). Ten cigarettes with real nicotine cost 6 EUR.
- Finally, don’t forget to join the group fun and clap when your flight lands!
- Posted by Sharad
We are keen travellers here at Zoombu and are building a bank of real accounts and tips on travelling via a whole range of transport options in order to prevent unexpected wallet dents and to help you on your way.
Tags: Ryanair
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October 16th, 2009
Photo by Joshua Davis
We wanted to share an update on our product development, especially for those of you who have expressed an interest in trying out Zoombu.
Our private beta currently serves routes within the UK and from the UK to France and three weeks ago we gave a lot more people access to trial the service. We are pleased to say that we have now doubled our test user base. The response from those of you who have tried out the beta has been brilliant, and we are very grateful for all the valuable feedback we have had so far.
For those of you who we have not yet given invitations, we know you are there waiting and thank you for your patience. We will be issuing more invitations in a few weeks, but in the mean time we are knuckling down to address the feedback we’ve been given.
On another note, it’s been an exciting week for the Zoombu team as we have a new team member! John joins us full time after working in games development and then as chief developer for Seedcamp and we’re delighted to welcome him to the fold.
- Posted by Rachel
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September 30th, 2009
The Zoombu team was proud to be selected as a Travel Trade Gazette Big Idea finalist last week and given complimentary tickets to enjoy the glitz and glamour of the TTG Annual Awards ceremony. Over a thousand travel folk dressed in black tie and bling and attended the exclusive ceremony held in the upmarket Grosvenor Park Hotel in Mayfair. Good job the tickets were free as our bootstrapped start-up budgets wouldn’t have got close to covering this luxury!
The whole evening was quite spectactular as dancers from everybody’s Saturday favourite ‘Strictly’ performed for the crowd before thirty awards were presented to travel companies ranging from cruise liners to car hire operators. Thanks to the TTG team for organizing the competition and hosting us on the night and to the judges Oliver Brendon, Paul Stayner, Jane Dyson and Chris Photi for their time. It was wonderful to meet the other travel start-up finalists and we would like to congratulate camping ninja on winning the seed funding and wish them the best of luck with their exciting new venture!
- Posted by Rachel
TTG travel industry awards - more bling that Paris Hilton (apparently)
Tags: Travel Trade Gazette
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September 9th, 2009
Image by Noël Zia Lee under the creative commons license
If you’re a sporty type and used to taking your favourite sports equipment away with you on holiday, it’s time to think of new ways of travelling to your destination. Flying within Europe may no longer be the best option. This week Ryanair announced it is increasing its already high fees for baggage. From 1st October the airline will charge £15 for the first 15kg bag and £35 for the second £15kg bag if checked-in online, whereas leaving bag check-in until the airport will cost you £30 for the first bag and a massive £70 for the second bag. And make sure you don’t go overweight as each additional kilogram will cost you a whopping £15. Explicit carriage of ‘sports equipment’ (such as a bike or pair of skis) is charged at £30 – 40 per item.
This follows the move a couple of months ago as every sportsperson’s favourite airline British Airways fell out of favour with its fans. BA announced significant changes to its sporting equipment policy meaning that from 7th October 2009 sports equipment is no longer considered additional to the checked in baggage limit. You can carry just 23kg of sports equipment or otherwise ‘for free’ and each additional bag is charged at £30 (if you travel economy class you have a 1 bag limit) and if you go over the 23kg limit you’ll be charged £30 to increase the limit to 32kg. BA used to by sympathetic to sports fans but now flying with skis or a bike as well as a check-in bag starts to get pricey.
Easyjet have not announced changes but still charge a one-off variable fee of around £16 for up to 20kg of checked baggage and £9 per kilogram thereafter (up to 50kg total and 32kg per single item). To travel with specific sports equipment, for which the same weight limits apply, will cost you £18.50 – £26 per item depending on whether you check it in online or at the airport.
If you are used to flying with your favourite set of clubs, carbon-fibre racing bike or designer skis then you might want to think again. Maybe taking the train could be a better option. Eurostar allows you to take 2 items of baggage in addition to hand luggage and has no weight restrictions, so long as each item is less than 85cm at it’s longest length. If it’s bigger and under 30kg in weight then you’re required to register the equipment for £15, or £20 for a bike. And of course with a drive + ferry or Eurotunnel option, the sporting world is your oyster.
Zoombu lets you compare the end-to-end cost of a route involving a flight, train or ferry to Europe. Where we have information about ‘hidden fees’ on any transport component, we will pass the details on to you, so you can find the best route for your passion.
- Posted by Rachel
Tags: compare fees, European flights, Eurostar
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August 18th, 2009
Lightbulb by Jago Pauwel under the Creative Commons license
I was proudly invited to hold a ‘lunch ‘n’ learn’ session with the Google Travel team today to address the question of whether there is real innovation happening in the travel sector. Google has had a long history of engaging with start-ups early on and it is great to see that this ethos continues as their empire grows. My mission was to convince them that there is indeed innovation taking place, and that it is small, nimble start-ups that are leading the way. Of course, I wanted to prove my point by sharing some of the developments taking place on Zoombu.
Our propriety travel search engine technology can search through thousands of routes across multiple modes of transportation and recommend the cheapest, fastest or greenest end-to-end route. There is real innovation taking place on the technology side with our search and routing algorithms and this will be the first time true end-to-end travel search is available to consumers, helping them to pick through the confusing array of travel options. This is certainly not a trivial nut to crack and it requires vision, real engineering, a good dose of hard work and dedication to pull off. It also takes time….but nobody said that innovation happened overnight!
Recent discussions on the likes of Alex Bainbridge’s blog have also challenged the state of innovation in the travel industry and whether the ‘travel 2.0′ era has actually hit yet. With Zoombu and a few other exciting developments we are privy to in this sector, I know that the travel industry will change markedly in the months and years to come. The typical time lag for innovation to hit mainstream is 18 months…so look to the start-ups now to see the shape of the future of travel.
- Posted by Rachel
Tags: Google, Travel Innovation
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August 13th, 2009
Seedcamp is designed to ‘jump-start’ European start-ups through it’s intense mentoring, networking and business building
programme. The main event is held over a week in September (21st – 25th) in London, although various ‘mini-Seedcamp’ one day events have been going on throughout the year.
Zoombu was a Seedcamp participant last year and we can’t speak
highly enough about the quality of input we received into our then embryonic business. We were grilled by successful serial entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, technologists, designers, marketers, journalists and lawyers. Their input helped to shape the foundations of our business, and this support network has continued long after the week itself.
If you are building a start-up in Europe, you should definitely consider applying to Seedcamp. It’s competitive (close to 400 applications for 23 places last year) so it’s well worth putting time into your application and pitch preparation, but it’s time well spent. Applications close on the 23rd August, so get cracking before it’s too late!
- Posted by Rachel
Tags: European Start-ups, Seedcamp
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August 12th, 2009
Travellers are frustrated with current solutions for figuring out their options online. Photo by Sybren A Stuvel under the Creative Commons license
Shifts in the number of travellers shying away from online travel websites towards traditional travel agents should serve as a wake-up call to online travel providers. The trend, identified in a recent Forrester report, suggests that there are 15 percent fewer travellers who enjoy using the web to book travel in 2009 than there were in 2007.
This is representative of the increasing complexity of booking a flight, train or a package deal. Travellers must browse through multiple travel websites to search for travel options and are forced to wade through the fine print to understand specific terms and conditions before booking. Most traditional travel websites are only able to offer a list of transport options from airport or train station A to B and not more specific door-to-door travel options. Even with the advent of social networking and the ability to learn about the customers’ needs, the majority of travel websites still plainly offer a generic listing of hotels or flights instead of profiling the customer to list options that fit best with the traveller’s style, need and budget.
There is an opportunity here for online travel websites to engage with the customer and to make the planning and the booking process more personalised and convenient. Zoombu allows people to compare entire end-to-end routes across multiple different transportation modes within a single search. Our service will also learn about your specific preferences, just like a real travel agent would, and build on these time and again to find the best trip for you.
Online travel websites could provide additional services, such as suggesting the best possible insurance plan based on the duration of travel, details on foreign exchange, permissible baggage limits for a particular flight, video tours of the destination, and detailed visa information.
There is a great opportunity for new travel websites to differentiate themselves by serving as travel agents and offering more complete and personalised travel packages without making the user experience overly complex. Existing online travel services that do not wake up to these changing trends might well struggle to keep users around.
-Posted by Sharad Piplani, Zoombu Team
Tags: Forrester, travel agents, travel trends
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