For tourism and travel to a city, country or region, nothing is better than having an acquaintance there who takes us out of being a stranger and makes it so that our trip is not accompanied by a mountain of unknowns and trial and error. An acquaintance who knows that region, knows where is cheaper and better to stay. Where the sights are. Where one can experience delicious local foods. An acquaintance with whom we can coordinate some sample travel plans in advance so that we pack with peace of mind. Previously there were few destinations where we had an acquaintance. Today, though, one might say this acquaintance is within reach of most lovers of all kinds of travel. Tourism startups are meant to play the role of this acquaintance for us.
Tourism startup
A tourism startup is those same assistants that make all kinds of travel easier for us and make them predictable. These startups try to answer all the issues a tourist faces during a trip, from travel lodging to tourist attractions and sights, from needed information to introducing tourism tours and also all kinds of transport on the trip. The larger the tourism industry becomes and the greater the number of tourists, the more the need to provide services and information to them is felt.
Business in the tourism field
Travel leisure is one of the most important pleasures of people today. The tourism industry, after the chemical and oil and gas industries, ranks third among the world's largest industries in terms of revenue generation. People go on domestic or foreign trips for diverse reasons such as leisure, employment, shopping, treatment and education. The internet caused a transformation in tourism that is called the digitalization of the tourism industry. The internet platform has made it possible for many pre-trip actions to be carried out easily with the help of technology-based tourism startups. Online travel agencies take on all travel-related work.
Iran's best tourism sites
There are also a large number of tourism startups in Iran. In what follows we introduce the most-visited travel and Iran tourism sites in order.
Safarmarket safarmarket
"You don't need Google for travel, Safarmarket knows everything." Safarmarket introduces itself to customers with this slogan and considers itself the largest tourism marketplace. The competitive advantage of the Safarmarket app and site is the ability to compare prices and choose the cheapest airplane and train tickets and hotel and domestic and foreign tour reservations and so on among different sites. Safarmarket's customers, who are mostly young men aged 25 to 34, interact with the site mostly through internet search. Visits to the Safarmarket site in off-peak periods such as Dey (December–January) are close to four million. This amount in peak periods such as the Nowruz holidays reaches 6 million visitors a month.
Alibaba alibaba
Alibaba, an online system for buying airplane, train and bus tickets and reserving hotels and domestic and foreign tours, was founded in year 93 (2014/15). In 1400 (2021/22) it reached a sales record of 1 million and 340 thousand products per second. In the same year Alibaba agency's turnover increased 320 percent and the site's sales became 3.5 times. The total presence of all users on the Alibaba site and app in 1400 (2021/22) reaches 582 million minutes. That is 1109 million years, which if we go this amount back we could have the experience of living alongside the Vikings. Given that this experience would probably be somewhat dangerous, it is better we forget this idea. Based on the Alibaba tourism site and app report, its largest audience is men in the under-34 age group. The Tehran-Mashhad flight is this platform's best-selling air ticket.
Flightio flightio
Flightio, another seller of airplane and train tickets and lodging and hotel reservations and tourism tour services, was founded in year 95 (2016/17). Buying foreign flights online was the original and initial idea of the founders of this tourism startup in Iran. For choosing a destination it makes suggestions to the tourist in the form of Flightio magazine. Based on Flightio site reports, its users have traveled to 137 countries up to year 99 (2020/21). In year 97 (2018/19) it took the rank of top seller of foreign airplane tickets. Flightio's largest numbers of users have been from the cities of Tehran, Mashhad and Shiraz, in that order.
Snapptrip snapptrip
Reservation services from the start of the founding of the Iranian tourism startup Snapp have always experienced an upward trend. This service ranks first in reserving domestic hotels. In high-traffic periods such as Nowruz, up to two million visits are recorded on the Snapptrip app and site. The Snapptrip startup's program in autumn 1400 (2021/22) relative to two years earlier had 238 percent growth in domestic flight ticket sales. Tehran-Mashhad airplane tickets have also been the most popular destinations on Snapptrip.
Eligasht eligasht
Eligasht is one of the most-visited and best tourism sites in Iran, which has been operating since year 79 (2000/01). On average more than one million visitors a month come to the Eligasht site for last-minute tours and online reservation of all kinds of tourism tours and hotel reservation and buying foreign and domestic flight tickets. Eligasht's audience is also mostly men under 34 who use the online reservation system.
The world's best foreign tourism site
Startups are nascent businesses that are set up by young and educated teams. All kinds of startups identify a gap and cover it. Tourism startups in the world are very large, high-earning and successful. Today the volume of the online tourism market in the world is 433 billion dollars. A startup generates revenue through discovering and offering creative solutions for new problems.
The Booking ( booking.com ) reservation-services website is the world's best comprehensive tourism site, which offers its services to travelers from their doorstep. Travel services such as airplane or bus ticket reservation, hotel and lodging reservation, airport taxi and city-tour reservation, and introducing attractions and sights are among this tourism site's services. Booking.com, with the slogan "Save your money! Save your time!" claims that people can find the best options on this site in the shortest time.
The second foreign tourism site, with a figure of more than one billion visitors, is TripAdvisor ( Trip Advisor ). This site is user-centered and is very useful for those who intend to start a trip. Its content, which includes tourists' comments and views from their own personal experience, is produced by the tourists themselves. For that reason it is free. The diverse services of this foreign travel agency include hotel reservation through travel lodging and airplane ticket reservation, tourism tours and visiting sights, and introducing the best restaurants and cafes.
The tourism sites Airbnb ( Airbnb ), Jalan ( Jalan ) and Agoda ( Agoda ) stand in the next ranks of the world's best and most-visited tourism sites, in that order. Today social networks also play an important role in digital tourism. 21 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 get ideas from social networks for holiday travel. The tourism industry is one of 10 industries that make use of influencer marketing. Tourists and influencers in this field produce online content during the trip, and at times large tourism companies make use of this content.
Tourism startups' share of this industry as a whole
The World Tourism Organization has a detailed report on tourism tech-startups. In the knowledge-base section of the Namafar site this article is available along with a short summary of it. According to this report, from 2010 to 2019, almost 455 billion dollars has been invested in businesses in the digital tourism field. To better understand this figure we must know that the volume of the entire tourism industry is one trillion and 900 billion dollars. That is, an important part of this industry's value belongs to technology-aligned digital internet startups.
Tourism startups in the COVID period
In the COVID period various parts of the tourism industry were very heavily damaged, but investment in its tech-startups continued. This indicates investors' trust in this field and the multiplicity of diverse industries under the tourism industry, which means that if one part of the industry is damaged, another part of it is unharmed or accompanied by growth. According to this report, even the COVID pandemic in 2020, which confronted global investment with a decline, did not cause a decline in investment in this part of the tourism industry.
The most digital startups in the world belong to the United States, and in Asia, to China. Also, most of these startups offer reservation and hospitality, travel and tourism services.
Machine-translated from Persian by Namafar; the Persian original is authoritative. Read the original in Persian