Catalog of unusual travel HipWay.ru

Our studio has been developing a custom project “HipWay: seeing the world in a new way!” Over the past 6 months. It was launched a week ago, and we already celebrated the first sale.


Further on behalf of the author of the project.

Service history:

... started in the summer of 2008. We returned from a trip to Egypt and Israel, one of our friends organized a trip to Ethiopia, the other to Iran. We all traveled with long established groups, but it was not always possible to gather everyone at the same time. Something was discussed there about e-bay ... and then we got the idea - why not make such an e-bay for travelers? And in general it is not clear why it is still not there - after all, a single commercial platform for the sale of travel would be useful for both guides and tourists who dream of interesting routes and countries. There are non-profit communities of travelers, but if I don’t know anyone there, then you need to be asked to join a foreign team. And what if I do not want to ask for it, but I want to be a “client”? And many of our acquaintances, the “commanders” of the groups, would not mind giving up their regular jobs and living by traveling, but nobody represented how to recruit commercial groups.
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I will not list hundreds of domain names through which we passed ... As a result, we found the domain hipway.ru, which is not registered in the .ru zone. It turned out a play on words - the hippie way (hippie movement, freedom, travel) and the steady expression “a hip way” (a new, cool, fashionable way to do something). We registered the domain and for a long time developed the “vision” of our portal. There was information on all countries, tickets and hotels, a travel planner (tripit.com), offers from organizers and requests from travelers, and all this is interactive on the map ... there was still a lot of things, I don’t remember everything. Then our enthusiasm was cooled down a bit by the developers, and then also by potential investors. Everyone shouted - focus, focus, focus! We were all of our features, and there was a very cool and simple catalog of unusual and interesting travels.

So,

Idea:

Collect on one portal all interesting travel offers. This may be an extreme route on the Amazon, and maybe a trip with children to Disneyland, the main thing is that it differs from standard offers - “Bodrum, first line, 5 stars, all inclusive”.



Solved problems of tourists:

• Search for ideas for an interesting holiday on a single site. Google is not adapted for this, because the search query “an interesting journey ” makes little sense;
• Access to regional operators and offers from private organizers;
• Unified interface for receiving payments and delivering documents (especially important for the regions);
• Ratings and reviews on operators and travel - a conscious choice without a zombie agent.

Solved problems of travel organizers (guides, small operators):

• Small and medium-sized operators can not successfully sell their products through ordinary agencies that can only sell mass tours. On HipWay, the operator has direct contact with the consumer;
• Travel portals work on a content-advertising model - pay for impressions or clicks, clicks on yandex direct cost up to $ 4! per click. In general, online advertising from operators does not pay off. HipWay offers pay-per-sale payment, which completely removes risks from operators;
• Previously, private travel organizers had to declare themselves in zhzhshechkah, etc. It was very hard for them to recruit groups. Now organizers have access to all HipWay users.

First results and lessons:

• Properly chosen niche - high interest from operators allowed to collect more than 200 proposals before launch;
• 1000 registered users in 4 days;
• Registered user for contextual advertising costs $ 10, while too expensive;
• A viral campaign with prizes and payment for the purchase of a given user works best, but is slowly gaining momentum;
• An attempt to force verification of the phone during registration cost 200-250 unregistered users - it was canceled with disgrace;
• It strains low SEO potential - all content is under lock and key. It is necessary to make a choice between a club and an open model;
• Private organizers do not give volume, but create an important element of diversity and exclusivity. For example, there is a person who makes “relatively safe travels to the most dangerous places on the planet” - Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan. This is not found anywhere else.

To try

HipWay works by invitation only, but what would the meaning of this topic be then?
Invitation Code: dd58a746
The site will be open for public access after the third stage of development, when the necessary functionality is implemented.

Website address: hipway.ru

If you do not want to register, but want to see the content, here are some examples:
Pakistan: hipway.ru/public/demo?id=233
Caucasus: hipway.ru/public/demo?id=24

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The customer does not have an account on Habré, so if you have any questions, I will give them to someone who knows the answers.

Work on the project is not yet complete. Next week we begin the third stage of development. If you find errors, we would be grateful if you tell us about them.