Travel industry: in need of a post-corona rethink - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Many industries have to rethink the way their business and business models are organized when they resume action as the coronavirus crisis subsides. The travel industry is one of them, says Shanghai-based VC-veteran William Bao Bean, at WebInTravel. "Travel needed to solve a very big problem – high customer acquisition costs – and he said it needed a new model in which everyone wins, and not like now “where everyone loses but the platform”.

WebInTravel:

William Bao Bean, partner, General Partner, SOSV Capital said travel needed to solve a very big problem – high customer acquisition costs – and he said it needed a new model in which everyone wins, and not like now “where everyone loses but the platform”... 

Bao Bean spoke of one of his investments, Travelflan, a new superapp-like model which worked on revenue share to offer distribution reach to travel suppliers to sell services. “It doesn’t make money on advertising, it works on revenue share. We have industry players who are under such pressure from Google, Facebook, Taobao, all the big giants that they are willing to trust each other and work together.” 

Their secret sauce is zero customer acquisition cost, he said. “We should take advantage of this difficult time and come around a trust-based model, stay profitable and serve customers.”

More in WebInTravel.

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