5 New Travel Startups Looking for Local Photo and Video Talent

Whether it’s an Airbnb host in a remote hill town or one of the world’s largest destination marketing organizations, travel brands need photos, videos and artwork to convince travelers the companies are worth the investment of time and money. Sometimes turning to established content creators makes the most sense, while in other circumstances turning to new talent from local photographers, freelance videographers or budding artists better aligns with the image a brand wants to encapsulate. These five startups seek help from the consumer and traveler to help brands build their visual identities and infuse their properties and destinations with new forms of creative content.

>>Tinflur matches tourism brands with the ideal influencers who speak to their potential customers. The startup analyzes and creates a tourism board’s ideal customer profile from its marketing goal and uses it to match the perfect bloggers based on interests, content, location.

SkiftTake: Many tourism boards spend too much time and money with social influencers who may not be the best fit for their target markets and need to locate the right people to work with that meet their existing marketing goals.

>>VidPal is an online marketplace giving travelers the opportunity to request custom videos before they visit a destination. Travelers choose a location on a map and describe the video they wish to be made, setting a deadline and price. Requests are only limited by what can be filmed. Freelance videographers can then bid on the projects that appeal to them.

SkiftTake: Several travel startups are having trouble relying on the consumer and many have pivoted to B2B. This could be one option for VidPal as it considers whether travelers will organically request travel videos without any prompting.

>>Tekuma works with hosts and artists to create and curate micro galleries within vacation rentals. The startup’s goal is to make getting physical exposure affordable for those who create and need space to show their work.

SkiftTake: Hotel rooms feature local artwork and receive thousands of guests each year, making them great places for an artist to potentially get noticed. With some short-term rental hosts attracting nearly as many guests as a typical hotel room, artists now see a new showroom taking shape.

>>Ascape is a curated mobile platform for high-quality virtual reality travel content produced by its team as well as other carefully selected content producers from around the world. It uses its own proprietary virtual reality player, which provides smooth playback of high resolution 4K spherical videos and real-time positional sound.

SkiftTake: One of the sticking points with virtual reality is that these 360-degree videos can’t show travelers something they can already see on Google or Instagram. They need to make destinations feel like they’re telling a new story that wasn’t possible before.

>>The Spaces Collective helps short-term rental hosts with interior design so that guests have the best possible and most unique experience while staying with them.

SkiftTake: The blending of user experience and design already happens in hotels, so why not with short-term rentals as well?