Skift Take

Securing a booking is a major first hurdle for travel brands. Keeping travelers happy after the booking process as their trip approaches, and then keeping spirits high throughout the trip, helps them see that their great experience is one that they want to repeat again and again.

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These five startups want to put smiles on travelers’ faces and give them a sigh of relief throughout each phase of the post-booking process so that they depart for their destinations without any reservations and only positive vibes in mind.

>>Seatswap lets travelers swap their seats on a flight with other travelers on the same flight.

SkiftTake: A solution like this could work well if integrated with an airline app as many travelers want to upgrade or change seats at the last minute. As it stands now, Seatswap’s model depends on every traveler downloading their app and being active on it.

>>elneedo lets travelers rent items from locals in their destinations.

SkiftTake: Leaving the baby stroller or surf board at home makes much more sense if you can rent it in your destination, probably for much cheaper than the price you’d pay to bring it on a flight. And you don’t have to lug large, expensive items through an airport.

>>CaptivaTour is an audio guide mobile app for historical sites. Each guide has offline available maps, pre-defined tours with modular text, and audio content.

SkiftTake: Audio tours usually include a lot of information that can be overwhelming to hear all at once. Giving travelers multiple ways to understand these factoids will help them better enjoy the experience.

>>Zpot helps travelers discover hidden city secrets through an audio tour mobile app. Travelers get free access to audio tours with secret stories about points of interest they visit. These tours are GPS-aware and downloadable for a paid offline version.

SkiftTake: Audio tours help tell that story and make this moment special for a traveler, which reinforces that they made the right decision to travel in the first place.

>>Chute helps travel brands source social media content to share on their own platforms.

SkiftTake: When travel brands have compelling and exciting photos to share on their social media, travelers become more inspired to visit these places and plan how they’ll make these trips possible. They need these visual cues to jumpstart this process and that’s only done if the caliber of imagery is there.

For all of our SkiftSeedlings coverage, check out our archives here.

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