TLabs Showcase on travel startups featuring China-based Zanadu, a new online travel agency targeting affluent travellers in China with member-only luxury travel services.
Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?
We are Zanadu and we curate luxury and boutique hotels and travel experiences around the world to a discerning Chinese audience.
We started this platform because we, the partners, are avid travelers ourselves and we saw great market opportunity in the high-end traveling space as none of the Chinese travel websites provide quality hotel choices with reliable reviews and inspiring content.
There is a growing number of sophisticated travelers in China who want to spend their money on a quality vacation experience.
However, there is a big information barrier between the wealthy consumers and the luxury travel and lifestyle suppliers. In fact, we notice in China a trend with the wealthy folks towards a more experiential lifestyle.
Of course, many still spend their money on luxury cars and handbags, but more and more people realize that life is more than plenty of materialistic possessions and they seek out life enriching experiences instead or on top of it.
Zanadu is a pioneer in this emerging luxury travel/lifestyle market. We want to be the best brand name and the best information/ecommerce platform in this industry.
What financial support did you have to launch the business?
We have raised a round of funding from angel investors and the management team have also contributed to the funding.
What problem are you trying to solve?
There are a lot of travel websites in China, but they lack both quality content, engaging experience and true premium selections. There is literally no-one in the market who invests in good content, premium design and intuitive and rich user experience.
We want to build a premium e-commerce platform to showcase all the best hotels and travel experiences around the world in one place, where people can learn, browse and buy with great user experience.
Many of our hotel partners are entering the Chinese market for the first time. They were holding back because they could not identify a premium representation of their properties and a partner who understands the upmarket travelers coming from China.
Describe the business, core products and services?
Right now we launched the first phase of our business, a premium OTA service. We curate the hotels and review them from a Chinese point of view.
We provide rich content about the hotels and dig deeper into the hotel’s service offering and provide tips and inspiration on what to do while there.
We place a big focus on the details that matter to Chinese travelers, eg. what choice of restaurants are there and how to enjoy the cuisine. How are the rooms equipped and what service they can expect while there.
We are now working on two more products that we will launch within the next few months. The first is a discounted flash sale function which all of our partners will participate in.
The other is a VIP tailored trip service and packages. These are full-serviced trips designed to be the best experiences that money can buy.
For example, eight-day-trekking through the Amazon jungle with a local wild life expert, wine tour and stay in French chateaus, tour Italy in a Ferrari, see the big migration in the Serengeti etc.
Who are your key customers and users at launch?
Our target audience are the upwardly mobile in China. They are on the upper end of white collar workers, they have traveled in a group before or with business and now seek out a unique travel experience for themselves, family and friends.
We are also reaching out to a wide network of key opinion leaders who are experienced travelers and we send them to our hotels as correspondents, we call them ZAC (Zanadu Correspondents). They themselves are really setting the standard for what we think will be our customers.
Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?
Our investors and advisors are either from the travel industry themselves or are experienced travelers and share our vision fully.
What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?
We operate on a commission basis.
SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
Strengths:
- A great team and a great board of advisors. We are fast and committed. We have a powerful in-house team.
Weaknesses:
- Not enough time to get all the ideas produced.
Opportunities:
- The market is growing rapidly and China will soon be one of the biggest players in outbound luxury travel.
Threats:
- Obviously this is a great market to be in so there will certainly be more competition coming soon. However we feel that we are well equipped to meet this competition
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Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?
Of course there are people who dont think that the market is really ready yet for a service like ours. They asked us if we really believe that there are enough people willing to drop 3.000 RMB on a room night.
Also a big concern was that Ctrip and others will offer luxury travel service.
Our thinking is: While the market is still in its infancy, we will give the best we can to create a great experience and original content now so we can play at the forefront of what is to come.
Also we believe that our customers prefer the service of a smaller firm who is intimately familiar with luxury travel and offers a more personal booking and consulting service than the major players.
What is your success metric 12 months from now?
This year is really about growing the member base, growing the number of hotels we offer and launching our new products, and establish awareness of our brand name in the market.
NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.
