Show HN: TripBright – activities and tours for your Airbnb guests | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: TripBright – activities and tours for your Airbnb guests

tripbright.com

40 pointsramirez6022 comments

Hi HN, I built this app because my vacation rental guests always ask me what there is to do in the area! If a host's guests books a tour, the host will earn a commission. I'm really interested in working with vacation rental agencies, who I believe have lots of potential to up-sell their clients. Activities and tours are just the start - other vacation specific services will be available soon. Thanks for checking out TripBright!

Hi, I guess it could be useful. Although what I enjoy the most about Airbnb is interacting with the host in person. Would be interesting to know what the % split is between those like me and those that want to keep to themselves.

Consider me an anecdotal data point to the contrary - if I can pick up the keys from a box and put them back there when I leave, with no human interaction, I'm over the moon.

It sounds interesting and definitely presents a much nicer form than something like TripAdvisor. Do you pull data from sites like that or just the people who run the activities/tours?

You could market it as a concierge platform for AirBnB hosts. Expand beyond the basic tourist-y things to recommendations on all kinds of services. Hosts could build their own content or you could sell them city bundles. It could be a way for people that run AirBnBs without actually living at the residence to give guests the same knowledge that living with a host could.

Right. Consider partnering with rental car sites. If you can get a commission from several different ones, then let me add the closest one to my guide book, everybody wins.

Are you working directly with tour companies? Is this something that could have been an add-on feature for sites like Viator or Peek that already have those relationships in place?

We are currently using Viator's tours. And yes, we'll be adding more tours and services from other companies that offer these things. You can see in the example guide linked on the homepage that we're transparent about who you're ultimately buying the tour from, similar to Kayak.

From a guest's perspective, I'm not sure if I like this. If I ask for my host's recommendation about what to do or where to go, I want him to tell me what he actually think is the best idea. This product incentivizes him to instead recommend something that will make him money. But I guess if he recommends something bad, then he risks getting a negative review on AirBnB, so that helps a little bit.

In the future, hosts will be able to make their own "products" which will be free of charge - like a nearby hike or beach that they recommend. I think free activities mixed in with paid tours, combined with a host's custom recommendations per (paid) activity (which is currently implemented), should make an honest, wholesome and reliable guide.

Also keep in mind that it won't always be just touristy tours. Along the lines of crazypyro's comment, we'll be adding other services like transportation and restaurant reservations.

I think you need this feature quickly. Let me add restaurants and other places easily by finding them on yelp, and let me add generic boxes with a url, and let me add my own notes on them AND on the tours you provide. Until then, I can't use it, it would come off as crass.

Thanks for the feedback. We're working hard and will let hosts know as improvements are made.

Hi! Nice work! It would be nice to be able to rearrange the listings on the "customize" page, to group them in a way,that i, as host, prefer to show… Also,as early mentioned, it would be really nice( actually that was what i was expecting before i opened tripbright) to add some custom activities, for example to visit a certain place, eat somewhere, city bundles, etc. that would be nice. I also don't know if you consider password change/recovery important…

I've known Drew for a couple of years now and he's been working with travelers since before we met. Glad to see this take flight!

If sosh.com could expand to cities more quickly, they could easily take this market; however, I do think you have an edge in that the list is curated by the host. Either way, really cool product :)

How can I invest in this?

Email me.

Great Idea... May be using a moving background as the banner image might add the necessary zing to the website.. Movement also kind of denotes activity.