South Korea’s THERE, which won this year’s WIT Japan and North Asia Startup Pitch competition, aspires to be the country’s first ‘things to do’ booking platform offering curated tours, activities, dining, attractions, shows and local transport, at the lowest available price.
It was THERE’s growth and focus on the burgeoning South Korean travel market which caught the attention of the judging panel, which included Fritz Demopoulos (CEO Queen’s Road Capital), Adrian Currie (Senior VP, Corporate Development Priceline Group), Greg Schulze (Senior VP Expedia), Rod Cuthbert (CEO Rome2rio.com), Melissa Yang (CTO and co-founder Tujia), Kei Shibata (CEO Venture Republic), Tak Miyata (General Manager, Scrum Ventures), and Shinichi Takamiya (Partner and Chief Strategy Officer, Globis Capital Partners).
Currently, THERE exists in 15 locations around the world, offering over 300 bookable activities. It aims to help travellers be more economical and more knowledgeable about the ‘must-see’ and ‘must-do’ activities in any given destination, by curating local offerings within each.
The team plans to tackle the growing market landscape of free and independent travellers (FITs) who spend an estimated 46% of their travel budget on tours and activities.
The startup has demonstrated impressive growth since the business began. From May 2015 to 2016, THERE’s monthly visitors have tripled, monthly revenue has increased 3.5x and the average revenue per user has grown by 50%. Having served approximately 100,000 travellers thus far, THERE has generated US$10 million in revenue.
THERE will soon be available in Japanese and English, according to CEO Fred Kang.
THERE CEO Fred Kang was coached by judge Adrian Currie before the final round.
THERE pitched against three other startups in the Grand Finals – Mebuku, offering Pokke, a Japanese audio guide app, BoundRound, an Australia-based tour and activities site focused on young families and Singapore-based Traveldoor, a series of mobile apps for tourists across several cities in Asia.
BoundRound, presented by CEO & founder Janeece Keller, won the People’s Choice award at the Bootcamp, garnering the most popular votes from the audience.
A total of 12 contestants took part in this year’s Startup Pitch in Tokyo and presented novel and innovative ideas spanning multiple segments within the industry, such as tours and activities, AI pricing for hotels, a luxury travel concierge, an offline map app that helps tourists navigate without incurring roaming costs, and more.
Competition was undeniably tough as contestants vied for the grand prize of six-months access to Venture Republic’s co-working space in Tokyo, public speaking and presentation coaching with TV host and anchor Miyuki Otsuka, and tickets to the WIT 2016 Conference in Singapore.
Chairman of the judging panel Priceline Group’s Adrian Currie commented on the quality and diversity of entries and said they reflected the growing maturity of the travel startup scene in Asia Pacific.
The fact that most of the entrants were pitching in a second language was also not missed by the judges who applauded the participants’ courage and passion for their startups.
The four finalists were also paired with coaches to prepare them for their Grand Finals with Currie saying, “There was clear improvement in the final pitches and it showed that they were willing to listen and learn. That’s a good quality for any startup.”
