Flee is a Canadian startup that is using its app tp try and redefine the way users make travel bookings. Co-founders Byron Hawes and Zeïna Belouizdad are definitely doing something right because they have been selected to join the JOLT Accelerator at MaRS business incubator. Flee will now be getting free co-working space, some seed capital and other resources. The entrepreneurs will also benefit from the advice of industry heavy hitters. The two entrepeneurs already have a lot of experience of their own in the travel sector and a chance meeting four years ago led to the creation of Flee.
The startup is looking to remove the pain and time it takes to make travel bookings and reduce time spent in the process from days to minutes. The search and discovery process is quite simple and all a user does is enter the dates of travel and budget along with a destination. They can skip the last step if they want and go with a recommended location from Flee.
Byron explains that they are pushing quality content and says that, “For the moment—we’ll have the writers around the world maintaining the content. We’re not sure that the wisdom of the crowd is the direction we want to go in. Sometimes [content] needs to be curated.” This helps the startup offer users extremely relevant recommendations and many quality guides. The curated content can include recommendations about “restaurants, galleries, bars, and even cemeteries and national parks, depending on where in the world you’re at.”
Flee also has a social aspect thanks to an algorithm that pulls in information from a user’s Facebook and Foursquare accounts to make personalized suggestions. Zeïna explains how a typical scenario works by stating that, “You really like music, so why don’t you go to Memphis, Tennessee? It’s a hub for music and we’ll show you what to do and where to go. And guess what? Next week it’s in your budget.’”
For now North American is the initial market for the startup but Flee is anticipating a move into Europe by the end of 2013. The service will be launching in Beta soon and early adopters can visit the site to get more information.
Flee is benefiting from MaRS which “connects the communities of science, business and capital and fosters collaboration among them. This happens physically through location of research labs, companies of all sizes, business advisors, investors and professional services within the MaRS Centre and more broadly through hands-on advisory services, entrepreneurial programming, our structured networks and expanding electronic community.”
Source: TechVibes
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