Meet Destination Compensation – getting travelers to do good
2015-03-23
More and more consumers are choosing to buy products and services that have been produced in a sustainable way. This is also true for travelers and in the past decade the demand for responsible travel has grown rapidly. The travel industry struggles in meeting this demand in a cost efficient way.
Destination Compensation offer the travel industry a cost efficient and sustainable solution that does not only enable them to do good at their destinations, but also meet their customers demands. They make it possible for travelers and the travel industry to contribute to local non-profit projects at different destinations around the world with a simple and secure solution.
By installing our plug-in in their booking dialogue, a tour operator can offer their customers, i.e. travelers, the option to choose a local project at their destinations to support and the amount of money to contribute in the booking dialogue. The traveler pays the donation at the same time as he/she pays the trip. The traveler can of course also contribute money to a local project after returning home from the trip.
The founders are Malin Jungerstedt and Anna Urombi, two friends since way back when. Malin has previously worked with sales and international marketing and Anna has worked for the UN. They have both lived and studied abroad and love to discover new cultures and different places around the world.
Chalmers Innovation Startup Camp was a big kick in the butt!
The idea of Destination Compensation was born in summer 2013, 6 months prior to the Startup Camp. When we started the Startup Camp it was just that – an idea that they wanted to explore and investigate further.
“Chalmers Innovation Startup Camp was a big kick in the butt!” says Anna and Malin. “In only ten weeks we got to do several market studies, we got so many important contacts and a door opened up to a large network of entrepreneurs and business people. After the ten weeks of the camp we already had two test customers willing to go live and test our solution!”
Now they’re part of the Accelerator and they find both the coaching and contacts very important. “The entrepreneurial world we are a part of is a great opportunity for different synergies and networking which leads to even more opportunities for us and what we do.”
One of the companys most important milestones was to see that the service really made people donate money when they paid for their trips! With that they had their first proof of concept. And there are many more in the making;
“The next goal is to make things more automated through the creation of a technical platform, which will allow an even easier connection and transfer process for both travel agencies and travelers.“
Destination Compensation is currently in Chalmers Innovation seed accelerator, coached by Johan Andinsson.