The travel industry has been on a rollercoaster ride over the past couple of years. From dealing with a complete shutdown to one of the busiest summers’s on record and a talent shortage – travel providers have had to adapt, strategise and overcome.
But with a challenge, comes opportunity. And the travel tech sector has also been one of the most exciting areas of innovation in the past couple of years, and we’ve seen travel tech startups become unicorns and globally reaching companies. There’s been exciting innovation and inspiring creativity taking travel to a new generation.
Founded in 2017, WeRoad is a Milan-based startup specialising in group adventure travel for millennials. It’s providing a service tailored to a generation that is often finding themselves travelling solo – but looking for hyper-connected, personalised and fun experiences.
The Italian startup is one of Europe’s fastest-growing travel operators, with offices in Italy, Spain and the UK and plans to enter Germany, France, Benelux and the Nordics next year. This year the company hit €30 million in revenue and is experiencing 3.5x growth vs 2019 levels. WeRoad is building the largest travel community in Europe – it has 30,000+ customers and 1.5 million social media followers, making it the world’s #1 adventure travel social brand. So, we just had to sit down with co-founder Erika De Santi to find out more.
What is the vision behind WeRoad?
WeRoad’s vision is crystal clear: connecting people, cultures and stories. Our mission is to design and deliver experiences worth living and sharing, rewriting the rules of the travel industry, every f*cking step of the way. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.
In 5 years we’ve taken 30k+ customers (WeRoaders) all over the world. We got through the pandemic safe and sound, constantly seeking out destinations that were open and safe to travel to.
Our tours are designed to be life-changing: we push people out of their comfort zones and help them discover faraway lands, but also enable them to connect with fellow travellers and make friends.
We ensure every itinerary has the right blend of elements to help foster meaningful relationships and create life-changing experiences. A tour doesn’t last forever, but a friendship does, especially one built on incredible shared moments.
Social media and community building sit at the heart of our business and it’s an approach which has made us one of the fastest growing travel operators in Europe with offices in Italy, Spain and the UK, and plans to launch in France, Germany, Benelux and the Nordics by next year.
What inspired you to launch WeRoad?
The inspiration for WeRoad was born out of my and my co-founders’ needs as millennial travellers.
Your late 20s, 30s and early 40s is a time we hit a number of milestones – be it new relationships, jobs, kids, marriage, new house – as such it’s increasingly challenging to organise trips with friends all on different paths. It’s also harder to meet new people and with 64% of millennials not in a stable relationship, there is growing demand for group travel solutions from millennials wanting to travel the world but wanting to share the experience with others.
This was a situation myself and my co-founders found ourselves in. We had separately gone on group tours for solo travellers and were equally disappointed. We felt the “new connections” element of the experience was severely lacking and not treated as a core component. After testing out alternative offerings it was obvious the tours weren’t designed with this focus in mind and was something we felt desperately needed to change.
We decided to build a travel community and tour operator designing and delivering incredible life-changing and off the beaten track experiences to appeal to millennials.
We wanted to offer genuine opportunities to create life-long friendships while making it easier for people to travel solo by grouping like-minded individuals.
What makes WeRoad stand out as a travel provider?
Our business model is drastically different to that of our peers. Although we operate in the travel sector we don’t see ourselves as “a travel brand” but rather a Direct-to-consumer business relying on 3 pillars.
WeRoad is simultaneously a tour operator, a community business and a travel tech company:
- Tour operator. We design tours and directly negotiate and operate tour services, thus making it easier for us to control product quality, while ensuring it aligns with our vision.
- Community. We have 1K+ travel coordinators across 3 countries, 30k+ WeRoaders and 1.5 million social media followers. Our expertise is about creating and fueling communities of people and ambassadors both online and in the physical world
- Travel tech. We develop all our technology and digital platforms in-house to enable travel operations at scale and also to provide an extraordinary customer experience allowing direct booking without OTAs or other intermediaries
We’ve built and developed a strong brand identity with a very distinctive approach to marketing and communication thanks to a tone of voice which is friendly, quick-witted, always ironic and a little cheeky.
WeRoad is supported by a network of so-called ‘WeRoaders’. Tell us about the community approach – what benefits does this have for business? And what about for the users/customer experience?
Our community of WeRoaders is fundamental for our business for several reasons.
First and foremost: retention. People travelling with us develop a strong sense of belonging and in the majority of cases are having their first intercontinental experience. Our WeRoaders community then becomes a huge bank of intel and advice which everyone can benefit from. It was a huge compliment when WeRoaders started using the phrase “let’s do a WeRoad,” as a way of travelling and exploring the world.
Secondly, for engagement and amplification of our vision of connecting people, culture and stories. Millennials typically travel two to three times a year but thanks to the spontaneously organised events among our community, the strength of our online interactions and stories shared across our channels, people get to continuously live and breathe our brand.
Thirdly, talent scouting. Our community plays a significant role with recruitment and we receive frequent applications for the coordinator post from WeRoaders. It’s a coveted position for which we receive some 4000+ applications each year.
Can you tell us about the ‘coordinators’ you have leading tours?
When we think of our ‘favourite’ trips, sure we think of some kick-ass destinations, but in all honesty, they’re not our favourites because the scenery was awesome, but rather because of the connections made or nurtured. That’s where the travel coordinator comes in.
Our coordinators provide a WeRoad live presence during the trips. They manage the itinerary, logistics and relationships with local partners and crucially, they’re trained to manage the group dynamics.
They help people get to know each other, boost moods during long transfers, they manage the flexible component of our trips tailoring the last mile of the experience and adapting it to fit with the group’s interests. They also create some incredible spontaneous moments which really make the trips.
They help WeRoaders get out of their comfort zone and live the whole experience with them. What’s really powerful is having travel coordinators who have never visited the destination leading the tour. This way they can enjoy and put so much of their own personality into the trip making it truly unique.
Do you see differences in how different generations travel – and how does WeRoad address this?
Millennials are hyper-connected and time-poor, but at the same time, they want to co-create and have control over their travel experiences. This means their exploration of the world is different to that of older generations.
Millennials are motivated by the love of long-haul travel, the desire for adventure, the chance to create life-long friendships and to have authentic, life-changing experiences. Millennials are also the “bucket list” and FOMO generation and off-the-beaten-track experiences and must-see/do activities resonate.
Conventional holidays have lost traction with this cohort who don’t want to be treated as consumers of a product but as participants in a community of like-minded people, and we’ve embedded these aspects into the DNA of our travel experiences.
WeRoad was born in Milan and has expanded across Europe. What has been your expansion strategy?
As mentioned earlier, social and community building sit at the heart of our business and these elements are key to our growth and expansion. Our growth strategy relies on the localisation of our communities with WeRoaders and coordinators playing a crucial role here. We maximise our digital platforms to engage with our target audience and facilitate our growth as a global engine catering to the variety of local market needs.
Our ambition is to become the leading adventure travel brand in Europe by 2025. We already have operations in Italy, Spain and the UK and to achieve European leadership we recognise we need to have a presence in the top five markets – with the imminent launch of our German and French operations – we’ll be in the top five and the expansion will contribute to our growth.
The travel industry has had a rough few years – with the pandemic bringing it to a halt, to a lot of criticism this summer as the industry bounced back. How did WeRoad navigate the lockdown days?
During the first lockdown with leisure travel virtually impossible and our sales plummeting to zero, we continued to engage with our community and our interactions with our followers played a key role in keeping us afloat.
Leveraging our social media presence we essentially initiated a pre-order strategy with unexpected returns. And particularly so given the nature of our product: long-haul tours for groups of people that don’t know each other, and tours all about sharing and connecting with the local population. At the time this went completely against the “social distancing” norms and official curfews imposed to curb the spread of the virus.
We had the most “unsellable” product in the world. But we came up with the idea of gift cards for future travel. The results were incredible. In three days we made half a million EUR and what struck me most was not only the 40% who bought the cards were repeaters, but that 60% were new customers. By keeping our community engaged, we were able to leverage word-of-mouth to shore up the cash needed during our darkest days and still grow the business.
What can the travel sector do to improve its reputation and regain trust?
I genuinely believe that the pandemic was critical for the industry but at the same time therapeutic: all companies who went through it, or were born in it, have helped to advance and innovate the sector.
Travel dogmas were challenged and a more conscious, positive and constructive discussion has started around the tourism supply chain management, the economic, social and environmental impact of our work, as well as ways of better communicating with the end-consumer. Flexibility is key as is always putting the customer at the centre.
What do you think is next in the travel tech space?
Disintermediation becoming a reality – as people and touchpoints for inspiration, decision making and booking around travel become increasingly digital. As a result, we will see travel operators becoming more accountable, particularly in relation to their role in the supply chain. The customer experience will also change as a result – seamless, digital and centred around social.
Another trend I expect to see next is one built around the experience creator economy and the winners will be those who get hyper-creative, hyper-local and hyper-talented in video and storytelling content.
What are the plans for WeRoad in the next 5 years?
As above, our ambition is to achieve European leadership by 2025. It will pave the way for the launch of additional side projects and associated businesses.
We also want to explore a few new things – the first is creating an opportunity for our coordinators, to create and arrange the itineraries themselves and sell them through our platform. This will serve to make the experience even more unique while also giving coordinators the possibility to work with us on a full-time basis. Currently, the majority of our coordinators have regular jobs and do the coordinator role in their spare time. It also enables our product to scale.
Secondly, we feel there is an opportunity and an interest in our product from older age groups – 50+ – and this is something we’re looking to explore further.
In relation to our expansion – we’re aiming to open offices in Germany, France, Benelux and the Nordics by next year and potentially targeting the Americas and APAC.
Are you interested in the travel tech sector? Make sure you check out the upcoming FutureTravel Summit! Tickets are up for grabs here.
