Bidtotrip

Idea

Introduction

Never thought it was possible to stay in a 5-star hotel at the price of a cup of coffee? The solution is Bidtotrip, the online platform that auctions off overnights in the best luxury hotels in the world.

Our vision is to make luxury accessible for everybody.
Bidtotrip is like the Google adwords of luxury travel, but with an important difference: the auctions start from £1 and travellers can potentially book a luxury hotel for up to the 90% less than the market value.

Every offer consists of 1-2 nights in a luxury hotel with the addition of an experience. Auction winners can receive complimentary items/services i.e. bottle of champagne, or one day in the hotel spa.

It's a multiple winner auction, so all the people will be happy at different price. Let's give you an example:
• 3 rooms available, 3 people join the auction
• Jeff bids £50, Sarah bids £60 and Andrew bids £70
• All three will win the auction at different prices.

It's a win win solution for the hotels and for the customers.

Intended impact

From the clients’ point of view, the implementation of Bidtotrip will spread a new culture of buying exclusive holidays: bidding on auctions to win luxury holidays is a innovation in the travel sector which gives people the opportunity to save money and maximize quality/price thanks to incredible deals.

We believe people will start using Bidtotrip as a means to improve the quality of their holidays, their lifestyle, but also to catch special deals and to discover locations normally inaccessible due to their high market value.

From the hoteliers’ point of view, Bidtotrip has the potential to increase their revenue. In fact, 1 million rooms remain empty every night in European hotels: Bidtotrip is the way to sell rooms. Moreover, it will be a means of branding: thanks to a top selection, Bidtotrip aims to become a guarantee of quality and offer hotels that are perceived by customers as the best available.

Substantial accomplishments to date

Bidtotrip has received over £200k worth of funding from the previous Seedrs campaign in the beginning of 2016.

This amount was spent to develop the new platform, the IOS app, built the team to start investing money on marketing at the end of October 2016.
Before closing the last round (January 2016) we had:
• 13,000 registered members.
• 20% of which are active.

Today in November 2017:
• 125,000 registered members;
• 20% active users;
• generating a total turnover to date of over £220,000 (based on unaudited management accounts)

We made a lot of progress x 10 in number of users.

Last year we were selected as one of the most promising traveltech startups in Europe by the DCU Ryan Academy to participate in their Cross Border mentorship Week.

We were selected for MadeinItaly 2020 - London Stock Exchange as one of the 8 most promising Italian founder-led startups.

Monetisation strategy

Our money-making formula is based on:
Fix fee on sales.

So let's give you an example:
- Auction London 5 stars hotel for 1 night ( market value £300)
- 3 rooms available
- 4 people join the auction
1) Andrew bids £70
2) Sarah bids £60
3) Jeff bids £50
4) Steven bids £48
The winners are the firsts three
Total GROSS REVENUE £180
Total NET REVENUE £15 x 3 = £45

Moreover, users always have the possibility to immediately buy the offer by clicking the “buy-now” button. So, our money-making formula is based on:

1) Auction side:
- joining fees for participation in the auctions
- closing auction price.

2) Fee side:
- fee on every Flash-sale sold
- fee on every Buy-now sold.

Use of proceeds

Bidtotrip plans to invest the proceeds raised through Seedrs:

- 55% IT
a) implement the new algorithm of multiple winners
b) connection from hotel and Bidtotrip.

- 45% BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Customers partnership (influencers, events … ).