Linking the social power of photos and celebrities

Online travel start-up Trippy has launched a promising campaign using the magnetic potential of photos, inspired by the success of online photo network Pinterest. The latter has been awarded the most successful online newcomer and is incredibly popular among women for sharing travel, food and beauty images. Pinterest shows a remarkable increase in referral traffic and tourist managers are realizing its potential. 

Trippy uses a similar model, by offering its users the possibility to create travel boards, on which one can pin web pictures from holiday destinations. Other users can then share and comment on these travel pictures and tag them under “want to go” or “been there”. The pictures are geo-tagged and allow for trip planning, social media sharing and affiliate partnerships.

Image source: http://www.trippy.com

Trippy is not the first to copy the idea of tagging and sharing travel photos. Other examples of travel sites are Wanderfly and Gogobot. In order to differentiate itself and create a buzz in the fast-moving online travel world, Trippy is supported by its advisory board made up of celebrities and bloggers such as Jason Mraz, Rachel Zoe, Tim Ferriss, Randi Zuckerberg, Anthony Bourdain, Kevin Rose, Andrew Zimmern, Gary Vaynerchuk, Chase Jarvis, Soleil Moon Frye, Soraya Darabi, Johnny Jet, Veronica Belmont, Kim Mance, Brett Snyder and more. All of them globetrotters, these Trippy-related personalities will pin pictures of their travel adventures and inspire the community.

The related article on Tnooz “Social travel gets graphic as Trippy, Wanderfly, Gogobot, Gtrot display Pinterest interest” triggered a discussion about the approach and similarity of these start-ups to Pinterest and the effectiveness of a celebrity advisory board. It is easy to agree on the point that Trippy´s model seems like a copy of Pinterest, which will have a hard time to be innovative and viable on the long run, considering the competition. However, Trippy is on a good start, arriving at the right time to capture an important share of the travel community. The approach to integrate opinion leaders and celebrities has been proven to be successful in other cases, e.g. just recently EasyJet released a campaign for travel bloggers. They can act as a major pull factor towards a destination. It is to be observed in how far Trippy can be profitable and manage to turn travel inspiration into travel decisions.

Keywords: Trippy, Pinterest, pinning, travel bloggers, Wanderfly, Gogobot, Gtrot

Sources:

Schaal, D. (2012). Social travel gets graphic as Trippy, Wanderfly, Gogobot, Gtrot display pinterest interest. Retrieved on April 21, 2012 from http://www.tnooz.com/2012/03/09/news/social-travel-gets-graphic-as-trippy-wanderfly-gogobot-gtrot-display-pinterest-interest/

Cost2go (2012). Why all the sudden Pinterest? Retrieved on April 21, 2012 from http://cost2go.com/2012/03/17/why-all-the-sudden-pinterest/