Bizstartup.ie - NewsA new social media platform for travel

Travelshake.com provides consumers with a simple platform for planning a holiday in Ireland and gives businesses, such as restaurants, hotels, visitor attractions, pubs, and self-catering properties, the opportunity to reach a worldwide audience, via a social media travel site. 

Registration with Travelshake.com is free of charge and, so far, over 100 Irish businesses have signed-up. 

Laughlin Rigby is a former internet marketing manager for Tourism Ireland and Fergal Rigby previously worked as an eCommerce consultant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers. 

Fergal says the new website is an extremely simple, but effective, concept that will change how Irish tourism businesses market themselves online.

“The past year has seen thousands of tourism businesses dip their toe in social media by tweeting, writing facebook updates, and creating low-cost films for YouTube.  The industry is ready to embrace social media and we’re confident that Travelshake.com can help them,” he said.

Travelshake.com – the figures

The Rigbys have invested over €45,000 from their own funding sources to date and have a targeted turnover of €250,000 by the end of year one for the company. 

The website has a “freemium” business model with premium accounts available from only €200 a year, as well paid homepage video placements, delivering increased exposure across the site. 

The Travelshake.com team can also create and set-up profile accounts for business owners who don’t have a website or much knowledge of social media.  A unique feature of the website is the ability of owners to also recommend other local businesses, providing the user with peer-to-peer recommendations. 

Enhancements planned for Travelshake.com

Travelshake.com already has nearly 7,000 tourism related followers on Twitter and the Rigby brothers are planning some major enhancements in the near future, including user itineraries and iphone applications.  The aim of the business is to put Travelshake.com at the forefront of social media development in the travel industry, both in Ireland and internationally.

The new company aims to employ at least 10 people in Ireland, by the end of the first year, with the business expanding to the UK and US markets by then also. 

Laughlin, a two-time Golden Spider Award winner, says: “Ireland is the perfect place to build an internet company, with an educated workforce and a supportive start-up environment.  We have had a fantastic reaction to the concept of a social media platform for travel, so do feel we can take on the biggest and best dot-coms in the world.” 

Photo: Fergal and Laughlin Rigby, founders of Travelshake.com