#SNAP TRAVEL UPGRADE#

It goes from search to purchase to upgrade to even post-checkout,вЂќ Shi explains.ДЄt FacebookвЂ™s f8 developer conference earlier this year, SnapTravel announced that it had already achieved over $1 million in revenue on Facebook Messenger. For us, itвЂ™s a conversation вЂ“ and that conversation doesnвЂ™t stop when you make a purchase.

#SNAP TRAVEL FREE#

вЂњWeвЂ™re 100 percent free to the customerвЂ¦the way we make money is the commission on the hotels,вЂќ he says.В вЂњBut weвЂ™re building a relationship with the customer because weвЂ™re chatting with them over a channel thatвЂ™s very intimate, like SMS or Messenger. However, lower cost is not SnapTravelвЂ™s only draw, Shi points out. The serviceвЂ™s hotel inventory comes both directly from hotels themselves, as well as via partners like Expedia,, Amadeus,, and Sabre (pending).Д«ut while agreements between hotels and some hotel booking services disallow them from posting their super-low rates publicly, SnapTravel is able to work around that restriction because itвЂ™s only displaying prices through private, 1-on-1 chats вЂ“ not publicly on the web.Д«ut SnapTravel is not always the place for the lowest priced deal or the most options, some reviewers have found. As its own website explains, it has access to the same unsold hotel inventory that others do. SnapTravel doesnвЂ™t necessarily have any deals you canвЂ™t find elsewhere, but it can feel like it, at times. The company filters through thousands of hotels from sources, then leverages machine learning algorithms to narrow those down to the top options, based on factors like price, location, quality and overall value.ДЄs customers continue to use SnapTravel to make their bookings, the service learns more about individual preferences вЂ“ like if you want free Wi-Fi or free breakfast, for instance вЂ“ and then takes those into consideration for its future recommendations. Though still an early stage startup, SnapTravel has made a bit of a name for itself due to its deals and its вЂњapp-lessвЂќ business model. Shi says that hotels honor SnapTravel agentsвЂ™ special requests around 70 to 80 percent of the time, and they are able to upgrade customers to better rooms around 25 percent of the time.

TheyвЂ™ll call hotels for you, as needed, and even phone to confirm your check-in and attempt to negotiate a free upgrade on your behalf. SnapTravelвЂ™s human agents effectively operate as modern-day travel agents. That led them to realize that delivering the hotel booking experience could work over chat.

вЂњThey just wanted to email us or message us,вЂќ he says, of when the company began testing ideas. вЂњCustomers want a travel agent experience, but they didnвЂ™t want to call they didnвЂ™t want to walk into a store,вЂќ explains Shi. You can also ask the agents for help with questions bots canвЂ™t handle вЂ“ like if the hotel is pet-friendly, or if you can get adjoining rooms, among other things. For example, if you booked a non-refundable hotel but your flight gets cancelled due to weather, an agent would respond to your questions and try to help, rather than leaving you to deal with an unsympathetic bot.

The вЂњbotвЂќ part of the service aids with onboarding and can answer usersвЂ™ simpler questions, but when things get tricky, human agents are able to step in. Unlike a number of chatbots on the market today, SnapTravel isnвЂ™t a fully automated solution вЂ“ arguably, to its advantage. The startup itself was founded in spring 2016 by tech entrepreneurs Hussein Fazal, whose prior company AdParlor grew to $100+ million in revenue, then sold to AdKnowledge back in 2011 and Henry Shi, who previously built uMentioned and worked at Google, where he helped launch YouTube Music Insights. INoviaвЂ™s Chris Arsenault is joining SnapTravelвЂ™s board with the close of the round. The round also included participation from seed round investors Lightbank, Bee Partners, and Hedgewood, along with strategic investor and Expedia board member Peter Kern, among others.

#SNAP TRAVEL SERIES#

The $8 million Series A round was led by iNovia Capital, a backer of Luxury Retreats which just exited to Airbnb for around $200 million. But that hasnвЂ™t stopped investors from pouring in $8 million into a hotel booking startup called SnapTravel, which lets users find and book rooms via SMS texts and Facebook Messenger. Chatbots вЂ“ automated bots that let you interact with a service or brand via messaging apps or SMS вЂ“ havenвЂ™t yet become breakout hits, as a group.

Snap travel