Online tour search and booking site TourRadar has secured an
additional $10 million in funding, which the company's founders said will help
the brand increase its staffing and scale up.
The funding was backed by new lead investor Endeit Capital
as well as existing investors Cherry Ventures and Hoxton Ventures.
"Endeit Capital's expertise in scaling consumer brands
will propel TourRadar to new heights" stated Travis Pittman, CEO and
co-founder of TourRadar.
TourRadar launched in 2010 and now sells more than 500
packaged tour brands, including G Adventures, the Globus family of brands,
Intrepid Travel, Trafalgar, Insight Vacations and Contiki. The site features
more than 20,000 tours in about 200 countries, ranging from youth and adventure
tours to luxury escorted vacations.
It also provides some 50,000 consumer reviews of tours
online.
With the Series B investment, TourRadar said it is focusing
on finding additional talent with the aim of doubling its staff size. Another
goal is improving the user experience across all devices via "inspirational,
highly personalized travel content," according to Pittman.
"Its proprietary booking and marketing technology in
the large $50 billion touring market is ready to further scale online,"
stated Martijn Hamann, a partner at Endeit Capital.
Hussein Kanji, founding partner of Hoxton Ventures, added
that there is a large opportunity in the market in bringing together tour
operators with a global customer base, "a market that has waited too long
to go online," according to Kanji.
Prior to the launch of TourRadar, there was no comprehensive
clearinghouse of tour reviews online. The biggest player in the travel review
arena, TripAdvisor, does not have a specific category for tours and/or tour
operators.
TourRadar has been working with Amadeus to potentially
integrate its search and booking system into the GDS but there is no activation
date. TourRadar does offer agents the ability to use the website as a
tool to compare and book tours for their clients. "When agents call in, we
give them a promo code which allows them to make a commission off the booking," said a company spokesperson.