Learn How to Become Better Digital Marketeers

Peter Fabricius, Co-Founder of Springnest and Travel Massive Cape Town member, helps travel and hospitality businesses become better digital marketeers.

Springnest clients are predominantly independent hotels, but range from youth hostels, to luxury lodges, adventure companies, and tour providers. Here’s what Peter had to say about his startup:

Tell us about your business? 

There’s a gap between the state of digital marketing trends, and the travel trade’s understanding of how to leverage and utilise it. You can’t expect an independent hotel manager to find value in a conference about online influencers, virtual reality, or location-based mobile advertising, if they don’t have confidence in their abilities, knowledge, and brand. Even less so if the foundation of their digital marketing is weak, or non-existent.

Springnest makes it easier to embrace the power of digital marketing through beautiful, mobile friendly websites, backed by simple tools to manage and market content. Our clients use Springnest to keep their websites current, but also to embrace content marketing through blogging and online promotions.

How is your startup disrupting the travel scene today? 

We’re committed to empowering clients to do things themselves, where relevant, rather than up-selling a micro services at a cost. We’ve seen an increase in competitors over the past year, though many of them charge commissions on website bookings, rather than following a subscription model. Clients who embrace Springnest and use the tools and knowledge to their disposal, can see a significant increase in direct bookings and revenue.

How did you get your startup off the ground and gaining traction?

We started from the top down, meeting with local and regional DMO’s about the value of Springnest for their members, and ran a couple of free marketing workshops to establish a presence in the local trade. We starting blogging about industry trends and marketing advice, well before we signed up clients, which brought us online exposure and enquiries. It was our partnership with NightsBridge (a booking engine and channel manager from South Africa), that finally brought the market access we needed to gain real momentum.

How is your startup changing the future of the industry or helping to make travel better?

Travel success is influenced and lead by the ability of destinations and the tourism trade to package, market and sell experiences. The traveller’s experience is influenced by the accessibility of inspirational content, practical information, and the ease to book products. Springnest is about connecting those dots.

Do you have any tips for new entrepreneurs who want to create a successful startup?

Stay focussed on your vision and purpose at all costs. In the early stages, I heard so many opinions from different people about what Springnest should be, and how we should package it, that it became difficult to make decisions. The most exciting break-throughs came when we followed our gut, and were focussed on our original vision: that all hospitality and travel businesses should have access to professional and affordable digital marketing tools.

As a startup, what benefits have you seen from being a part of Travel Massive meetups?

When building a new travel tech business, it gets easy to forget that you’re working in an industry that is about connecting and sharing. Meetups are opportunities to get away from our desks, catch up with industry friends, meet potential partners, and just have a couple of laughs.

Travel Start-Up is a monthly series that profiles unique online travel start-ups in the Travel Massive community around the world. Connect with Peter and Springnest on Travel Massive, Facebook or Twitter.