YouLi: On A Mission To Make Group Travel Easy

If you are organising group travel experiences, then you need to hear about YouLi – the software that helps group travel leaders ditch the spreadsheet and manage travelers, payments, tasks, documents, and itineraries more seamlessly.

The article is based on the interview with Jen Fein, co-founder and CEO of YouLive To Travel, member of Melbourne and Sydney Travel Massive. Jen is a speaker for Women In Travel Summit in Riga (Latvia) and the Travel Tech Summit in Sydney. Jen will be co-hosting a live event in Melbourne with the Impact Travel Alliance on November 27th, 2019.

👉 Trip organizers can sign up to YouLi with no monthly fees. A free Premium Trial is available for 15 days.

What is YouLi and what problems does it solve?

YouLi (youlivetotravel.com) offers the easiest group travel management software for trip organizers. Compared to others in the market, YouLi provides an all-in-one online solution that saves time, reduces stress, and provides a more consistent experience for travelers from interest to booking to pre-trip tasks.

Watch the video to see how YouLi works:

It’s like Shopify for group travel, which allows you to ditch the spreadsheets and establish an automated process to manage tasks and reduce email exchanges.

YouLi was created by group leaders for group leaders to help you grow, scale up your team to create even more incredible experiences.

What changes in the travel industry created the demand for YouLi?

As travel has become more common, we are seeing the role it can play in all aspects of our lives, not just for leisure, but also for community involvement, political action, and transformational experiences. That’s what “travel with purpose” is about.

Organizations ranging from social impact ventures and non-profits, to adventure startups, cultural organizations and educational operators are all harnessing the power of travel to create unique group travel experiences.

They need to create an online experience that matches the quality of the offline experience they are offering, that’s where YouLi fits in.

As a female-founded company, how does YouLi work on promoting diversity in the travel industry?

The majority of our clients are female-founded businesses, and many are using their businesses to achieve a vision of a more connected and collaborative world.

Women are often more aware of the ways the system needs to change and they know we cannot transform our systems if we do not transform ourselves. Travel is an incredible way to create the space for that.

We are excited to be supporting the women who understand this powerful truth by building a travel platform that empowers them to scale and reach a larger audience.

Through the Transformational Travel Council we have connected with many members of the community, like Jennifer Spatz and Rachel Gilmore, who guide group trips through immersive journeys and create the space for travelers to transform.

We found that the genuine desire to make  something truly special accessible to their travelers is what unites all unique experience designers. YouLi helps them build the necessary trust by supporting them every step of the way.

What tips do you have for travel operators to make the best use of technology?

The most important question to ask yourself is: What problem are you trying to solve? Nail that and then move on to the next one.

Technology is never completely done, it’s always evolving along with your business. To invest wisely, make sure your travel platform supports your business now and grows with you.

Here’s a few more tips:

• Highlight your brand. You are delivering exceptional experiences, make sure the credit goes to your brand, not the booking platform.
• Integrate with the platforms you already use, and increase ROI on money already spent.
• Data privacy compliance. Find a solution that makes it easy to stay compliant.
• Scalability. The solution needs to be flexible and support your business during its various stages of growth. For example, it might be good to start with pay-as-you-go pricing in the beginning, but once you build the audience, switching to a fixed monthly pricing will mean more of your revenue goes to your bottom line.
• Support – get the support you need, like online chat, a library of videos, or a community of entrepreneurs to share their experiences.

What is YouLi’s role in the future of tech in travel?

As technology advances, the latest thing today will become the norm tomorrow. Booking travel online is now ubiquitous because of giant platforms like Booking.com and trusting strangers to curate your experiences is now prevalent because of Airbnb.

As large travel companies consolidate, the technology they have normalised becomes cheaper, and the need for niche solution providers grows. The segments we’ve seen growing the most are female-focused travel and sustainable travel.

That means more opportunities for the operators and the owners of the niche audiences like social influencers or impact journeys. YouLi plans to be there to solve the ever-evolving problems for the group leaders in these growing niches.

Learn more about YouLi:

• Visit YouLi’s website to find out more
• Hear Jen speak at the Women In Travel Summit in Riga (Latvia, 8-10 November, 2019)
• Jen will be co-hosting a live event in Melbourne with the Impact Travel Alliance on November 27th, 2019.
• Jen will speak about “How platforms are making technology affordable to all companies” at the Travel Tech Summit in Sydney (Australia, 3-5 December, 2019)

— Thank you, Jen, for sharing your thoughts with us!

 Sign up for a free trial of YouLi and try their platform for your own group trips.