New travel planning site launches for
independent travellers – Secret Earth
Secret Earth (www.secretearth.com), a new trip planning website which simplifies the painstaking process of researching, planning and booking independent holidays – be it a weekend break or that trip of a lifetime.
The site is thought to be the first website, certainly in the UK, to combine top quality content from leading travel writers with easy-to-use trip planning and price comparison tools, all in one place.
Secret Earth is the brainchild of two friends, Matthew Roach and John Kat. Both are from corporate backgrounds, where they worked long hours and were frustrated at how long it was taking to plan trips.
Matthew Roach, Secret Earth’s CEO and Co-Founder said
“Planning quality holidays – especially if you don’t know where you want to go – is a pain in the butt. It can takes hours, days even. Why? Because you need three things: good recommendations, a way to plan them together, and the means to book them. Sure, there are millions of websites for booking travel, but only a handful offer high quality, trustworthy recommendations, and fewer still that provide the means to plan a trip. Currently you have to trawl though lots of different websites to get what you need. Our three-stage ‘Discover, Plan and Book’ process brings these three elements all together in one convenient place for the first time.
Secret Earth’s team also includes James Alexander as Editorial Director, formerly Time Out’s Editorial Director and Katherine Gershon as a Non-Executive Director, previously with Abercrombie & Kent, Silverjet and Thomas Cook.
Discover
All Secret Earth’s content recommendations have been hand-picked by leading travel writers, drawing on the writer’s expertise to present a carefully crafted list of top quality selections that saves the user hours of research time. The criteria for selection is quality, value for money and experience value – not cost – so recommendations may range from a five star hotel to a B&B, a helicopter ride to a walk on the beach. All content is original, and has been specifically designed to be digestible for an online audience.
Secret Earth’s content strategy has been to focus on the world’s best travel experiences, rather than building a destination guide catalogue. There are currently over 1,300 outstanding experiences, supported by 110 destination guides, 600 hotels, and 650 restaurants and bars, with more being added each week, covering destinations from Cape Town to Cappadocia; Alesund (Northern Norway) to Athens.
Geographical scope has been initially biased to a UK market, with a dominance of Europe. Americas and then Asia content will be expanded as Secret Earth rolls out into those markets.
But just making good recommendations is not enough. Most travel sites structure their data poorly, making it hard for the independent traveller to sort through volumes of information. John Kat, Secret Earth’s Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, is a leading expert in data architecture. He has designed and built a highly organised and efficient data platform that now enables engaging discovery tools and advanced search and filtering to help users search through all of Secret Earth’s recommendations to find what they want quickly and easily. Want to swim with dolphins in May within 8 hours flight of London? You can type in exactly that.
Plan - Intelligent Planning Tools
Secret Earth’s Tripbox enables customers to collect their travel ideas as the browse the site. They may then use Secret Earth’s unique ‘drag and drop’ calendar to plan out an itinerary. The calendar shows the user opening times, and will also soon be ‘intelligent’, to prevent users making ‘mistakes’, like scheduling a museum visit on a day that the museum is closed. Soon users will also be able to share these itineraries with friends for group trips, and take them with them on a native mobile app.
Users may also ‘print’ their Tripbox – and itinerary if applicable – creating a handy, customised guide PDF to share or take with them.
Book – unbiased options and bespoke price comparisons
Secret Earth does not take bookings directly but, in keeping with its commitment to impartiality and making trip planning easy, instead offers convenient links and recommendations on who to book with. For accommodation, Secret Earth’s in-site price aggregator compares the lowest prices on six leading online travel agents (including Expedia, hotels.com and lastminute.com), and provides links to booking on the OTA’s own site. For activities & tours, Secret Earth provides online booking through Viator, as well as independent recommendations for reputable operators who can organise the activity or tour.
Business Model
Secret Earth is privately funded and will earn revenue from affiliate commissions through a number of partnership agreements, for example with Viator (for online activities & tours) and online travel agents in the price comparison tools.
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For more information contact Fiona Reece or Claire Southern at Fiona Reece PR, 07702 684 682 / 07725 167 665 / 01242 211 192
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Team Background
Matt Roach - Matt is Secret Earth’s CEO and Co-Founder. Matt previously advised start-ups during his time strategy consulting with the Bridgespan Group (part of Bain) while living in New York. During his time at Qantas Holidays (living in Sydney, Australia) he made the move from finance into sales and marketing. Prior to this he worked as a chartered accountant for Ernst & Young in London. Matt is 40 and has an MBA from Columbia Business School.
John Kat - John is Secret Earth’s CTO and Co-Founder. John has 25 years IT experience and specializes in data organisation and management to create business intelligence and competitive advantage. He has worked as an independent consultant/interim manager to many leading retailers, banks and insurance companies across Europe and Australia, including Tesco.com, Lloyds and Barclays. Originally from Adelaide, Australia, John is 42
James Alexander - James is Secret Earth's Editorial Director. James previously worked as Editorial Director for Time Out, where he managed editorial operations in Dubai and the Middle East. He has also worked as editor for several London-based publishers, and as a travel writer in Europe and Asia.
Katherine Gershon - Katherine is Secret Earth’s non-executive director. She was previously global sales & marketing director at Abercrombie & Kent and has held director roles at British Midland, Silverjet and Thomas Cook. She has over 13 years global travel industry experience, with a particular focus on ecommerce and marketing.