BonVoyage.SITE: An End-to-End Travel App
Paris-based BonVoyage.SITE, a travel app, is a door-to-door travel booking engine with full content access. Geoffrey MARAIS, Founder – CEO, BonVoyage.SITE, talks about his journey in the startup world and exhibiting at the RISE Conference in Hong Kong this July.
Tell us about your travel app, BonVoyage.SITE.
A super assistant of sorts, Bon Voyage is a one-stop shop to find information pertaining to travel and accommodation. Our powerful algorithm allows users to book a flight, bus, train, taxi, car and hotel room from anywhere in less than 30 seconds. We also offer 3 best travel options for easy decision making. What used to take several hours can now be done instantaneously!
What inspired you to start working on BonVoyage.SITE?
My previous job required me to travel extensively. Although I had the assistance from of a travel management company, the process of arranging essentials for my trips was a mundane and time-consuming task, taking half a day or even more sometimes! My trip to New York was instrumental in the creation of BonVoyage.SITE. I thought it would be an easy trip to plan given the number of travelers New York sees every year. Surprisingly, it was not easy at all! Finding information was very cumbersome and for my return trip, I missed the flight after being stuck in a traffic jam. Fed-up with such issues, I decided to build BonVoyage.SITE in August 2016 to enhance my travel experience and for every traveler in the world.
How has your journey been so far?
The startup environment was very new to me. Starting such a project has an impact on everybody, including your family and friends. It’s sort of like a new baby at home!
I strongly believe that I have learned far more during this one year by working on this travel app than what any MBA course or B-School would teach!
The challenging element has been the process of finding and building the finest team! What’s even more challenging is to support them to deliver their best to the project/product development. Secondly, my experience has taught me the definition of the word ‘patience’. It is an art that I have learned to master and live with.
Lastly, I have learned that time is supremely important! Having tight time-schedules for project development, we have learned the knack of managing our time to maximize efficiency.
You are exhibiting at RISE! How are your prepping up for that?
We participated at the Web Summit in November 2016. At that time, we hadn’t prepared ourselves and we didn’t know what to expect. However, the experience was truly amazing! In fact, that’s where we met the wonderful people from the Startup League and now we are looking forward to RISE! This is a brilliant opportunity to network with industry leaders, peers, promoters, investors, and influencers. We intend to make the most of it.
BonVoyage.SITE is headed to RISE Conference 2017 with 100% sponsorship by the Startup League on their ALPHA booth. To know more, visit www.startupleague.online or write to leaguesupport@startupleague.online.
