Disruption Made in Georgia?
Sandro Chalagashvili is a visionary. The young man from Georgia wants to revolutionize the Hospitality and Travel Industry. Therefore, he founded a start-up called Tripify. The aim of his company is to develop a personalized tour guide planner allowing tourists to create their own itinerary based on budget, interests and time. Users just have to choose different bars, sights or museums they want to visit. Via drag-and-drop, they can move them into Tripify and the software instantly offers them a way to get from one place to the next.
On October 25, Sandro Chalagashvili presented his innovative idea to an international jury of the Welcome Challenge in Tbilisi, an annual Global Forum for Hospitality and Travel Industry. If Chalagashvili and his team are successful, planning and booking a trip via internet should become much easier in the future. "We will make the planning process a hundred times better," the young man promises the Jury.
Tripify allows its users to book tickets and other things easily online in advance and matches a travel agent with the client.
For the jury of the Welcome Challenge, the idea behind Tripify looks promising. So they awarded the start up from Georgia with the third prize.
The whole idea behind the Welcome Challenge meeting was to find the so called “disrupters of tomorrow,” that might change a whole industry.
“Remember the three guys that had an idea to rent out their mattresses to guests? Today they have a multi-billion-dollar company called AirBnB,” said Saba Kiknadze, a co-founder of the Welcome Challenge Forum.
Is Tripify a candidate to follow in these footsteps? Time will tell. The software has yet to be made ready, but Chalagashvili and his team want to launch the software by the end of the year. “It's almost done,” he tells the Jury.
The first prize of the Welcome Challenge was given to a company, that is already on the market. Eco Solutions from Baku helps big hotels in the capital of Azerbaijan to improve their waste management. Their solution is not only sustainable, but thanks to them the hotels involved also save money.
“We will save you a minimum of 10% on your current waste spend,” Eco Solutions tells future clients on their website. With the grant money from the Welcome Challenge, the Azeri company now wants to enter new markets, like Georgia.
The winners at the Global Forum received grants of up to EUR 15,000. And beside that, the young entrepreneurs had the chance to meet with potential investors and get feedback for their businesses.
By Alexander Kempf