Social-media start-ups bring compatible travelers together

— -- April Thompson has sat next to some interesting people on planes. She once struck up a conversation with the pilot of Air Force One on Sept. 11, 2001. Another time, she listened to a French pastry chef talk about starting a bakery in Alabama.

But there were many other instances when she sat next to someone with whom she didn't want to spend hours talking. So last year, when she heard about Planely.com, a social travel-media website that connects fliers on the same flight or airport, she was eager to join.

"I've had some really great experiences on flights," Thompson, a travel blogger, says. "I always thought it was a great opportunity to meet cool people, so I figured this tool would facilitate it and keep me from sitting next to crazy people."

Traveling, especially by plane, has gone from glam to glum. To try to reverse the trend, social travel-media websites linking travelers around the world have popped up. Many help travelers plan trips and share their experiences.

Now, a number of start-ups, such as Planely and Satisfly, are taking the concept to another level by helping travelers meet not only online, but in person. Call it the Match.com of travel.

"It's about real connection," says Asaf Engel, co-founder of IMGuest, a social-networking site for business travelers staying at hotels. "It's about being engaged. We push people to get along and meet up."

Airlines such as Delta have already been experimenting with social media by selling tickets on Facebook. Now, some carriers are trying to tap more aggressively into customers' social circles.

KLM, the Dutch airline, recently started its Meet & Seat program, which lets people choose seatmates based on their Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. So far, passengers have shared their profiles 1,100 times on 34 intercontinental routes.

Last year, Malaysia Airlines introduced the MHBuddy application, which allows fliers to share their itineraries on Facebook and choose to sit next to any Facebook friend on their flights. A spokesman says that 20% of the airline's Web check-in is now done through MHBuddy.

The start-ups and airlines are tapping into a niche market to distinguish themselves among all the social travel-media sites out there. But analysts say they face the same challenge the general sites do: There are only so many travelers. That's made it difficult for travel companies to make money from their social-media efforts.

"Effectively, two out of three travelers only take one to two trips a year," says Douglas Quinby, senior director of research at PhocusWright, which studies the travel industry. "For social-travel sites, the challenge is: How do you keep people coming back?"

Nick Martin, founder and chief executive of Copenhagen-based Planely, won't disclose how many members the site has, but says that it's facilitated more than 1,500 meet-ups since launching in December 2010.

Members first book flights, then get access to the Facebook and LinkedIn profiles of other registered users who'll fly with them. "It's up to them to connect with each other," he says.

In the year she's been a member of Planely, Thompson has exchanged e-mails with other users but hasn't met any. She came close with a competitive fencer who travels the world for tournaments and another time with a graduate student. The fencer missed his flight, and the grad student didn't show up for an early morning check-in.

"We never made that final connection at the airport or plane," she says. "It was a little disappointing."

Getting together

Most of the social travel-media sites help travelers crowd-source trips. In other words, members create a social network or use their existing ones on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter and ask friends for advice on where to go, what to do and what to eat.

Gogobot, a social travel site that launched in 2010, for instance, recently crossed the 1 million registered user mark.

"Without users, a site cannot really be social," says Travis Katz, co-founder and chief executive of Gogobot. "Currently, Gogobot is about 40 times bigger than all the other players in the field combined. Most are attracting only a few hundred visitors per day. … The social space tends to be a winner-takes-all kind of market."

There's no clear winner, yet. But in terms of numbers, TripAdvisor, the travel-review site, is making it tough for competitors.

TripAdvisor last year launched an application that lets users post on their Facebook profile pages, or Timelines, where they've been or plan to go and what advice they're seeking. As of March 1, 100 million people have logged on to TripAdvisor through Facebook.

But even TripAdvisor has made some missteps. In 2007, the company launched its own ill-fated social-travel network called Traveler Network.

"It didn't really take off, in part because we heard from users that they already have a social network, Facebook, and they didn't want to build another one," says Adam Medros, TripAdvisor's vice president of global product.

That's not stopping sites such as TripIt and Trippy from creating communities of travelers Facebook-style. Each has its own spin. On Trippy, for instance, users make travel boards, or visual collections of places they've been or want to go, and share it with friends. Your friends can look at your boards for advice, and vice versa.

Quinby says the sites that will emerge as leaders are the ones that figure out how to personalize the user experience. That's how they gain enough active users, and that's when advertising and booking referrals become possible.

Travel companies are just starting to figure out how to do that.

"We're just at the beginning of that," Quinby says. "Even though we think of online travel and social networking as mature, we ain't seen nothing yet."

Some will work; some won't

Will the social seat-and-meet sites be the ones to figure it out?

"This stuff is experimental," says Jim Peters, chief technology officer for SITA, an information technology company that works with airlines. "I think there will be some stuff that catches on and some stuff that doesn't, and it's hard to predict."

Even the airlines and founders of the sites acknowledge they've got their work cut out for them.

"People still have to get used to this quite new tool, so till now, a few passengers per flight are using Meet & Seat, but we are happy to see that the numbers are increasing," says Lisette Ebeling Koning, a spokeswoman for KLM.

Satisfly is trying to offer a similar service for several airlines. Members submit profiles and designate which "mood" they're in for their flight. If they want to sleep, they're placed where others are sleeping. If they're feeling chatty, they're seated with other talkers. The travelers also share information such as hobbies and languages. Partner airlines will use the information to assign seats.

So far, the Hong Kong-based company says, it's only partnered with one airline, Latvia-based Air Baltic.

"It is a hard sell for airlines," says Sergio Mello, co-founder and chief executive of Satisfly. "Airlines tend to be good followers but poor innovators."

Now that KLM and Malaysia Airlines have started their own social seating programs, Mello thinks the idea will catch on. He says Satisfly will gain critical mass by going to the airlines to adopt his service.

LobbyFriend and IMGuest, meanwhile, are focusing on another part of travel: the hotel stay.

When guests check into participating hotels, they're given a code to get into LobbyFriend's temporary network through their smartphones. Guests and staff can post messages on TV screens in the lobby. So far, LobbyFriend is at seven hotels worldwide and will spread to another 150 by the end of June, says co-founder Mohit Kumar.

When IMGuest members check into their hotels, they can also check into the network and connect with travelers at their specific hotel. The network has 50,000 registered users and 140,000 hotels in its database, says co-founder Engel.

Invite for a Bite has an even narrower focus, letting solo female travelers make plans to dine together.

Dan Gellert, co-founder and chief executive officer of GateGuru, an airport guide, is skeptical that travelers will want to connect on such a personal level, particularly while flying.

"Most people … view the flight experience as an opportunity to do work, catch up on sleep, or just relax," he says.

Privacy concerns could also deter some.

Some of the sites say they want to encourage networking, not dating. Nonetheless, Robert Cole, CEO of the travel consulting firm RockCheetah, says figuring out a way to protect users' privacy and keep stalkers away is a challenge.

Ebeling Koning of KLM says it's up to the travelers whether they want to share their personal information via the airline's Meet & Seat program. They can withdraw their profiles at any time. And if they decide they don't want to sit next to the person who's chosen them, they can change seat assignments before the flight.

Salvatore Mirolla, a frequent solo business traveler, had no qualms about meeting strangers through LobbyFriend at the Tryp hotel in New York.

Last month, he sent a message to other guests asking if anyone wanted to meet for a drink. A traveler from France responded. "He was a retired guy who gave me a two-hour lecture on life and provided me good business advice from his experiences," Mirolla says.

He exchanged business cards with the French traveler. The next time he's in Paris, Mirolla plans to look him up.

How it works

Want to find a like-minded seatmate on your next flight? Here's how you'll be able to on Satisfly.com:

1. Set up your account and profile. You can create your profile automatically by linking to a social network such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. If you're not a member of any of these, you can create a profile manually.

2. Choose your flight mood from: Business Talk (if you want to network); Easy Chat (if you want a friendly conversation); Work (if you need to tap away on your laptop); Relax (if you want to doze off).

3. Set up your desired neighbor profile. You can choose your criteria from a list. Looking for someone with certain hobbies? Someone in a certain profession? Someone who speaks certain languages?

4. Wait for the results: Satisfly and the partner airline choose your seatmate.