Skift Take
In airports and hotel lobbies, how many times have you heard throngs of travelers lamenting: "This app on my phone is wonderful, but if only it had access to real, human travel agents within it?" A new wave of travel startups is conjuring this image. Is it reality-based or wishful thinking? We'll see.
We've seen this playbook so many times before in travel startup land.
There's another travel service, Hyper Travel, that's launching soon featuring in-app communications with travel agents as well as text and email-based travel booking services.
The impending launch of Hyper, which has some modest seed funding of $410,000 from Greylock Partners, High Line Venture Partners, Metamorphic Ventures and angels such as Drew Patterson of CheckMate, comes immediately after:
The private beta launch of Lola Travel, Kayak co-founder Paul English's company, that is readying consumer and travel agent apps that feature heavy intervention of travel agents during the trip-planning process. English says he intends to hire 100 full-time travel agent employees by the end of this year. Lola Travel has some $21 million in funding from Accel Partners and and General Catalyst Partners.
Kayak's debut of a text-based travel service, which so far has travelers getting questions answered by Kayak engineers.
London-based RentalsCombined offers professionally managed vacation rentals through a desktop app that features live chats or phone conversations with travel agents making property recommendations.
There are numerous companies, including several in Asia, building travel services -- some of them for
