As a traveller you do hours of research to find out your dream destination but what if someone tells you that your destination is a mystery. Would you ever try going on a blind vacation? Well, meet Anywhr a brand new travel-startup that seems to be doing something in this space. We spoke to Anywhr’s co-founder, Zelia Leong to understand the startup’s offerings.
“Surprise” in Travel industry, is a big keyword. For the planned travellers, they don’t like last minute surprises right?
This depends on the type of surprise, as everybody loves a pleasant one. Moreover, the surprise travellers get from us isn’t exactly last minute, as they make the bookings in advance. Therefore they already know that they are in for a surprise, and will be anticipating it for weeks or even months on end. That’s the fun in the whole experiencing, when the travellers, their friends and family all get in on the excitement while waiting for that Anywhr envelope that contains their mystery destination.
What made you think of the idea.
Both my co-founder Felix and I are avid travellers, and we realised that the joy of travelling isn’t exactly about the destination, but more of the journey, mindset, and experiences. The best trips are those that go unplanned and unexpected, whereby we truly experience the destination for itself instead of what our friends or the internet tells us. We started Anywhr as we wanted to bring this joy of authentic travel to more travellers, and our home in Singapore was the perfect place to start.
Zelia Leong, Co-Founder Anywhr.co
Can you tell us about your background, how big is the team and what sort of traction you have.
Before Anywhr, I was doing Marketing for start-ups such as a Rocket Internet venture. I also worked in the hospitality industry for a few years. The Anywhr team is a pretty lean one with five members right now. We were pleasantly surprised by the positive traction we received, showing how much travellers love this concept and need this in their lives, since we are the first in the region to introduce the concept of surprise travel.
As of now are you only catering to the Singaporean traveller?
No. Anywhr travellers come from all over the world, although Singapore is the main port they disembark from, mainly because we are based in Singapore.
Have there been instances, where travellers have denied to travel after hearing about the destination.
Travellers fill up a form after they make their booking, whereby they tell us where they have been to or do not wish to go to. Therefore, it prevents the aforementioned circumstances from happening. So the answer is no, they hasn’t been any such instances.
Does anywhr take care of end-to-end elements of travel: From flights to hotels to ground-transportation. In other-words all packages have any misc. extras other than personal shopping expenses.
Anywhr is a surprise travel curator, whereby we book only your flights and accommodation, as well as any ground, land or sea transportation in order for you to get to your destination. It is completely up to our travellers to explore their destination, and what they see, do, and eat is up to them.
Felix, Co-Founder Anywhr.co
Are you funded or boot-strapped?
Boot-strapped.
What are the challenges in Anywhr business model?
As Anywhr is the first and only surprise travel agency in this region, our challenge ahead lies in getting travellers to understand
