The problem: As coach travel (traveling via bus) becomes increasingly more popular in Europe, comprehensive information on itineraries, available seating and current ticket pricing have not been as readily accessible as information for airline tickets and rental cars. As a result, not only do roughly 65,000 European coach operators have only limited market access, but so do travel agencies as they cannot always access all itineraries and ticket prices. A solution: WEMOVO. Booking coach tickets in Europe should be as easy as booking flights! With more than ten years in the coach industry, Elon Kelmendi, Berlin B2B start-up WEMOVO founder developed a tailored IT solution together with his team to fill this niche market.
“We want to make booking a coach ticket in Europe as easy as booking a flight. Using our service, coach operators may handle inquiries from travel brokers throughout Europe quickly, easily, and conveniently. Through WEMOVO, travel agencies can instantly see where tickets are available and what these tickets cost,” Kelmendi commented.
WEMOVO launched its crowdfunding campaign today to raise 100,000€ on Companisto to enable the further development of the company’s sales and IT departments and the company’s further expansion. In the first hours over 6,000€ was secured from over 43 investors.
“Within the large eastern European market in particular, many ticket bookings are still handled via phone or fax. This takes much time and prevents small coach operators from offering their competitively priced services to many travelers,” says Kelmendi. “Our vision is to create equal opportunities for all coach operators throughout Europe,” sales expert Matthias Spanic adds. “Together with the crowd, we want to show people that coach travel is an inexpensive way of traveling that can be booked very easily.
Travel brokers may access important data regarding connected coach operators free of charge. Coach operators are provided with a centralized way of selling their tickets. The startup generates revenues through sales commissions (on tickets brokered) and software licensing fees (i.e., software as a service). WEMOVO has developed a standardized online store for booking tickets which may be adapted to each coach operator’s brand identity.
Launched in 2014, WEMOVO contends its current leadership of the European market, offering 200,000 connections in 30 countries. As many as 140 coach operators are already using the startup’s ticket booking system. Within the next weeks, WEMOVO will also add roughly 3,000 stationary travel brokers to the digital brokers already connected to the system.
Travelers also benefit from WEMOVO’s service as the number of tickets and connections available increases. Current WEMOVO customers include Swiss market leader EUROLINES Swit
zerland and Spanish ALSA, German Busliniensuche.de, CheckMyBus, and Idealo. Focusing primarily on European coach travel, over the last six months, WEMOVO has already achieved a 55 % increase in revenues.WEMOVO’s crowdfunding campaign on Companisto ends 1 November. To date, CEO and Co-Founder Tamo Zwinge has helped lead Companisto raised over 22,212,289€ from over 40,557 investors for 47 crowdfundings. The platform introduced its first venture loan on 18 August for chocolatier Sawade which has secured over 321,674€ in two weeks from over 342 Companists.
_______________________________________________________
Have a crowdfunding offering you'd like to share? Submit an offering for consideration using our Submit a Tip form and we may share it on our site!