CityRadar aims to track and increase tourism consumer spend

by Startacus Admin

Early-stage startup CityRadar is a SaaS traveltech platform that aims to track, analyse and increase consumer spend in the hospitality, tourism & travel business sectors. We found out more...

Currently in closed beta, CityRadar is a free app that aims to match tourists and locals with activities around different cities, with exclusive upgrades and hidden gems - and at the same time, acting as an analytics tool for the tourism & travel sector.

We met CEO and co-founder Anna Valli at Digital DNA '18 in Belfast, so we thought it only 'app-t', to get Anna to explain all.

Anna is a Digital Strategist from Barcelona, who loves the startup scene and has worked in Italy, Paris, San Francisco and now most recently in Belfast. At CityRadar, Anna is in charge of the development of offering (including software), planning and management, engaging with key partners (media partners and interest public sector bodies) and sourcing of key funding to ensure development of pilots / offerings. Over to Anna...

Hi there Anna, so what is CityRadar?

CityRadar is a SaaS platform that tracks, analyses and increases consumer spend in the Hospitality, Tourism & Travel business. We connect city visitors, local business and Tourism authorities.

It facilitates real time interaction between consumers and businesses; allowing bespoke live updates of offers and events, whilst recording consumer activity.

Imagine if you could have live user data in real-time, know who is coming to a city and know what are they doing? That would give tourism focused business unprecedented insight into their target audience’s activity. Our aim at CityRadar is to make business more efficient by connecting city assets, connecting business to their audience needs, increasing their performance, boosting off-peak traffic and offering real memorable experiences to visitors and citizens.

So why the need to build CityRadar? 

Cities are full of stories and truly immersive visitor experiences and how difficult is to connect those stories with real places -beside the highly traffic tourism spots.

There are plenty of apps, but they are not all tailored to each user nor in a real-time basis. So we thought it would be great to put together a tool to improve visitor experiences while feeding business and cities with real-time decision-making data to increase footfall and revenue, as well as learn and build loyalty amongst customers.

Okay, so who is your target audience / market with the App? 

We have 3 target markets:

VISITORS. A live entertainment experience of what the city has to offer you.
Quality experiences so you’ll want to come back;
Receive exclusive, live offers to save money;
Offers suited to you to save time;
Unique experiences to make memories.

LOCAL BUSINESS. Live access to customers that suit you when it suits you.
Ability to reach live, targeted audiences;
Increase profitability of sales;
Real time data on your consumer behaviours;
Advantage over neighbouring competitors.

KEY PARTNERS. An innovative digital platform for customer loyalty, media sales revenue for private transport or media partners; a highly visible and tangible support for tourist economy with unrivalled access to live tourist data, for public sector partners.

Where are you at currently with developing CityRadar?

1) Won £5k from the NESTA open data challenge and £40k from SBRI Tourism NI to run pilot involving a small number of consumers using the app

2) Developed concept with 10 businesses and 25 users took part in the pilot

3) Concept and Beta version developed with key partners including Tourism NI and Google Digital News Initiative

4) Active SEIS scheme to attract private investors

5) We agreed a partnership with South Belfast partnership board (which includes 2,000 local business) to run a targeted launch in this area, subject to funding

6) We are in discussions with City Airport, Translink (the biggest transport provider in Ireland with 81 million trips last year) and with a public Wi-Fi provider (to rebrand it as CityRadar and provide access to the app and its services while connecting to the Wi-Fi)

Plans?

We are currently not yet launched to the market. So we are seeking investors to then find match funding with a commercial partner.

Then we will deliver a successful pilot and build a franchise model (or equivalent that enables us to ensure we are seen as “hyperlocal” not an abstract digital business) for different cities (involving local media partners) to deliver after 2nd round of funding. Our exit strategy is to sell out to original or larger media group / digital provider.

Our key objectives for the year are, to secure investment to launch the CityRadar service in UK and Ireland, initially and to prove how we can increase the value that any visitor brings to every city.

Interested in traveltech? You might want to read up on:

AirPortr - luggage check-in made easy

Travideo wants to be your Travel-by-Video Experience platform

TravTab looks to cash in on the pain of paying for that all important holiday

 

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• #travel
• #tourism
• #hospitality
• #saas
• #travel tech
• #traveltech
• #cityradar
• #consumers
• #

Published on: 9th August 2018