Booking.com, Triago and Bookatable are facing a fresh challenger brand with the launch of a new online booking solution for hotels and restaurants, driven by a major “influencer marketing” strategy.
Swayy is the brainchild of former City lawyer David Gabriele and is designed to help venues increase revenue through simple, targeted, and scalable influencer marketing.
According to the start-up, venues can easily find and book the world’s most influential people on Instagram to create and share organic content about their venue. Every influencer is evaluated and given a ‘SwayyScore’, showing the ‘value’ of each influencer to leisure businesses.
Gabriele, who is chief executive of the venture, said: “Key influencers on Instagram are trusted and looked up to because of their expertise in a given industry, so it is logical that consumers, who are increasingly glued to their phones, turn to them for advice.
“Decisions about booking hotels and restaurants are made by normal people, with all their imperfections, and they want to be guided by real people they admire and who they have a real connection with, not by ad agencies shouting at them – like in traditional ads. This is why Swayy is so unique.”
Swayy incorporates technologies used by global market leaders such as Dropbox, Airbnb and Uber, among its own proprietary algorithms.
It is claimed these technologies combine to create an easy and seamless booking experience for venues looking to hire influencers, and a simple, efficient way for influencers to find the venues they want to work with to boost their personal brands.
Swayy has ambitious expansion plans and is already looking to spread across Europe, the Middle East and North America in the next two years, with a plan to have venues in most major cities worldwide by 2020.
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