My Voyageur is a community based around the e-tourism . Launched in January 2007 and by providing users with many features (blogs, wikis, ratings, hosting videos ...), my traveler is defined as "the first site travelers. Jean Sébastien Cruz, the founder was kind enough to answer my questions. Douard Olivier: Jean Sebastien Hello, can you show us how did you get the idea you get into the e-tourism?
Johann Sebastian Cruz: It's actually a very old idea! I use Trip Advisor or Virtual Tourist from 1997 to 1998. During my travels abroad, I was often forced to finally buy a guide on the spot and I am very quickly that there was something to do at this level. We started working on the project MonVoyageur.com since September 2005! We had our team (which is also remained almost unchanged until today) and we built a very solid technical architecture to withstand the load increases that will occur in the site with accommodation including video. We launched it on 13 January and began to connect since early February. Today, we are really surprised by the very good start. The community is built gradually and there are twenty blogging every day. We also receive a warm welcome on the side of industry professionals.
OD: MonVoyageur plays the card of the participatory web. The wiki is the collaborative tool par excellence and my traveler is also a unifying blogs encouraging its users to become "blog trotters. According to you, the visitor, before purchasing and e-tourism in particular, is there any advantage to trust his fellow surfers as specialized sites?
JSC: The economic structure of e-tourism is headed: a part on e-commerce, while the other party is facing the board and it is precisely here that we want. Many people want to sell a product (classified by type of offer) and thus engage a battle on price. The other market is played more on the service. Today, users still want to find the right information. They have lost faith in the messages of some prefabricated "specialized sites," where everything is too good to be true. Only the truth of interest. Right now, there is much talk of social networks ... MonVoyageur is one! The trip is an important moment in life, we do account not more than one or two a year, without exception. The preparation is very important and users increasingly appreciate the feedback from real experiences. I no longer believe in the vertical information of conventional journalism. Today, everyone must participate in the information to make it more fair and representative. Peer review of consumers becomes more and more natural for users.
OD: How to avoid turning to blogs that some settling?
JSC: It should obviously be careful not to go to settlement account, however, we must provide users with true information! Information is a multi-center, holds his own and everyone can share it. Our users are looking for the truth. If someone is disappointed with his trip, we also give him the keys to let him say so and thereby prevent the community. Of course, we have an editorial line, we want quality comments and for that, everything is moderate. We check all the most virulent, we will contact the agencies, the hotels in question ... We do not hesitate to post a comment particularly aggressive he seems honest. If they are ripped off, people have the right to terminate!
OD: MonVoyageur seems to be primarily intended to form a community. When is the collaborative platform will switch to a model e-commerce?
JSC: We're not sellers! If you want to do our job, we should not sell. We might not be objective. Our model is a mix of Trip Advisor, and MySpace Trip connected. We will be a natural business provider for travel agencies. MonVoyageur on, we leave the possibility for users to go to tour operators. This is already the case today and we hope very soon to improve integration. I strongly believe in advertising models! When we mounted Evene.fr, a media model, people do not believe in us. At the time, it was inconceivable to build a business model based on advertising. But good media draw their game ... TripAdvisor is for example 15% of sales of Expedia.
OD: Innovating in a market maintaining exceptional growth rates, can we have a new idea the next available MonVoyageur on short and long term?
JSC: You can not say anything but there are lots of developments! We will refine our offerings to include such rentals (ski, for example) and by expanding our range of hotels. We're still in Beta, there are many things to improve! The ultimate goal is to become the first site for travel advice. There are no major competitors in this market, there is room to move by developing new features in the interests of our users. Tour operators are also waiting for sites like MonVoyageur. They yet are forced to make non-targeted advertising on the major general portals. In this sense, the United States are a good example. There, there are a dozen sites like MonVoyageur and they are even segmented.
OD: Thank you very much Jean Sebastien and see you soon!
