NOMADICAL, a new
travel platform that will
be rolled out in July,
will allow travellers to book
holidays tailored around the
most popular experiences
being talked about on social
media.
Hilton Wolman, the son of
Allan Wolman, ceo of the
well-known Rosebank Travel,
is spearheading the venture
and describes the platform as
a peer-to-peer marketplace.
He says it will be an
experiential and sustainable
platform, responding to
the move toward more
responsible travel.
Hilton says Nomadical is
the result of five years of
research and planning by the
XL Rosebank Travel team and
uses one of the top social
listening software solutions.
“We listen across the
Internet to see what people
are talking about and we
curate our offering around
that,” says Hilton. “We will
match what our travellers
are looking for with what
suppliers are selling,” he
says, adding that usergenerated content will be
used to sell these travel
packages.
“For example,” he explains,
“we know that people are
talking about tracking the
gorillas in Virunga. We will
tailor an offering based
around Virunga; we will bring
in the correct suppliers; and
we will also populate the
page with social media posts
from people who have been
to Virunga.”
If they wish, travellers can
make use of social media to
contact the people who have
posted on Instagram, Twitter
or Facebook to get further
first-hand information.
“We will be leveraging
a lot on peer-to-peer
recommendations to sell
packages,” Hilton says,
adding that if one of a
traveller’s peers says they
had a brilliant experience at
a particular place, there’s a
77% chance that the traveller
will consider that place when
making their next booking.
“It is our opinion that
competing with everyday
travel commodities such as
flights, hotels and cars is no
longer a sustainable business
practice,” says Hilton.
“Travellers today are hyper
informed and have unlimited
access to information and
inventory. We are betting big
on the experiential sector
and investing in technology,
data and peer-to-peer market
places.”
