There’s no shortage of cities to explore and sights to see, but staying in the know about trends in travel requires thorough research. Planning a trip may become a bigger commitment than the adventure itself. From planes to trains, boats, buses, and everything in between, travel also becomes costly quickly. Tours are an option, but pre-set plans may not fit exactly what the traveler had in mind.
Lucky Backpack is a digital vacation planning platform that helps travelers go the extra mile by planning personalized trips from beginning to end and handling booking. Their algorithm pulls from partners like Skyscanner, Booking.com, and Hostelworld to determine optimal dates, transportation options, and recommended lodging. They also look at the happenings going on in each destination you’re visiting for personalized event alerts.
Founder and CEO Edgar Alza is based in Atlanta, but has built a team that hails from around the globe. Here, Alza shares how Lucky Backpack is making travel easy and accessible to all.
What’s your pitch?
Lucky Backpack is a service created by backpackers for backpackers. We are a data and technology company delivering web and mobile products to relieve travelers’ common constraints and ease pain points. Our user base is young, social, motivated and most importantly, intelligent when it comes to travel. From founder to users, adventurers who are passionate about traveling make up our company and community.
What problem are you solving?
Although the travel market has an abundance of resources, there is a gap that lies within multi-city travel solutions for backpackers. Lucky Backpack’s innovative product fills this void. We provide multi-city travel planning and booking to ensure that young backpackers can finesse methods in order to afford the time and money travel costs year after year.
How did you get the idea for the product?
After a journey abroad, I came back to the States with a drive to apply my travel experience by helping friends plan their trips. Organizing for one or two friends turned into a handful, which eventually grew into my own consultancy. I then realized that I could expand what I was doing with my clients on a larger scale, making thousands of others’ travel easier. As our team grew and our data-driven technology began to evolve, Lucky Backpack launched in May of 2016.
What does your team look like right now?
Lucky Backpack has one full-time and two part-time employees. We are looking to hire an iOS mobile developer, with equity and pay considerations.
What is your revenue model?
We profit from API commissions, taking a percentage of every flight, train, bus, hotel and hostel booked through the Lucky Backpack technology. Lucky Backpack also makes a commission from targeted advertisements for our partner properties and events to consumers based on our AI algorithms and machine learning.
How do you stand out among your competitors?
Lucky Backpack has two kinds of competitors: personalized and flexible travel solutions. Personalized travel solutions are often high-cost and minimally adjustable, whereas flexible solutions do not aggregate an abundance of resources. We offer a personalized travel solution that optimizes efficiency and expense management, providing full flexibility for users to decide their own trips. By addressing the gap in existing business offerings, Lucky Backpack presents a competitive advantage against these services.
