This 35-year-old travel technopreneur is paying you to stay home

In the Rocky picture series, the titular hero is a boxer who always gets up and fights on, no matter how many punches his opponent or life throws at him.

Vietnam-built-in, Singapore-based technopreneur Hai Ho's turbulent journey with his offset-up Triip is like in this attribute. And every bit he squares off with the coronavirus pandemic in the latest round, he is determined to remain standing in the band.

The Triip app rewards users in unique TriipMiles (TIIM) currency whenever they consummate tasks such as uploading time to come travel plans and verifying past ones, referring new users and booking experiences. These tokens tin then be used to offset the purchase of tours, hotel stays and travel vouchers on the platform. As international travel restrictions and the grounding of airline fleets started condign the new norm, Triip's advantage system tottered on the brink of irrelevance.

When the Globe Wellness Organization held a #BuildforCOVID-19 online hackathon, calling for software solutions centring around seven themes such equally health, pedagogy, entertainment and community to address the current pandemic, the Triip team came up with the Stay Home Heroes initiative inside 72 hours. It somewhen emerged as i of 89 winners out of over 1,500 projects.

Under the initiative, Triip users earn 1 TIIM (approximately United states of america$0.015; South$0.021) for each day they submit a photo proof of themselves staying habitation. Since the initiative was launched on Apr i, there have been 300 to 400 submissions daily. The company has set bated fifteen one thousand thousand TIIM points for this initiative for every bit long as lockdowns are in place.

Under the Stay Dwelling Heroes initiative, Triip users earn one TIIM (approximately US$0.015; Southward$0.021) for each day they submit a photograph proof of themselves staying habitation. (Photo: Triip)

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Ho launched Triip in 2022 equally a Singapore Tourism Board-licensed operator that offered offbeat tour packages by passionate and experienced locals in different countries. He said: "I saw that if we could enable everyone to be a bout guide, we can improve private livelihoods. Information technology was too a great way for travellers to experience something new."

But despite receiving US$500,000 funding from Gobi Partners in 2022 and signing on over 10,000 local experts with more than 7,000 tours in over 635 cities and 93 countries, Triip struggled in the first four years to find stable financial footing because of prohibitive marketing and customer-acquisition costs such equally ownership Facebook and Google ads. The company almost shut downwards twice and Ho had to sell his home to bootstrap his venture.

The business organisation model had to modify. So Ho and his team started researching the use of blockchain engineering in tourism, where data control is placed in the easily of users, who are paid if they choose to share their travel data.

He said: "I saw that big companies similar Marriott were spending thirty per cent of their marketing budgets to acquire users and Google and Facebook piece of work so hard to accrue data. What if we can build a data platform where people tin can decide whom to sell their information to? In any instance, we've all been giving abroad data for free."

Triip was re-launched equally an app in Jan 2022 and according to Ho, its database has grown to 180,000 inside the terminal 17 months. Almost of its users are from Southeast Asia, India and Turkey, with the rest from places such every bit Due north America and Russia. Over 100,000 data transactions such equally submission of proof of travel and travel plans have taken place, and Triip uses this information to mine new insights for targeted advertizement by hotels and other service providers.

Triip also earns revenue by charging operators a two per cent commission fee for each tour or accommodation booking, while users are charged between 0.v per cent and 3.5 per cent for each transaction they make.

Addressing privacy and security concerns, Ho said that a traveller's personal data such as proper name, age and contact, as well as sensitive information from the tour provider such as price and quantity of goods bought, are encrypted with public and private keys.

"User data is stored on a distributed network of 150 random servers that doesn't vest to us. Data is only shared between the traveller and the tour provider when at that place's mutual consent. Unauthorised persons cannot decrypt information technology and we abide by a trust understanding that we wouldn't sell it."

Ho said that a traveller'due south personal information such as name, age and contact are encrypted with public and private keys. (Photo: Triip) "Data is only shared between the traveller and the bout provider when there's mutual consent. Unauthorised persons cannot decrypt it and we abide by a trust agreement that we wouldn't sell it." – Hai Ho Beyond profits, Ho's vision has always been to build companies that enhance communities, hence the double 'i's in Triip's name that signify the double joy in sharing experiences. In the last thirteen years, he h

While studying in the Singapore Institute of Direction from 2005 to 2008, he built his showtime 500,000-member customs on the now-defunct Yahoo! 360 social networking platform, where he would send out a weekly newsletter with an inspirational story.

One time, he shared the Rocky movie series to encourage readers to overcome whatever difficulty they were going through that calendar week. The response stunned him. Over six,000 people replied to Ho proverb that it was but the inspiration they needed, including a man who had just been discharged from the infirmary for attempted suicide.

"In that moment I realised the positive impact we tin accomplish through the Cyberspace and I wanted to use my knowledge as a communication graduate to do that," Ho shared.

Ho anticipates a vastly different travel mural emerging in the aftermath of the pandemic. "Merely countries with a large domestic travel market will survive. People will opt to go with smaller modes of transport such as cars instead of aeroplanes, and they volition prefer to go somewhere that's but ane- to two hours away. Cleanliness will be top priority and hotels will exist in competition to be the cleanest.

"In terms of international travel, I don't think we will recover in the next two to three years. There will be tighter security at the airports, and more processes such as blood tests to make sure travellers are in the articulate earlier they can enter a country."

Despite the sombre predictions, Ho has already fabricated his next business move. Triip recently scored strategic partnerships with online travel agencies Agoda and Booking.com, and became the exclusive digital pass benefactor for UNESCO World Heritage site, Hoi An Ancient Town. TIIM tokens can as well be used to book hotels and homes by cease-May, and tickets to attractions by stop-June. Ho is also launching a climate emergency fund this twelvemonth to support ecology causes.

This Rocky is definitely fighting till the terminate.

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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/people/triip-travel-app-pays-users-to-stay-home-251181

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