NEWS TRAVEL WEEKLY BUSINESS “Today we create written
content, photographic, illustration and animation, and we treat each of these formats as equals. Historically the more pictorial formats were subservient. “With us that’s not so, it’s distinctly not so. Even if there are industry boundaries between these formats, for the user they are not relevant. The user doesn’t care if a videographer went to a different school to learn their trade than a journalist. “And our audience of millennials
is a very visual generation, looking for visual stimulation, so having visual formats on a par with written formats caters for that.”
Content producers
Culture Trip has a core team of in-house content producers, but increasingly it is becoming a distributor of content for freelance writers, videographers, illustrators and animators. And this is how the firm
achieves the sort of volume others cannot match, by establishing itself as a new gateway for these
OWN CONTENT: Culture Trip created a three-minute animated video of Briton Elspeth Beard’s round- the-world motorcycle trip
professionals to reach a potentially global audience. As well as in-house staff, a community of graduates-turned- local content creators based all over the world are commissioned and paid to produce Culture Trip’s content.
Q&A with Dr Kris Naudts
1. What’s your favourite holiday destination? Los Angeles
2. What was the last book you read? Siddharta by Hermann Hesse
3. Mac or PC? Mac
4. Who has been your biggest inspiration? My brother
5. What is your favourite film? In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar-wai
6. Coffee or tea? Coffee
7. What is your most-prized possession? My book collection
8. What’s your favourite pastime? Theatre
9. What’s your favourite food or meal? Jerk chicken
10. If you won the lottery, what would you buy first? A jazz club
In addition, it now has around 20 in-house illustrators and animators but as the site grows it is finding it can succeed applying exactly the same approach to generating visual content. “At first it was hard to do at scale because illustrators could not see what our platform offered them,” says Naudts. “That’s changed. We’re now a big platform. “Most illustrators do not have our kind of reach. This is a real art and they have a stronger sense of calling for their craft than the average writer. “In a digital world this should
have been a golden time for these guys to live in but it’s only now that it is coming to be so. “The crux of the model has
always been we have an in-house workforce that commissions that content and that’s where the community of creators comes in. “To my surprise, it turns
out to be scalable for every format. Everyone knew there were opportunities for writers and journalists, but for visual producers it was an open question. “We have found it was even
better because they have an even more freelance mindset than, perhaps, writers, so it allows us to
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travelweekly.co.uk 13 September 2018
“Having some travel industry nous in the team is even more important than I’d thought. It’s a really grown-up industry”
produce quality content at scale.” Animation is the format
currently most exciting Naudts, who cites Disney as an inspiration as well as independent animated
short films like Persepolis and Waltz with Bashir. An example of the kind of
bespoke content Culture Trip is producing is a three-minute video charting Elspeth Beard’s round- the-world trip on her 1974 BMW motorbike (pictured, above).
$80m funding
Naudts was speaking ahead of his keynote address at the Travolution European Summit on September 26, having relocated Culture Trip to new offices near Bond Street, London. As a company still imbued with a start-up ethos that battled for years with no funding, he is a little sheepish about the impression the firm’s swanky new address gives. But an $80 million funding
round – secured in April after plans were revealed to create a travel division – has put Culture Trip firmly on most industry watchers’ radars. Spearheading this is
experienced industry professional Andy Washington, who has a background in both traditional tour operating and OTAs with Cosmos,
lastminute.com, Expedia and, most recently, Travel Republic parent dnata Travel. Naudts says it was vital Culture
Trip brought in some travel industry experience, and adds he is enjoying learning about the sector. “Having some travel nous in
the team is even more important than I’d thought. Travel is a really grown-up industry, with people who go into the trade and tend to stay there. “They hold a wealth of knowledge
that’s hard to come by from outside. As a scientist I can look at the data, but I’m not a fountain of knowledge on the travel industry. “No matter what your role, this
is a real industry with real people, and if you do not know those people you can get it wrong.”
Travel retail
Naudts said Culture Trip’s journey to link the retailing of travel to inspiration was still at an early stage, but the team is now in place and will take its time to get it right. He believes its advantage over
rivals centres on its rich content as opposed to the more functional deals, product descriptions and reviews that OTAs have traded on for many years. Naudts refers to old-fashioned
travel guidebooks to explain Culture Trip’s mission, saying it aims to take the sort of content
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