Routard.com is going to sell trips with tour-operators and comparators

The new era of the Routard website.

The favorite platform of French backpackers with its 2.3 million unique visitors per month decided to shed its skin and to monetize its audience by partnering up with tourism professionals.

Its new interface, more easily readable, now puts forwards tabs for flights, hotels, cars, and trips.

The three first tabs link up to comparators, a true co-branded page with Liligo for planes, Booking for hotels, and Rentalcars for car rentals.

The last tab will offer trips selected from exclusive partners.

Thus, the internet user looking for information on one destination will be able to click on “reserve” to reach a selection of products offered by different tour-operators and e-tourism websites.

The Routard chose to associate itself with partners based on various thematics: all included stays, customized trips, private or adventure trips.

It is currently in the final stage of negotiations with different players but has already signed with Evaneos, Marco Vasco, Voyageurs du Monde, Voyage privé, Promovacances, ou encore Allibert, Nomade and Terres d’Aventure.

“We are going to pick one reference partner that will have exclusivity for each theme and destination,” explains Thomas Sauzedde, Operations Manager.

He doesn’t leave the players of the collaborative economy behind, such as Airbnb, Blablacar or Drivy, of which some of their offers are already featured on the website. But he still has not signed any exclusivity contract.

“I’m looking for what makes the most sense in terms of user experience. Our website is going to evolve depending on the feedback of our users,” he adds.

This is a true paradigm shift for Routard.

Just like most information websites, it is struggling to find a viable economic model.

The team thus decided to diversify its funding sources.

These partnerships are going to enable it to monetize its massive audience along with its brand and especially to position itself as complement to Tripadvisor. Especially since the revenues incurred will serve to enrich the editorial content, the website's powerful added-value.

The ambition is straightforward: becoming a reference in trip planning, increase traffic, and develop the recurrence of visits.

“In a market where the audience of tourism website is decreasing, we wish to keep on progressing and hope to gain 10 to 15 points of additional traffic this year,” adds Thomas Sauzedde.

However, he wants to appease the purists. “We are not going to become another retailer and are maintaing our DNA as an editor and travel guide.”