A thoroughly enjoyable breakfast seminar with those bastions of the finer things in life, Mr & Mrs Smith, and travel social network Dopplr (they have a content partnership).
The pair hosted a press morning at the classy Kettner's in London's Soho and a brief Q&A took place while the consumer hacks cooed and digested news about hotel-esque developments such as 'Shabby Design Chic' etc.
Anyway, Dopplr revealed some interesting statistics:
* 70% of users are "active" - in other words, using the service to post details of their trips and connect with others.
* 40% are from the IT industries. This is no surprise given that Dopplr is something of a darling in the dot-com world of Silicon Valley and, er, Shoreditch.
* 10% are in architecture and design.
* 10% are media-types.
* A fair split between business and leisure travellers.
But perhaps most interestingly:
* Two-thirds of those with trips in the system have NOT booked a hotel.
That last stat is interesting indeed. I've always thought these systems fall on the wrong end of the trip booking process. I know that over time theoretically it might work that long time users start actually booking through the system, but on the other end a lot of users never even visit the site just sending in their trips via email etc. Will be interesting to see where/if these systems end up making money in the next 2 years.
Hi Kevin
Thanks for coming and for blogging about it. And thank you for putting me on the spot with your questions - it shall be remembered - bring on Berlin!
When you say 2/3 of those in the system haven't booked - do you mean haven't booked at all or haven't booked through dopplr?
They do seem to be the darling of the dot-com world, and probably rightly so. Question is, does that kind of following ever lead mass adoption (apart from apple). Also you have to wonder how much travelling business people are going to be doing in the near future.
Ben,
Two-thirds have not booked a hotel at all.
Two your second point: I spoke with Dopplr after the Q&A about this very thing. They argue that if, for example, 500 people are on the same network (i.e. friends who are sharing information) then it is a valid application and therefore mass adoption is not necessary.