It’s always good to go back and get updates on Startups we’ve covered a while ago. Although we don’t need a special occasion, we’re using International Woman’s Day to catch up on a couple startups across the region that are run by women.
Recently we spoke with Louise Brudö, CEO of Destly. We’ve covered their launch as well as their expansion to the Serbian and Croatian markets in the past, but for those new to the service, Destly is a travel deal curator that provides provides members up to 70% discounts on luxury hotels. The service is free to join, and has been growing rapidly since initiating partnerships with groups including CDON Group (the largest e-commerce group in the Nordics), Members.com, DN-Kortet (the member’s club of Sweden’s largest newspaper, DN) and with Stampen Group, a large Swedish media house.
Perhaps due to these Sweden-focused partnerships, most of Destly’s users come from Sweden, although the site is also localized for Norwegian, English, Serbian, and Croatian.
Destly’s travel curation service has been able to grow, even against the rise of the daily deal site.
“We have achieved an extremely high rate of customer satsifaction and a high number of returning users, and have been able to grow even if the daily deal sites have launched their own travel verticals quite aggressively. In many cases Destly is addressing other target groups than those that the daily deal sites cater to. We have even started to source deals to daily deal sites, which strengthens our position as a go to guy for travel deals, both nationally and internationally.”
In upcoming news, Destly is also working on a mobile app that should have some cool features for travelers.
