TravelerPark, the next "Booking" for parking spots?

i-tourisme: You launched the start-up TravelerCar, today you are creating TravelerPark. What is the purpose of this new website?

Ahmed Mhiri: “TravelerCar is a website that allows to benefit from free parking in the airport, in exchange for renting one’s car during travel.

We realized that not everyone is ready to share his or her car, or that cars could be too old to be rented, or even that the service may not particularly fit someone who is traveling for a day or two.

The offer was not comprehensive enough.

TravelerCar is now one offer amongst others on the website TravelerPark.

The users will be able to choose from a wide range of rates on the website travelerpark.com.

It is possible to find a “free” parking spot via our TravelerCar offer.

They can also choose low-cost parkings, in those surrounding airports, as well as the offers of parking lots in airports.

We have around twenty partners right now, between operators of private parking lots and hotel parking lots around airports. For example, in Orly with the parking lot of the Best Western hotel.

For now, we also have an agreement with the official parking lot of the Nice airport. This is the first.

Our goal is to provide the most comprehensive offer to reserve a parking spot in focal areas such as train stations, airports, and later, cruise harbors.

I want to be able to apply the same service of a hotel room reservation to a parking spot.”

i-tourime: Do you expect to develop a BtoB offer for tourism professionals?

AM: “There is a possibility of integrating this service as a white-label product. Our first affiliation program was signed with Transat France.

Users traveling with Look Voyages, Vacances Transat and Air Transat will be able to access our service on the website of its brands.

Furthermore, we are adding a range of services such as valet service, washing of the vehicle. And the possibility of getting a technical check-up or maintenance.

We are discussing with all tourism professionals because it is a source of additional revenue for them.

After the hotel, transport, car rental, insurance, comes the reservation of a parking spot with multiple options.”

i-tourisme: Are you aiming at business travel?

AM: “Our API can be integrated to SBT (Self Booking Tools). It is an axis that we are thinking of.

But these players are waiting for us to get bigger. Because it is more expensive to integrate an API.

Contrarily to our white-label, that is free to tourism professionals, we handle everything, we set-up the interface to match the brand’s design.

And then, we share our commission with them. It is negotiated on a case-by-case basis.”

i-tourisme: What is the market of parking spot reservation?

AM: “It is still an unexploited market.

There are a few attempts of pooling parking spots or geolocating spots. But the trend is to link up with the parking lot in the city center.

We are the first ones to establish it in touristic zones.

We can provide a few figures, the parking lots of the Paris Airports (ADP) have made 190 million euros in revenue. And there are close to fifty hotels around the Paris Airports. The potential is big.

It is usually an important budget for travelers and a complicated task. We commit to offering better rates.

Furthermore, we are cautious on the quality of the parking lots on our reservation platform. We are not just a directory of parkings lots in France.

Our goal is the make the offer accessible, safe, and straightforward.”

i-tourisme: Your goals for 2015?

AM: “We now have 10 parking lots close to airports. Coming up, we will have a partnership with the train station of Aix-en-Provence.

We want to reach the 15 most important airports in France. Then, approach cruising harbors.”