[LAUNCHPAD] TukeQ Pitches a Social Travel Organizer

Founded in May last year, TukeQ is a social travel web and mobile app that helps people organize their travel plans by sharing, follow and viewing other’s plans.

I met Founder, Alex Su around April last year as a participant in iWeekend, a weekend to pitch an idea, build a prototype and present it. Ever the entrepreneur Alex went on to participate in Startup Weekend Beijing and was finally accepted into Kai Fu Lee’s Innovation Works incubator.

Now with an able team of 15, TukeQ is looking to take advantage of China’s hunger to explore the world outside of the mainland. Regions that feature prominently on the site are the United Kingdom and Europe.

The app looks a lot like a curated Weibo, where users can take a picture and leave a comment about something in a city they visited. For example, in Paris people have taken pictures of art museums, cafes, shops and beautiful scenery.

The itinerary planning function allows users to see things they like and drag it into their schedule. This is aimed at helping people manage their holidays and avoid spending time creating tables and Excel spreadsheets of what to do and when.

The business model is straight forward and aims to leverage the mass of tourism vendors looking to attract the wealthy Chinese visitors. When promoting hotels, TukeQ can take a booking fee of 3-6% of the transaction value. They will also look to sell tickets and earn money from sales or CPC. They can also cross-sell visa, insurance and car rental services.