Need a room for the holidays but don’t feel like paying for a hotel’s holiday prices? Check out Roomorama, a service started by two avid travelers who really wanted to inspire young urbanites to ditch the concrete and get out into the world to travel.
Founders Jia En Teo and Federico Folcia met while working at Bloomberg. Federico, a native Italian, traveled Europe extensively, hopping on budget airlines but feeling the pinch when it came to booking hotels. He thought there must be hundreds of people with empty apartments and they should be making money while saving me money. I caught up with Jia midday L.A. time today while she was just finishing dinner in Italy. While she’s fortunate enough to be staying with Federico’s family, they are renting out their place in New York on Roomorama. They are both travelers caught up with lifelong wanderlust.
The site launched in January 2009 in New York City and expanded to all of the major U.S. cities throughout the year. They’ve seen excellent growth in 2010 and are now in over 100 different destinations with over 60,000 members on the site.”Going forward we want Roomorama to be a one-stop platform for traveling worldwide,” explains Jia.
It’s similar to AirBnB (which I love) but it’s really directed towards young, tech-savvy professionals from urban areas who care about sleek design and appreciate budget travel that doesn’t feel budget. For example, how about this gorgeous apartment in Bali for New Years? Just $50 a night.
Or save $5 and go for this one:
What really separates Roomorama from the rest of the hotel alternative start-ups is their amazing perks program that includes eco friendly laundry and dry cleaning services, Mint cars, daily Crunch Gym passes and in home wine tastings. “These are things we hope add enough value for people to book on our site,” says Jia.
Looking past the holidays, Roomorama is becoming the go-to housing choice for festivals like SXSW and the New York Film Festival. The site has a great option in the works, which will list all the properties available near certain venues or events and will even offer ticket buying through a created festival specific page.
Roomorama is running a promotion for holiday travel: $50 dollars off bookings over $450 with the option to pass along the offer to any 3 friends you want until February. In addition, they are offering a very exclusive 25% off discount just for TNW readers. Use the code: “TheNextWeb” at check-out.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.