Australia has an amazing travel-based tech startup scene.
It could be the fact that we’re so far away from everything (including other cities within Australia!) that travel is something we’re inherently familiar with. Or it could be that because we live in a wonderful country that so many other people want to visit we have great exposure to what foreign travellers want.
Either way, we can boast startups like semantic flight search engine Adioso, Innovative travel Q&A site, Travellr, Travel-partner search site Globetrooper and discount backpacker deal site BrokePacker.
The other thing that unites these startups is that they’re all founders or members of Travel Tribe, the travel industry phenomenon that started in Sydney and has since spread all over the world to places like London, San Francisco, New York and Toronto.
The latest initiative from the group is the Sydney Travel Tribe unconference, which will be held on October 26th from 6pm. You can find all the details about the event here.
I spoke to Ian Cumming, founder and CEO at Travellr and one of the chiefs of the travel tribe about the event and why he chose the unconference format:
The aim of the Sydney Travel Tribe Unconference is to tap the collective knowledge of the travel industry and provide a forum to share ideas and discussion about online travel in a fun and interactive way. An unconference is a self-organising event where everyone is a participant! We’ll be calling on everyone who turns up to discuss, share their thoughts, and contribute to the evening!
As for the format of the night, Cumming said:
The format of the event will be be 2 and half hours of brainstorming, discussion, and collaboration in an “unconvention” style, followed by networking and drinks. The broader topic of the unconference will be “online travel” – but it’s up to you to bring along the ideas and issues that you want to talk about, because you and your fellow participants will be voting on the conference panel and which streams to hold!
Seriously, if you’re involved in a travel startup and you can be in Sydney on the 26th October, you need to go to this.
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