Tripsay adds experience to its board with former Travelocity VP Alfonso Castellano

Tripsay, the Finnish start-up who provides passionate travelers with recommendations, has added over 25 years of travel experience to its staff by welcoming former Travelocity Vice President Alfonso Castellano to the board.

Castellano worked at LastMinunte.com for nine years, serving the company as the Managing Director of Southern Europe, head of Latin American expansion and Global Hotel contracting and procurement. Following Travelocity’s billion-dollar acquisition of LastMinute.com, Castellano was appointed Travelocity’s Senior Vice President of consumer business in Europe.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Castellano also works as a Managing Director at InnovaTravel and MindProject. InnvaTravel supports travel start-ups from definition and strategy to funding and operations. MindProject helps travel companies to get their marketing right.

What makes TripSay unique?

Tripsay received a positive response from the tech scene when it launched in August. When I met co-founder Leo Koivulehto at a Finnish meet-up in San Francisco in May 2008, he explained me how Tripsay will differentiate itself from the dozens of other travel services.

Koivulehto said: “Our service is unique as the information you see is personalized according to your interests and profile. The more time you spend on the site and more places you rate, the more it learns from you. A college graduate and grandpa Jones will see differently biased content and recommendations. Which means you don’t have to spend time going through things that are of no interest to you. We help to find what you are really looking for.”

Now that the service has found an user base, it’s time to monetize. That’s probably why the Finnish travel service attracted a man who exactly knows how to make some money out of a travel site.