Today on Surfpreneurs podcast, we have the pleasure of talking with Nicky Kelly of Surf Holidays.
In essence, Surf Holidays is like Airbnb or Booking.com but instead of offering just accommodation, it offers you the full surf camp experience.
Listen to podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Soundcloud.
How it all started
Some 15 years ago, Nicky got into surfing and did a couple of trips abroad. He bought a small apartment in Portugal and started renting out to friends.
Then he got in touch with some locals who started giving surf lessons to friends who stayed there. As time went on, they moved into more places and before they knew it, there were almost 40 locations on their site.
They functioned as an agency and booked people over the phone – that’s when they realized they needed a self-service model.
Fast forward to today, there are 5,000 different packages that can be booked on the Surf Holidays website, in a variety of locations all over the world.
From agency to self-service and automation
As the company grew, Nicky and his partners realized that other businesses also wanted a booking system for their website.
They built a tool which can be installed on any site so that people can book on Surf Holidays, while the company gets a commission. Unlike Booking.com or other websites, the commission is taken from the host and not the guest.
SUrf Holidays VS. Booking.com - not really competition
As Nicky says, these two giants mostly offer only accommodation so they are more interesting to the general public and not surfers who may want a full surf camp package.
As he states, these platforms are not a threat since the market is big enough to allow for different types of niches. Those sites have a high cancellation rate (35-40%), while Surf Holidays’ cancellation rate sits at 1%.
The most popular surf locations
As Nicky states, the Surf Holidays website is set up so that it gives visitors recommendations based on their location. In other words, someone in Australia would get recommendations for Indonesia.
However, he mentions these as up and coming surfing destinations: Miramar in Nicaragua, Lombok in Bali, Troncones in Mexico, as well as the northwest region in Spain.
For more information about Surf Holidays, make sure to listen to the full podcast!
Surfpreneurs podcast is hosted by Peter Fabor, the founder of Surf Office.
Surf Office helps surf houses, hotels and villas boost their group bookings by hosting retreats with tech companies searching for productive team building experiences.
Learn more about how to become a property partner of Surf Office.
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