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Lifestyle magazine and events in Marseille : Private journey, return on a success-story from Aix
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Private journey, return on a success-story from Aix

08/21/2017

The region of PACA is recognized for its breathtaking varied landscapes, the blue sky, beautiful Creeks and its environment convenient to the economy of the innovation and the digital technology! Numerous companies full of potential make their nest and attribute to this territory the status of the golden goose, almost so attractive like Paris region as far as opportunities.

Voyage Privé is one of these international successes which we can be proud of and we like talking about. Return on an original, digital and ambitious project.

The founders and their debuts

5 founders, Denis Philipon, Sébastien Tricaud, Christophe Serna, Alexandre Fontaine, David Bastian, have met mostly while they occupied each different post in Lastminute.com, a specialist of the discount journey at the last minute. Denis Philipon, the current president of Private Journey, decides to leave in 2000 to launch into "what he knew how to make: the sale of journeys" and will embark later with four other colleagues.

Then begin a crazy entrepreneurial adventure punctuated with experiences, with tests and trials. Like all the successful entrepreneurs, they knew the failure with the first telecoms company specialized in trading of minutes of telecoms. They abandon the project to dedicate to the tourism with the creation of Thalasseo.com, a travel agency specialized in the well-being stays. Being aware of the already existing competitions regarding journey, they decide to develop only sites "of niche", specialized in a domain to distance itself, even if it means making several to cover various markets. As Denis Philipon declared during a conference in the Show of Entrepreneurs in 2016, they "made the tour work" before finding The concept.

The concept of the private sale

The sale deprived on Web started in 2001 with the famous site of the same name, Vente-privee.com. If the competitors did not delay in re-cook the concept in their sauce, nobody thought of adapting it to the journeys. It is in these conditions that releases the famous platform Voyage-prive.com in 2006.

The idea? Let offer luxury journeys in exclusive rates to make them accessible to all. By playing with the discount factual sales and the system of "privileged club", the site has been established at the same time when travelers and people working in the tourist industry. The latter see the opportunity there to fill their hotels during the slow time or a new product promotion.

The concept seduces 11 years later, the site consists of 7 million members, realizes 530 million turnovers and hires more than 400 employees.

Recipe of a success on Web

In a competitive sector, even if the concept shows a lot, it is not enough to stand out itself. Always being in the same conference handling opportunities of the digital for his business, the president declares that before obtaining millions of customers, the team had to invest and get involved in the marketing to take a maximum of traffic on the Web site.

According to him, there are three basic items to succeed on the Internet: "be differentiated, develop techniques of viral marketing and design short-lived products: few products and acquirable in a short lapse of time.".

The businessman not only gives his secrets to leak out but also shows his capacities to adapt it. Since if the company began by focusing on the number wanting to make the traffic at all costs to start, he declares that the company leaves now towards quite a different objective: the quality. Data-scientists override traffic managers to study the consumers and offer them some relevant contents or improve the conversion tunnel. For example, they send now twice fewer "newsletters" but double their rates of conversion.


All profit'.

And Now?

More than a company, Voyage Privé became a real group which continues to pursue the ascent in the tourism and others. With the recent repurchase of Splendia, online booking service of luxury hotels, the group can complete its income thanks to two complementary economic models: the one punctual and the other permanent employee.

But that's not all. Concerning sport, Denis Philipon becomes a president of the rugby club of Aix-en-Provence and develop the XV school, which he judges as a way to offer an educational frame to young people in trouble. Beautiful operation of sponsoring shows the company commitment in the company. As if it was not sufficient, the company had developed at the same time The Springboards of the innovation, one "summer camp" of two weeks for the tourism entrepreneurs.

In a short time, Voyage privé stood out as a real economic player shining in the PACA region as well as in Europe. Let’s hope that the sun will continue to shine on other innovative projects!

Article written by Marion Vannelli.

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