Food touring in Kuala Lumpur
Generally I post a monthly review of new peer-to-peer travel businesses, but starting fresh in 2017 I decided to clean up my database on these businesses and remove any that have stopped providing services. In the area of Food and Fun (tours, meals, and meetups with other travelers or locals) I saw 14 new companies come on the scene in 2016 and nine companies stopped offering services entirely (as measured by their website disappearing).
I’m not sure I can make any generalizations about the industry from this data; it’s not like companies are all coming to me to let me know when they launch and/or fail, so my spreadsheet isn’t comprehensive, though it’s the most complete one out there. But it’s clear that there’s is still plenty of interest in peer-to-peer tours and activities heading in to 2017. And I continue to enjoy the services of these companies, especially food tours, as a way to see (and eat) things I would not find on my own.
In the category of P2P tours here are the casualties:
Destimundo – Offering services globally, they launched in 2012.
Paadharo – Serving India, this company launched in 2014.
OrderTrip – They were in beta release in 2016 but I guess they never made it out of beta.
Although tours do often include food, I had 16 specifically meal-focused companies listed, and three of those failed in 2016:
MeetMeals – Serving Spain, this company launched in 2013
SupperShare – Launched in 2013 and based in San Francisco, California, their offerings were mostly in the Bay Area.
HostandCook – This site never had many listings, they launched in 2014.
Finally, of the nine companies focused on connecting travelers with other travelers and/or locals, just to meet people, three also stopped operations:
Tripolette – I never found out when they launched, so I can’t say much in their obituary.
EO – In 2015 they were in a private beta, but it looks like they never made it past launch.
TrippersPal – Like EO they were pre-launch in 2015, and then I guess they just faded away.