Ventoura Travel App Fails to Deliver

I recently wrote about Ventoura, a travel app that I described as Tinder for Travel. In my interview the CEO of Ventoura, Raymond Siems explained their business model: “The goal is for Ventoura to be a one-stop social hub for travelling. If you want to meet a local and unlock the secrets of your destination, or, if you want to meet likeminded travellers and go exploring together, Ventoura is the place to go.” Conveniently for me, I had an upcoming trip to Scandinavia, a region where Ventoura features a number of locals offering peer to peer tour guides. I decided to try out the app to see if I could find some fun experiences to book. Unfortunately the slick app really didn’t deliver for me.

The Ventoura app user interface is pretty friendly, and it didn’t take long for me to enter the dates and destinations of my upcoming trip. Each time I log into the app I get a new list of potential travelers and locals who match my plans. I selected four locals offering some interesting sounding tours in Copenhagen and “matched” myself to them. And then I went into the in-app messaging system and sent over introductory messages telling these potential guides my travel dates and asking if they were available for a tour.

I also selected a few other travelers whose plans overlap with mine. I’m not actively looking to meet up with people on this trip: I’m not traveling alone, and we’re meeting friends in all of the destinations on this trip. But I’m always happy to connect with other travelers so if I get a match I’d definitely follow through.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a single response from any of the locals I contacted for tours. Not even a note saying “sorry, I’m not available.” The complete silence makes me think these folks might not be checking the app and so they didn’t see my message. I was, after all, offering to pay them for their services (and I did ask nicely). I also didn’t get any matches on the travelers, but I’m not offering to pay them so I’m ok with the idea that my profile just wasn’t interesting to the people I selected.

I reached out to one of the Ventoura staff members to see if there was something else I should be doing to connect with the tour guides and got this response: “Sorry I can’t help you there.  We merely provide the platform for travellers and locals to connect. We don’t play a ‘middle man’ role at all and it is entirely up to the locals to chose who they wish to reply to and when to conduct tours. I can only suggest sending another message, in case they have forgotten or missed the original one.”

This is a perfectly respectable position for a company that is focused on creating a platform to connect travelers with locals and other travelers. However in the case of paid tours I do wonder about the business model. Neither Ventoura nor the local guides are going to make any money if people who sign up to offer tours are not checking or receiving their messages, or are just uninterested in actually providing these tours. I’ve used other peer to peer tour sites and generally get quick responses when I request a tour. And some sites have a policy of suggesting alternate tours to travelers if they don’t get a response within a day or two. Regardless of the reason for the lack of response, I’m probably going to uninstall the Ventoura app from my phone as I’m not getting much value from the service.