First "Meet the Entrepreneur" event by TravelTech Lab in Madrid
The first "Meet the Entrepreneur" event took place in the TravelTech Lab Hub in Madrid, last 22nd May 2023, where David Hernández, CEO at Pangea, shared his personal experiences as a traveltech entrepreneur.
Pangea is a success case; however, it wasn’t an easy ride! They experienced multiple adversities, including difficulty to secure funding, initial ideas which failed to work but which ultimately helped them to improve their product and finally COVID, where all travel came to a halt however it helped Pangea to move into the online space. Pangea’s vision was to re-create the superior physical in-store experience and exclusive product offering for their clients, like the successful model of Apple, but tailored to the Travel industry where customers could explore, be inspired, discover differentiated products, and be guided by experts tailoring once in a lifetime experience for them. This vision appeared to go against the odds in a sector where many traditional travel agency stores were disappearing however with perseverance and a clear vision, they identified 5 key differentiators which set them apart from traditional Travel Agencies:
• Physical in-store experience where their “showrooms” expand over 1500m2
• Expert advisors with guaranteed personal experience in destination.
• Tailor made experience.
• Technology to help provide the best customer experience.
• Competitive rates.
The trend that Pangea saw was that clients don't want standard packages anymore, David shared, "Pangea wants to offer a tailor-made trip, with the latest technologies, at a competitive price. We have grown steadily. Our main marketing tool in recent years has been word of mouth,”. During this session David shared some anecdotes on the origin of Pangea "I visited Decathlon for the 1st time, and I saw the transformational model it had, and I noticed that there was nothing similar in the travel sector. So, I wanted to make the Decathlon of travel.”
