A new “travel discovery and booking service,” app called Elude, they’ve launched mobile app on Aug. 5. Elude is aiming to match open-minded travelers with fixed amount in mind to go on trip fitting both budget and interests.
Described by its founders in an Interview with CNBC “the only booking platform answering the question, ‘Where can I travel for $500?’,” Elude is an app built around a “budget-first” search engine that offers users instant options for flights departing the nearest airport and accommodations, all within their desired price range.
“For us, destination never really mattered,” Scerbo said. “It was just ‘get us wherever our budget could afford to get us.’”
There are three core elements that makes Elude, Elude, according to Simon:
User Onboarding:
“Basically, we ask a handful of fun, kind of quirky questions to better know the user so [the experience] is more personalized,” he said, citing WiFi, weather or cuisine preferences as examples.
Elude will be using their prefrences to match trip in future as well.
“It’s basically to figure out what you like to do and what type of traveler you are,” said Scerbo. “Once we have more of that information, we can kind of get a little bit better with the A.I. [artificial intelligence] and suggest trips that’ll probably be really attractive to you.”
Search Functionality
Next comes the main search functionality, wherein users input their budgets, travel dates and point of origin. “We then showcase all city options that match that person’s budget,” Simon said.
Users can choose a destination and fully customize their package.
For now, air and hotel are the focus of Elude and they will add activity and experience content at a later.
Direct booking via Elude
“We are actually the merchant of record; we’re not pushing you out to someplace else,” said Simon, noting that many search engines present users with price quotes and then link them out to other sites for booking — where the price is often different. “It’s been our biggest hurdle but definitely what we’re most excited about.”
Apps Artificial Intelligence comes up with matches that fits few pre-req set by algorithm and offers info on free activities at choosen locations.
