Interview – Co-founder of Travellerspoint.com

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I have had a great pleasure to interview Peter Daams, co-founder of Travellerspoint.com. Being a long time fan of this traveler’s online community, I’ve used them for advice on many occasions. Plus, they are great for a good read about a place I’m getting ready to go and check out.  
 

Marina K. Villatoro: Thanks so much for taking the time out to be interviewed! And congratulations on your new addition to your family: May Elizabeth Tate Dunstan-Daams. You can now show your daughter the world through a true traveler’s eye!

Your idea for a little travel site, almost 7 years ago, has grown into a come-to-place for a lot more than just chatting with lost travel mates. The community has grown into honest reviews, help from travelers, and even a place where you can book your trips. Basically, an all you need travel stop, with real live travelers guiding the way.

Peter Daams: You’re right. It’s really not at all what we started out creating. It’s been a very interesting journey. As you say, we started out creating a site that was focussed on reuniting travel friends. Although that feature still exists on our site, it is very much in the background now. We soon discovered that although people were signing up for that, they didn’t really have much else to do on the site. So we added forums, which made it possible to start public conversations with the site members. That’s where the community spirit has always been the strongest. There are such great people contributing that it is hard not to get sucked in. We put a lot of effort into ensuring that there was a pleasant atmosphere on the forums. This meant setting an example for other members by being friendly in posts and providing in-depth answers. It also meant moderating the forums closely and having clear guidelines in place about what was and wasn’t allowed. It takes a lot of time, but I think the atmosphere in the forums is really good as a result and it has attracted the right kind of people.

MKV: You have a saying on your site: “What the future brings, we don’t know….but we hope it has something to do with traveling!”

How is the traveling going for you? I mean, with my own site, which is a billionth of your travel website, I find that I am more at my computer than out there traveling. Do you have the same experience?

PD: Actually, I find the site has enabled a lot more travel than before I started it. Because it’s all online, I can take my work anywhere with me. It does become a little harder to answer things as quickly, but I can still get most pressing things done while away from home. Since starting the site, my wife and I have been on several extended trips, that would not have been possible if I was in a normal job. One thing about running this site is that I do (almost) always have my work with me. I’m often found scrambling around new neighbourhoods looking for an internet connection. That can be a little crazy, but really I’m kind of addicted to it as well, so I hardly mind.

MKV: How do you manage to stay on top of everything! There is so much going on all the time: social networking, forums, twitter, etc.. Even with our initial contact through Travel Blog Exchange, you replied to my emails in seconds. That says so much for a person as busy as you and definitely puts you ahead of the game. How do you do it?

PD: I do try to answer people quickly, particularly when I’m addressed directly. At least if there is an easy answer. Sometimes, longer responses need to wait. The ever increasing speed of communication online can be quite overwhelming. I don’t try to let it get to me too much and actually ignore a lot of activities that gobble up time. For instance, I used to have a large list of RSS feeds that I was checking religiously at one stage, until I realised it was taking up an awful lot of time. After that, I relegated that to the background and now I download feeds before hopping on the train into the office and then I just read them during the commute. I don’t spend any of my work hours checking feeds any more. Twitter can also be dangerous, but I try to limit my activity on there to only a few checkups each day. I barely spend any time on other social networks.

Email is the only thing that I pretty much always have on. I’m not sure I should, because it can also be distracting. But I really do take pride in responding quickly when I can. As you can see, it does leave a good impression.

MKV: I know that you work closely with your brother, Sam. Do you have specific responsibilities or do you share the load of publicity, organization, moderation of forums, and managing the photos and travel blogs. Or do you also have reliable employees that you have grown to trust?

PD: Sam and I do share a lot of responsibilities. We have our own strengths; his is more in business management and mine on the side of coding and design. But we both are capable of handling the running of the site if the other one isn’t available. We also have a few employees now. Eric, our younger brother, helps with writing and edits Travelblogs.com. Dmitry and Li are both programmers and are usually found working on new features or fixing niggly bugs. It’s great to have more hands on board, because it means we can add new features faster than before and do more complicated things than I would have dared tackle on my own.

MKV: Do you guys actually do the booking and planning of trips, or do you outsource that sector. I know from handling a few packages for clients in Costa Rica that it can literally become a full time job in itself. Doesn’t it all seem overwhelming to you at times or have you found your flow?

PD: We partner with third party booking systems and most bookings are fully automated. We do however requests for assistance with some bookings and help out with those as best we can, but mostly it is automated. Those requests do take up a fair bit of our time actually, but again, we take a lot of pride in providing a personal response to people’s questions. Even if they don’t end up booking through us, they might come back later because they appreciated a speedy and friendly interaction. We’ve had occasional cases where people contacted us with problems and were, let’s say, quite irate. After some friendly email exchanges, we resolved their issues and then found that they came back later to make more bookings through us. I think just knowing there is a human ready to help out in case of difficulties is a big plus for a lot of people.

We also are trying to innovate in the accommodation booking section of our site.We recently added an option for users to arrange to meet up with other guests at hostels they have booked into. So our online social network is also becoming an offline one.

MKV: I have used travellerspoint as a source for my travels on many occasions, and I really love the genuineness of the site. Thanks so much for taking the time out for this interview.a

But one more question, since I’m partial to Central America, what’s your favorite location on this side of the world?

PD: I haven’t actually had a chance to
visit Central America (or South America) yet. I’m keen to visit though. Maybe next trip!

MKV: I’d be happy to help you have the best trip ever! Thanks again Peter.

I have to say, I talk with many Travel Site professionals and Peter was the fastest to reply and extremely accesible. Here’s a great way to get in touch with him quickly, twitter. A dangerously addicting toy, but one we love @daamsie

I recommend to check this site out for many reasons, below are all the cool things you can get involved with on Travellerspoint. Plus, they own Travelblogs.com, a site full of wonderful and interesting blogs by fellow Travelers.

• Need some answers, or want to give advice, join Travellerspoint forums.
• Travellerspoint just came out with a new way to meet up with other travelers once you book your hostel anywhere in the world, meet up in person! Check it out here!
• Plus, you need reliable and personal book services for your accomodations. Travellerspoint makes it easy for you.

See you guys there!

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