Why Twitter’s Jack Dorsey has invested in this Airbnb rival
Peek.com's founder Ruzwana Bashir listed adventurous experiences like swimming with pigs, hot-air balloon rides
While Airbnb gets a lot of attention, Peek.com is “the U.S. leader” in the travel experience market, founder and CEO Ruzwana Bashir said.
Peek.com is a website where users can book travel experiences, and it has investors such as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt buying in.
When asked why so many big names are putting money behind Peek.com, Bashir said investors have “understood the market opportunity and the fact that we could scale” during an exclusive interview Monday on FOX Business’ “The Claman Countdown.”
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“The experiences market is massive, and it's growing,” she said. “We think over the next few years, it's going to become a trillion-dollar market.”
Bashir explained how Peek.com operates and said her team works with thousands of small businesses to get them online.
“What we found is that if you're a business that's doing zip lining or whitewater rafting, you're really good at doing [that] job,” she said. “But you're not great at helping consumers book online or having great photographs or really being able to have reservation software.”
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She said Peek.com helps give these small businesses the tools to expand.
The average business “sees an increase in revenue of about 30 percent,” Bashir told FOX Business’ Liz Claman.
Bashir said she started the site because of her own experience making travel plans.
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“I wish[ed] there was a one-stop shop where I could just go online, find great things to do, see verified reviews and book it,” she said. “And it didn't exist. So I started Peek.com.”
Bashir pointed to swimming with pigs in the Bahamas, a hot-air balloon ride in Napa, California, and a cooking class in New Orleans as unique examples of travel experience options Peek.com offers.