The Finnish team is launching a new booking platform and pricing model for guided tours and adventure holidays, with direct online sales. Faralong’s new service concept connects travelers directly to local tour operators at some of the most iconic adventure travel destinations across the planet, like the Galapagos Islands, Uganda and Myanmar.
“Legacy travel companies make the whole production, selling and marketing of group tours complicated, and base their prices on volume, not actual cost. Large groups generate profit for the agency, put pressure on the local operator and actually gives less for the traveler.” explains Kalle Viira, Faralong’s co-founder. “But our idea is brilliantly simple – the more people who join a tour, the less each person has to pay. For example, if you take a taxi, the cost would be cut in half if another person shared the taxi with you, both passengers wouldn’t expect to pay the full fare. That’s the same concept Faralong applies to tours – the exact opposite way old fashioned travel companies run their business” Viira says.
The company works with trusted tour operators globally to keep costs to a minimum, while ensuring the quality of the tour experience remains high. Faralong is building a whole new booking engine from the ground up, with a user interface that cuts a number of unnecessary steps from the traditional online travel model. With EU corporate offices, Faralong builds a trust layer between the customer and local tour companies.
Faralong has so far raised more than $500,000 from venture capital funds and leading travel partners in Asia and South America.
“We met two of our investors in true adventure travel style, at a bar in Pyongyang North Korea” recalls Juha Viitala, Faralong’s other co-founder. “Among our other investors are some of the most experienced and trusted tour operators in Asia and South America, with long successful track records of group travel management. They see the value in what we bring to the table, turning the stale, traditional models of travel bookings on its head, and building something fresh. They’re the ideal people to launch this new venture with” he adds.
The team behind Faralong has been successfully running Mandala Travel in Finland for the past 6 years. Mandala is a pioneer in adventure travel, and concentrates on the domestic market, providing group tours with Finnish-speaking guides. Between them, Kalle Viira and Juha Viitala had more than two decades experience as travelers, tour guides and running a growing travel company before deciding to launch Faralong. Juha is also behind several startups in Finland, with his first internet company founded in 1997.
