Travelfish
Type of site
Travel website
Available inEnglish
Founder(s)
  • Stuart McDonald
  • Samantha Brown
URLtravelfish.org
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Launched2004 (2004)

Travelfish is a travel website covering Southeast Asia. It was founded in 2004 by an Australian couple, travel writer Stuart McDonald and journalist Samantha Brown, and operates out of Sydney. The website carries guidebook-style recommendations written by its staff and paid contributors, and is recognized as a major online travel resource for the region.

History

McDonald first travelled to Thailand in 1993, and repeatedly visited the region in the following years, during which he worked in Australia and self-published guidebooks to Vietnam and Thailand. He met Brown in 1997, and after travelling around Southeast Asia, the couple decided to settle in Thailand in 1998 (they have since also lived in Phnom Penh and Jakarta, before settling in Bali).[1][2] McDonald taught himself web development while working in Bangkok, and, as Brown had experience as a writer and editor, they came up with the idea of an online travel guide.[3] In 2003, McDonald borrowed AU$5,000 from his parents to fund the project, and they launched the website in 2004.[2][4]

The website originally featured a few locations in Thailand, but gradually expanded to cover Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Singapore by 2008,[5] and later Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar (though it suspended its Myanmar coverage in 2018, in response to the Rohingya crisis and the sentencing of Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo[6]). Initially catering to backpackers, its coverage later expanded to include a wide range of independent travel styles, and now includes over 8,000 reviews of accommodation options.[7][8][9]

Travelfish has seen recommendations from writers for The Telegraph,[10] The Sunday Times,[11] The Guardian,[12] Business Insider,[13] and News.com.au.[14] The New York Times travel writer Freda Moon has called it "the indispensable Southeast Asia travel guide".[15]

Operations

Travelfish Pty Ltd was registered in 2009, and is headquartered in suburban Sydney, though it maintains "research hubs" in several Southeast Asian cities.[4][16] McDonald codes for and maintains the website, while Brown serves as editor-in-chief and oversees marketing.[2][4] Reviews are also contributed by field researchers, who at one time comprised up to seventeen regular freelancers, though the site has since shifted toward employing several full-time staff instead.[17] The site has policies of only doing in-person reviews and not accepting compensation from property owners.[8][9]

The site has gone through several methods of generating revenue. As of 2019, it carries online advertising and affiliate links (including a partnership with hotel-booking website Agoda[18]), offers travel-planning assistance, and has a paid membership program.[19] The subscription, introduced in 2016, includes access to downloadable PDF guides (which were previously sold individually), exclusive content (a paywall was introduced in 2018), as well as certain discounts and services.[20]

The site, which operates more like a traditional guidebook, has faced difficulties as readership shifted away towards those featuring user-generated content. In 2019, the site experienced a sharp drop in traffic following Google's redesigning of its search interface to heavily feature its own travel portal, a change McDonald criticized as unfair.[19][21]

References

  1. ↑ Noble, Chris (20 August 2013). "Inside the Mind of Stuart McDonald From TravelFish.org". World Nomads. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 Russell, Jon (15 December 2013). "7 'digital nomads' explain how they live, work and travel". The Next Web. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  3. ↑ Quenby, Joel (1 July 2009). "Travelfish take on tourism in Cambodia". Phnompenh Post. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 Wilson, David (9 June 2010). "How I turned $5000 into one of Asia's biggest travel websites". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  5. ↑ Voigts, Jessie (22 December 2008). "Travelfish Travel Guides - your Southeast Asia Resource". Wandering Educators. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  6. ↑ Morris, Hugh (10 September 2018). "Myanmar boycott announced by travel guide – will tour operators follow suit?". The Telegraph. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  7. ↑ Prabu, Karthick (15 July 2014). "How an online travel guide survived ten years in a fiercely competitive landscape". PhocusWire. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  8. 1 2 Hunt, Luke (15 June 2019). "The Trouble with Tourism in Southeast Asia". The Diplomat. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  9. 1 2 "About Us". Travelfish. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  10. ↑ Strachan, Donald (20 December 2011). "Best travel advice online: expert help for specific queries". Telegraph Travel. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  11. ↑ Cobaj, Lee; Ochyra, Helen; Goulden, Laura; Robinson, Alex; Haslam, Chris (21 August 2016). "Your great big gap-year adventure". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  12. ↑ Sutcliffe, Theodora (9 April 2016). "Indonesia beginners' guide: Bali, Lombok, Java and Flores". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  13. ↑ Scott, Audrey (26 February 2016). "A beginner's guide to traveling to Southeast Asia". Business Insider. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  14. ↑ Whigham, Nick (10 December 2014). "The best travel sites to make it the perfect trip". News.com.au. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  15. ↑ Moon, Freda (8 March 2017). "A Family Adventure in Medical Tourism". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  16. ↑ "Current details for ABN 82 107 758 985". ABN Lookup. Australian Business Register. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  17. ↑ Schonberg, Angela (16 February 2017). "The Art of SE Asia Discovery with Travelfish". HuffPost. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  18. ↑ Carruthers, Fiona (10 December 2015). "Luxe City Guides say the journey isn't over for travel books". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  19. 1 2 Menze, Jill (31 October 2019). "Q&A: Travelfish's Stuart McDonald on the OYO and Instagram problems plaguing Southeast Asia | PhocusWire". PhocusWire. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  20. ↑ McDonald, Stuart (5 August 2018). "Paid membership etc". Travelfish. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  21. ↑ "Why Google will own travel". Australian Financial Review. 5 July 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
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