Online travel site Peek wants to make it easier for people to find interesting things to do in cities that they’re traveling to. And now it’s extending that capability to new international cities, starting with London and Paris.
While many travel sites seek to provide just a list of things to do in various locations, Peek curates activities that travelers can browse and actually pay for directly on the website. In that way, it mixes content and commerce, working with local vendors and taking a share of sales that happen on its platform.
With that business in mind, Peek has spent the last nine months slowly expanding into new markets within the U.S. It launched with activity recommendations in just a handful of travel destinations, but now supports 15 destinations nationwide, including various part of Hawaii, as well as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Orlando and Washington, D.C.
Now it’s ready to start its journey overseas, beginning with local activities in London and Paris. To do that it’s found local vendors and signed them up to begin making their offerings available on the Peek website. It’s broken down its options into neighborhoods so that travelers can find activities that are interesting to them near where they’re staying. And it’s also signed up local tastemakers with their own favorite things to do in those markets as well.
According to Peek CEO Ruzwana Bashir, many of the suggestions in Europe and in other markets have actually come from its user-submitted “Perfect Days.” Late last year, Peek began allowing users to submit their own favorite activities in various cities around the world — even if Peek didn’t have a presence there. That not only provided a lot of content for users, but also gave the company suggestions for activities to add.
Peek plans to continue rolling out new cities, and now that it’s in Europe there’s no limit to where it might go. The company has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from investors that include Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, SV Angel, and Khosla Ventures.