AirBnB has signed a promotional deal with a UK social startup to offer ‘social group travel experiences’ to independent travellers. citysocializer is an app and web platform which, like Meetup, helps organise real-world social events for new groups of people in cities, by charging a monthly fee.
They’ve secured a promotional tie-up with AirBnB which offers a £25 discount to Citysocializer members travelling to Prague. AirBnB is also sponsoring a Citysocializer meetup leading up to this.
However, a spokesman told us that that this stage there are no plans for technical or product integration and no wider partnership, or plans to offer what they do as a service through Airbnb. “It’s simply about marketing Airbnb to a likeminded audience,” he said.
That said, the deal appears to feed into the wider AirBnB vision to “own” the group travel trip.
Citysocializer now operates in London, and has run group travel trips to Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.
So far it’s raised £1.5m from investors including PROfounders Capital, backed by Michael Birch (Bebo) and Brent Hoberman (Lastminute.com).