Qiito (pronounced as Key-Tow), which stands for Quick, Interesting, Interactive Travel Organizer is a Singapore-based start-up that claims to be the first Asia-based interactive online travel planner.
We would challenge that, however – having covered Trippiece from Japan, which raised $50,000 last May to work on their idea. But Qitto has way more money in its bank.
Chuang Pei-Han of Qitto told Penn-Olson that the travel organizer start-up has raised more than SGD$2 million (US$1.6 million) from an anonymous Japan-based venture capital firm in a series A funding in July of this year.
Besides their bank balance, another difference between Trippiece and Qiito is the language used on their sites – Trippiece serves the Japanese market, while Qiito is in English and serves the most of the world.
Qiito is currently under development and will be ready for beta launch in October followed by a series of promotions. Even before the product is fully developed, Qiito has already established a partnership with the Taiwan Tourism Board to help promote travel across the region. I’m not sure how, but that’s probably the power of connections. And perhaps it hints that Qiito does have something special to offer.
Here’s how Pei-Han describes Qiito’s service:
Highly visual and intuitive, you can build up your day-to-day travel itineraries on Qiito.com based on location with simple drag-and-drops. With crowdsourced content, you will also benefit from first-person experiences and reviews on places of interest in your destinations. You can share your itinerary with your friends who can amend and comment all in real-time. All these at zero cost.
It does sound good, though similar to what other online travel planners have to offer — especially Tripit, and Yahoo’s trip planner. We’ll await Qiito’s beta launch before providing you with a thorough review. Stay tuned.
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