Travel app targets millennials in China with features for young solo tourists, particularly women
- Travel à la Carte stores everything needed for a trip in one central place and includes a multi-functional digital wallet and an AI-powered assistant
- Created by two Czech sisters and their friend, the app is targeting Chinese travellers first, with adventure trips to Laos and Vietnam proving popular
Ivana Hronova and her sister Olga Grillova’s first trip to Cuba started off as a nightmare.
Their flight landed in the evening, the local system did not recognise their credit card and they found themselves wandering around Havana for hours looking for a place to spend the night. At 3am they finally found a place to stay. It was a disastrous start to a trip, but planted the seed of an innovative travel idea for the Czech sisters.
“We thought, this kind of problem does not just happen to us and it does not just happen in this country,” says Hronova, 25, speaking by phone from New York.
The sisters teamed up with their friend Kim Najman – who has a background in hospitality and events management – and an India-based app developer to create Travel à la Carte (t-alacarte.com), an all-in-one app that allows travellers to set their own budget and book tickets, accommodation and events in one place with one single payment.
There are hundreds of online booking platforms and concierges, but where Travel à la Carte differs is that it stores everything in one central place.