BrazilEco-friendly Airbnb and Booking rival GreenGo launches
Former Oliver Wyman advisor Guillaume Jouffre has gone live with a new platform – GreenGo – designed as a cheaper and more sustainable alternative to travel companies Airbnb and Booking.com.
GreenGo’s key message is to reconcile travel with the environment and people to develop sustainable tourism. A similar model to other travel sites, the platform connects hosts with potential visitors as a means to low-cost accommodation with that local touch.
The difference: all hosts on GreenGo have signed a three-pronged charter to be sustainable, offer fair value for money and give visitors a warm welcome. “We want to show that we can travel, have fun, be in beautiful places, while taking care of the planet!” said GreenGo founder Guillaume Jouffre, speaking to Consultor.
“And we offer lower commission rates, 10%, while Airbnb and Booking are 18%.” The site already has 130 hosts and short of 350 accommodations – currently running at a high level of occupancy. A crowdfunding campaign to raise €5,000 has already crossed the €20,000 mark – a sign of support for the firm’s ambition to scale its sustainable and community-first model through Europe.
“It's a very good surprise and a good start!” said Jouffre, who’s leadership is informed by his background as a consultant. A year at internet of things consultancy Eridanis was followed by a three-year stint at global strategy consultancy Oliver Wyman in its Paris office, starting 2017.
He completed over ten projects – including an assignment in South Africa – during his time at Oliver Wyman, rising up the ranks from consultant to associate. “I worked a lot on issues of sales, price and promotion optimisation. But I also worked on data, retail, payment and telcos subjects .”
For him, life as a consultant was all about learning the ropes of business, so that he could break off on his own. “I invest myself on a daily basis in projects that fascinate me, which have meaning. It is my driving force and I try to contribute modestly, to initiatives that seem more appropriate to me. To defend certain values that are very close to my heart.”
Jouffre left Oliver Wyman to start GreenGo in March 2020, and a period of structuring and development that followed culminated in the platform’s launch earlier this year. With international travel set to bounce back in the near future, and online travel agencies emerging as a saving grace for small businesses in the industry – all topped off with a global sustainability drive – GreenGo’s proposition is set for a warm welcome.
