Forests in San Francisco: Finding Unique Experiences on Vayable

What Type of Attractions are on Vayable?

The attractions team’s second tour was an urban night hike through San Francisco booked on the Vayable platform.   We started in the Castro Neighborhood and hiked about five miles over the course of two and a half hours.  Along our journey we visited historic mansions and learned about the culture and traditions of San Francisco.  Our hike concluded with a summit to the top of Twin Peaks which featured a picturesque view of the San Francisco skyline.

Who is Tour-Guiding on Vayable?

While each story is unique, our tour was conducted by an independent operator who had an interesting backstory.  She received her MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and moved to San Francisco to work for Google.  After four years of dealing with corporate bureaucracy and fighting a two-hour commute, Alex went into business for herself by offering urban hikes throughout the bay area.  When asked why she made the drastic career shift, she responded by saying she loves the flexibility Vayable offers, the personal interaction she gets with customers, and trading her cubicle for the outdoors. 

How Was Our Experience on Vayable?

Chip Conley, from Airbnb, said it best when he said “customers are willing to accept a high standard deviation in quality in pursuit of unique experiences.”  This could not be more true of Vayable and the entire Tours and Attractions segments of the sharing economy.  Airbnb and Uber are currently hyper-focused on quality control and enhancing the user experience.  The tours and attractions segment does not have this same focus.  Anyone can join the Vayable platform, there is little to no vetting process for new hosts, and there is no formal process to deal with poor reviews.  Unlike Uber and Airbnb who will remove poor performing drivers and hosts, respectively, no such system exists on Vayable.  Luckily for us, we had an amazing user experience from beginning to end.  Our host communicated with us quickly after booking and was very responsive to our questions leading up to the trip.  She made a sincere and concerted effort to customize our tour to our liking and ensure we had a fun time from first to last step. 

Room for Improvement?

This can be summed up in two words: instant bookings.  The biggest pain point in the user experience for Vayable is the lack of instant booking capability.  Personally, I have booked three tours through Vayable and the average lead time for confirming a booking is over 48 hours.  Tours and attractions are usually an afterthought for tourists who first focus on airfare and lodging accommodations.  Oftentimes, tours and attractions are not booked until tourists are on the ground in their destination.  Having to wait 2-3 days to confirm a booking is incredibly frustrating.  For people traveling on long weekend trips, this confirmation time spans the entire duration of their trip.  Vayable needs to find a way to keep host schedules updated and confirm tours in a timelier manner.    

-Michael Spooner