What is Zicasso?

Do you have a complex trip to plan and just wish some true experts can help you do it? Zicasso is a free personalized online travel service that provides itinerary bids from a global network of quality travel companies. Each itinerary is manually prepared by experts and personalized to your needs. To ensure quality, we've spent thousands of hours to pre-qualify and select each tour operator and travel agent member.

Zicasso is ideal for busy, discerning travelers who want a hassle-free experience in planning & booking a complex trip.

Why Zicasso? If you are taking a simple trip with say, one or two stops in a familiar destination, there are lots of good solutions on the Internet today, ranging from online travel agencies to travel search engines. But many trips are not so simple, resulting in many hours of research and planning and booking everything you need. Zicasso is designed to take all that hassle out. Our company is built on a unique idea: getting the vacation you want, no matter what your requirements, can be hassle free. Finding quality at the best prices can be easy. Knowing where to go for authentic experiences can be simple.

A personalized online travel service. We match travelers with relevant, quality travel companies which compete by bidding Trip Plans to meet all your trip’s needs. Just a few simple steps:

1. Traveler fills out a simple form to describe the trip he or she wants. Depending on the clarity of your needs, a travel expert from Zicasso may first get back to you online. Zicasso then matches and notifies relevant pre-screened quality travel companies
2. Up to three travel companies use Zicasso’s online system to submit personalized Trip Plans and prices to traveler, typically within 2 - 3 business days. Depending on your needs, these Trip Plans, manually prepared by experts, can include itineraries with expert advice on where to visit, hotels, flights, airport transfers, cruises, other forms of transportation, tour guides, etc.
3. Traveler compares and refines Trip Plans with travel companies
4. Traveler books the Trip Plan(s) that best meets his or her needs, paying travel company directly. Traveler enjoys the trip, then shares feedback with our community

All within an online Web 2.0 environment.

No more doing all that research to build an itinerary. No more having to research which travel agencies or tour operators to use either. No more searching on lots of different websites for lodging, flights, cruises, tour guides, etc. Since we’ve done the homework to select only quality travel companies and they do the homework to plan and bid itineraries for you, you now only have to go to one website: Zicasso.

An online travel community. Zicasso is also a community of travelers and travel companies. Share your discoveries, help each other out with first-hand experiences and stories, recommend the best places to go—travel is a passion which we can all benefit from collective wisdom. We’ve built in all the good stuff of a Web 2.0 community, including a discussion forum called Travel Answers, a travel photo competition in support of sustainable travel, travelogues (blogs), photo sharing, etc. Other social networking functions will be coming soon too. Here’s what sets the Zicasso travel community apart:

• It’s a community built specifically for travel
• Travel companies, with their expert knowledge, are part of the community together with travelers.
• Travel companies get reviews and endorsement comments from traveler clients

Zicasso was founded in 2006 by two passionate travelers, husband-and-wife team Brian Tan and Yuchun Ku, to solve the problem they faced when planning and booking many of their trips—it took soooo much time! Having been to most corners of the world (Brian has been to 38 countries while Yuchun has been to 45), we met many travelers who also faced similar issues.

Headquartered in Mountain View, California—the heart of Silicon Valley and home of tech giants like Google—we are a bunch of folks with two big passions: building the Internet’s most useful travel planning and booking tool and traveling the world.

So thanks for visiting. Come back whenever you need to plan and book a trip, or just to share your passion for travel with our community. And don’t forget to tell your friends about Zicasso!

What we are not

We are not an online travel agency or a tour operator. We are a marketplace which connects buyers (travelers) with sellers (travel agencies and tour operators)—somewhat like eBay being a marketplace which brings buyers and sellers together. Since we do not sell anything ourselves, we are not partial to which travel companies you buy from. We do the homework to match you with up to three relevant quality travel companies and provide a platform which facilitates easy communication and transaction with the travel companies. When you decide which travel company to purchase from, you pay them directly.

What we care about

We believe in building a company which is not only about making money, but also about making meaning. We believe in using our business to inspire and implement solutions for social and environmental improvements. We do this in two ways:

A Built-In Social Mission. Throughout our travels in developing countries—from Sri Lanka to Malaysia, Tunisia, Peru, Vietnam, etc.—we found that many countries are losing jobs to China since foreign investments are shifting to China. This shift seems to cut across diverse industries from light industrial manufacturing and garment making, to technology. When we talked to educated, thoughtful leaders in those countries and asked "What is the future for your country? How will you compete against China?" Often the answer is "tourism."

With its unique business model to connect travelers with travel companies, Zicasso is built with a social mission in mind for these developing countries. Our marketplace solution empowers all travel companies, no matter where they are located and what their size, to reach a global audience and grow their businesses. For developing countries, this results in tourism development and creation of high-quality jobs, leading to better economic conditions. And, we have an opportunity to advocate and encourage the development of sustainable tourism (see below) in these countries.

“1-1-1” Corporate Philanthropy Model. Pioneered by Salesforce.com, this means that 1% of founding equity, 1% of profits, and 1% of employees’ time, are set aside and dedicated to support non-profit causes. We have selected three travel-related causes to support:

• Sustainable tourism education and development (tourism which minimizes impact on the environment as well as respects and benefits local cultures and communities)
• Volunteer travel
• Nature and wildlife conservation

We hope you share our mission for social and environmental improvements. By using Zicasso, you contribute towards this mission and we thank you for your support.

Our community and values

Zicasso’s community is one in which travelers seek the best in quality, authenticity, and value, and travel companies strive to deliver the same. The best travel companies, whether large or small, receive the recognition they deserve and get more business. Travelers and travel companies come to Zicasso to help each other experience the best in travel—both from the client’s and vendor’s perspectives. Towards that end, our community is guided by the following values:

• We believe in open and honest communications—no hidden agenda
• We believe everyone will “do the right thing” to act with integrity and fairness
• We respect each other’s time and effort
• We treat others the way we want to be treated
• We are here to help each other experience the best in travel

In the spirit of these values, Zicasso also pledges that:

• We operate with the highest integrity
• We do not spam
• We do not sell our users’ names and contact information to any third parties
• We take your privacy protection seriously

How We Make Money

We charge a commission to the sellers (travel companies). The buyers (travelers) do not pay to use our service. This is the same way in which eBay makes money. Because we have created an online platform where many sellers are easily accessible to buyers, prices are typically highly competitive, i.e. buyers can expect to get the best value.