Headout and Magpie Partner to Boost Content, Reduce Costs
Headout to be the launch partner for Magpie’s new Product Onboarding Platform offering
San Francisco, April 8, 2020: Headout, the New York City based reseller of tours and activities, has signed an agreement to utilise Magpie’s content platform for supplier on-boarding and ongoing content management. Under the agreement, Headout will be the foundational partner for Magpie’s new product offering, implementing a white label version of Magpie’s platform as the preferred method for tour and activity operators to submit and maintain their product content.
Discussing the partnership, Headout CEO Varun Khona said “We’re very focused on boosting the number of quality suppliers and products we offer our consumers, hence we understand the need of a well thought of content management system. By using Magpie we hope to streamline the process of onboarding suppliers and their content which can now be managed better. More importantly, we empower our suppliers to make efficient use of their content, submitting it to Headout, and repurposing it for other use. It’s time the industry stopped creating this burden of replication based on multiple proprietary systems, and we’re glad to take a lead on this issue.
Magpie CEO Christian Watts agreed, saying “Right now, suppliers are forced to load and manage their content in proprietary extranets for many of the major OTAs, and to deliver a mess of Word and Excel files to other reseller partners. Frankly, both sides of the market are spending too much time loading and managing content, and our cloud-based, centralised CMS will save an enormous amount of inefficiency at a time where resources are extremely scarce.”
Watts said that resellers need not worry that they will be accessing the exact same content as their competitors. “We understand that many resellers need to differentiate their offering, so Magpie allows a supplier to store multiple versions of their products. Typically, a reseller will want to re-write the highlights and long description fields, perhaps the product name, but beyond that, most of the fields have standardised information that doesn’t get edited at all. With access to the most comprehensive and up-to-date product information, the reseller can much more easily include accurate information, as well as re-write compelling descriptions, which boost conversion”, he said.
About Magpie Travel
Magpie was founded in 2019 by Christian Watts, who also founded City Sightseeing San Francisco. The company is focused on delivering cloud-based solutions for content management to the Tours & Activities sector of the travel industry. Magpie’s founding investors include Rod Cuthbert, the founder and former CEO of Viator (now part of the TripAdvisor Group) and former CEO & Chairman of Rome2rio; and Kei Shibata and Kenichi Shibata, the founders of Venture Republic, a Tokyo-based investment company with an extensive travel industry portfolio.
Headout and Magpie Partner to Boost Content, Reduce Costs
Headout to be the launch partner for Magpie’s new White Label Extranet product offering.
San Francisco, April 8, 2020: Headout, the New York City based reseller of tours and activities, has signed an agreement to utilise Magpie’s content platform for supplier on-boarding and ongoing content management. Under the agreement, Headout will be the foundational partner for Magpie’s new product offering, implementing a white label version of Magpie’s platform as the preferred method for tour and activity operators to submit and maintain their product content.
Discussing the partnership, Headout CEO Varun Khona said “We’re very focused on boosting the number of quality suppliers and products we offer our consumers, hence we understand the need of a well thought of content management system. By using Magpie we hope to streamline the process of onboarding suppliers and their content which can now be managed better. More importantly, we empower our suppliers to make efficient use of their content, submitting it to Headout, and repurposing it for other use. It’s time the industry stopped creating this burden of replication based on multiple proprietary systems, and we’re glad to take a lead on this issue.
Magpie CEO Christian Watts agreed, saying “Right now, suppliers are forced to load and manage their content in proprietary extranets for many of the major OTAs, and to deliver a mess of Word and Excel files to other reseller partners. Frankly, both sides of the market are spending too much time loading and managing content, and our cloud-based, centralised CMS will save an enormous amount of inefficiency at a time where resources are extremely scarce.”
Watts said that resellers need not worry that they will be accessing the exact same content as their competitors. “We understand that many resellers need to differentiate their offering, so Magpie allows a supplier to store multiple versions of their products. Typically, a reseller will want to re-write the highlights and long description fields, perhaps the product name, but beyond that, most of the fields have standardised information that doesn’t get edited at all. With access to the most comprehensive and up-to-date product information, the reseller can much more easily include accurate information, as well as re-write compelling descriptions, which boost conversion”, he said.
About Magpie Travel
Magpie was founded in 2019 by Christian Watts, who also founded City Sightseeing San Francisco. The company is focused on delivering cloud-based solutions for content management to the Tours & Activities sector of the travel industry. Magpie’s founding investors include Rod Cuthbert, the founder and former CEO of Viator (now part of the TripAdvisor Group) and former CEO & Chairman of Rome2rio; and Kei Shibata and Kenichi Shibata, the founders of Venture Republic, a Tokyo-based investment company with an extensive travel industry portfolio.