Over the past few years, a rise of a new industry vertical has taken countries around the world by storm: Collaborative Consumption.
Wait, what?
Collaborative Consumption, or Sharing Economy, describes social and economic systems driven by network technologies that enable the sharing and exchange of all kinds of assets from spaces to skills to cars in ways and on a scale never possible before. Anyone can rent and share their processions and belonging to other people in the network.
Collaborative Consumption has been made popular by AirBnB, a platform that allows anyone to rent out their property to other guests. We have covered AirBnb and its Asia counterparts extensively on Vulcan Post too.
The market for collaborative consumption in Asia Pacific region is still in a relatively early stage of adoption. Nonetheless, without doubt, these companies hold the potential to disrupt the way existing businesses work in the Asia Pacific region.
The growth of the collaborative consumption industry is very fast-paced in this region- fueled by VC investments and geographical expansions from notable companies. This includes AirBnB which set up a regional office in Singapore, as well as the acquisition of Singapore based Travelmob by HomeAway.
The collaborative consumption industry can be segmented into different categories, and here’s a list of these companies arranged in alphabetical order:
Accommodation:
(Singapore) Airbnb
(Singapore) Room-o-Rama (Short Term Rentals, Nightly and Weekly Apartments, Homes and Rooms)
(Singapore) TravelMob (Vacation rentals, short term rentals, villas and apartments – travelmob)
Dining experiences:
(Singapore) BonAppetour (Dine with a local)
(Japan) Kitchhike (Discover the world through Kitchens! – KitchHike)
(India) MealTango (mealtango.com)
Crowd-sourced tours:
(Singapore) Indiescapes (Unique tours and things to do with locals in Asia)
(Japan) Meetrip (Travel guide and tour by local people)
(Korea) MyRealTrip
(Japan) Shiroube (Find Local Guides – Shiroube.com)
(Vietnam) Triip .me (Triip – Best private tours crafted by handpicked local tour guides in South East Asia)
(Indonesia) TripTrus (TripTrus Home)
Transportation:
(Singapore) Drive .sg (Rent a car from Singapore’s biggest car rental marketplace)
(Singapore) iCarsClub
(Australia) Jayride (Jayride – Travel A to B!)
(Australia) Divvy (Divvy lets you make money renting your parking space, for longer.)
(India) Olivetrips (Travel Together. It Makes Sense!!!)
(China) Pickride (Pickride)
(Singapore) Smove (All electric vehicle sharing)
(Phillipines) Tripid (Tripid)
These are the companies that are founded or based in Asia-Pacific region. The emergence of these vertical of companies give rise to the collaborative consumption economy in Asia Pacific, and we are sure that the number of companies in this space to increase in 2014.
Are there any companies we missed out?
Read also: BonAppetour makes sure you never have another boring meal again
Article written with contribution from Inez Wihardjo, COO and Cofounder of BonAppetour