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OAs Search for Votes to Pitch Hotel Booking Idea to Richard Branson

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Old Aloysians Luke and Hollie Gallen are searching for votes to make it through to the next round an entrepreneurial competition held by Virgin Media Business and win the chance to pitch their start-up business idea of a hotel booking engine driven by social media to Sir Richard Branson.

The OA brother and sister from the Class of 2009 and Class of 2011 were inspired by their father’s career in the hotel business to dream up their idea of a booking engine which harnesses the power of social media to help lower the price of hotel rooms.

Their hotel booking engine, Viagoose, promises customers the best rate for their hotel room anywhere on the internet as standard.

The interesting part comes between the time bookings are made and the moment the customer checks-in, when the price of the hotel room drops with every other booking made.

This variation on traditional hotel booking platform aims to encourage users of Viagoose to share their bookings on social media so that other users around the world are incentivised to book the same room type, increasing bookings for the hotel and decreasing rates for the customer.

Not forgetting the St Aloysius’ College mission of ‘Men and Women for Others’, Luke and Hollie have promised that for every booking made through Viagoose a donation of £1 will be made to a homeless charity in the same city as the hotel.

The Old Aloysians would love to see their idea succeed and hope to receive enough votes from the Aloysian Community to make it through to the next round of VOOM, a Virgin Media Business competition where start-up business ideas are voted for by the public. Discussing Viagoose, Hollie said,

“We're just a shoestring start-up with an idea we really believe in and could use all the help we could get. My brother and I came up with the idea five years ago and with the help of our dad’s hospitality experience we're launching online and in the iTunes App store and Google Play later this year. If there is anything the school community could do to help us we would be extremely grateful.”

Follow the link below to read a full description of Viagoose and vote to help kick start their entrepreneurial careers OAs Luke and Hollie:

https://www.vmbvoom.com/pitches/viagoose-com

OA Luke Gallen, Class of 2009, graduated with a degree in International Business and Spanish from Strathclyde University in 2014 and OA Hollie Gallen, Class of 2011, is currently studying International Business at Edinburgh University.