About us
Photo taken in Framery Four apartment, owned by HouseTrip host GK LetsHouseTrip was founded in 2009 by Arnaud Bertrand and Junjun Chen. Arnaud and Junjun met whilst studying hospitality management at the acclaimed Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland.
The HouseTrip concept was born as a result of a mutual love of staying in short-term rentals while travelling. The trigger event occurred whilst trying to book a rental for a weekend in Scotland, with a booking process that was so complicated that they decided to dedicate themselves to making it simpler. Their thinking was; “since rentals are better value and more ‘authentic’ than hotels, if it’s easier and safer to book rentals, more people will choose them over hotels.” Given HouseTrip's early success, this has so far held true!
Arnaud and Junjun rapidly managed to convince investors of their idea and to gather the early HouseTrip team. They built the website and launched it in January 2010. Thousands of owners added their rentals during that year and close to 20,000 guests stayed in these properties, writing post-stay reviews that were positive in more than 90% of cases. The HouseTrip story had started and, as you say, the rest is history...
Roll your cursor over each member of our team for a quick snapshot.
HouseTrip.com was founded in 2009, by Arnaud Bertrand and Junjun Chen. In November 2010, HouseTrip.com received funding from Index Ventures, a leading Venture Capitalist company. In its first year, HouseTrip.com was awarded the CTI startup label of the year and VentureKick awards, for its innovative and groundbreaking approach to holiday rentals.
Arnaud Bertrand
Chief Executive Officer & co-founder
Arnaud founded HouseTrip.com in 2009, and has served as Chief Executive Officer since the company's inception. He holds a Bsc in Hospitality Management from Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne, Switzerland. He won the Venture Leaders competition in 2009, and is a regular speaker in the media and at Universities across Europe.
Junjun Chen
Chief Financial Officer & co-founder
Junjun co-founded HouseTrip.com in 2009, and has served as Chief Financial Officer since the company's inception. She holds a Bsc in Hospitality Management from Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne, Switzerland.
David Norris
Chief Operating Officer
David has served as Chief Operating Officer since March 2011. Previously, he was Chief Operating Officer at Livebookings (2007-2011) and before that was Website and eCommerce Operations Director at Expedia.co.uk. He has 20 years experience in the travel industry and has worked in eCommerce since 2000 including management roles at lastminute.com, Online Travel Corporation, ifyouski.com, Simply Travel (now part of TUI) and Eurocamp (Holidaybreak PLC). He is a graduate of The University of Manchester.
Stephan Wiesener
Chief Technology Officer
Stephan co-founded HouseTrip in 2009 as Interim-CTO and Consultant to the founders' team. He came back as full-time CTO in August 2011. Previously he was co-founder, Partner and CTO of conject AG, a Software-Company that supports the whole lifecycle of real-estates over the Internet. Before that he was Manager in the Accenture Technology Practice. Stephan has a Master in Computer Science and Economics and holds a PhD in Computer Science.
Where we are
London
2nd Floor, 17-18 Haywards Place
London, EC1R 0EQ
United Kingdom
HouseTrip HQ
Rue de Sébeillon 9b
1004 Lausanne
Switzerland
Lisbon
Largo do Rato 10
1250 Lisboa
Portugal