In the digital world, very few founders actually know how to turn social media views into real business revenue. Zak Longo is one of them. The Canadian-born entrepreneur and investor splits his time between Miami and the Bahamas. He’s built a career by turning online attention into high-performing companies. Having generated over $100 million in revenue from various media, apparel, and hospitality brands, he is now throwing his weight behind a shift in how people book travel. In this chat, Longo, the co-founder and CEO of Travly, discusses his vision, the company’s rapid growth, and how he is rewriting the rules for booking vacations online.
Q: You’ve created many successful companies in your career, but Travly represents a unique mix of media and technology. What originally inspired the platform, and what specific problem did you want to fix in the travel industry?
Zak Longo: The idea for Travly came from just watching how people plan trips now. Nobody opens an old travel agency website or a legacy booking engine when they want to get inspired. They go to social media. They see a 10-second video of a beautiful Caribbean resort or a cool boutique hotel in Italy, and they want to go there immediately. For a long time, the gap between seeing that video and actually booking that trip was frustrating. It took too many steps. I wanted to build something that seamlessly connected those two moments. We built Travly to turn lifestyle inspiration into immediate booking. By putting high-quality media content directly into a hotel booking app, we removed friction. We made finding travel feel natural with how people live online today.
Q: Travly has grown quite fast by tapping into digital audiences. Can you talk about how you used your background in digital networks to scale the platform’s reach?
Zak Longo: My belief as an entrepreneur is that attention is the ultimate currency. When you own the distribution channel, you change the math on how much it costs to get customers. We built Travly on a powerful engine, leveraging a massive digital community and a curated social media network that generated billions of impressions annually. We knew exactly how to grab someone’s interest in the first few seconds of a video, so we drove millions of people to our travel content without paying for ads. This helped us avoid expensive marketing models entirely. This steady pipeline helped us validate the product quickly and build a real community of travellers. It also proved to our hotel partners that we could drive bookings faster and more efficiently than older platforms.
Q: The technology behind Travly is a major differentiator in the travel tech space. How did you design the platform’s infrastructure to optimize user experience and build long-term value?
Zak Longo: The real value of Travly comes down to our own booking infrastructure and our mobile app. We invest significant resources in ensuring our booking technology is independent, fast, and secure. This way, we can offer a great booking experience right in the app, keep users happy, and make navigation easy. By focusing on what travellers need and building our own software, we keep Travly moving fast. By leveraging independent technology, we have a strong future in our hands, helping us improve the app for our growing user base.
Q: From a business perspective, how do you convince hotels and luxury resorts to partner with Travly rather than just sticking with the established booking sites they have used for decades?
Zak Longo: It comes down to performance and a better way of doing business. The big, established booking sites charge high fees and treat hotels like commodities on a long list. We offer something different. We give hotels direct visibility through high-quality, engaging content that showcases their properties in a modern way. Travellers get a true look at the experience before they book. Our platform helps hotels reach a younger, highly active audience that they struggle to find through old-school marketing. By making the partnership more fair and focusing on real visual storytelling, we show properties that we can bring them valuable bookings while treating them like partners.
Q: What does the future look like for Travly, and what milestones are next on your roadmap for the company?
Zak Longo: Right now, we are focused on growing our reach and building more independent channels. We are actively expanding our footprint across new digital channels, ensuring our travel content reaches a much wider global audience. We are also doubling down on our direct partnerships with five-star hotels, luxury resorts, and travel creators who want to be part of a modern, fair ecosystem. Travly is operating and growing beautifully. We are moving forward with a great product, a strong growth strategy, and a team excited to meet global demand for experiential travel. The future of travel is driven by content, and Travly is leading the way.
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