Interview with Jen Corley of WeTravel

By: Erica Mestyanek, Editor Dallas Yoga Magazine, Co-Founder Cosmic Yogi Movement

I had the opportunity to chat with Jen Corley of WeTravel. This company is very focused on bringing together a community of organizations and entrepreneurs to help streamline the payment process system for retreats and special events. Not only that, but they are happy to share the information they have been collecting over the years. On their site, they even have a blog with retreat leader resources to help beginners as well.

Erica: Tell me about yourself.

Jen: I work for a company called WeTravel which is a payments and bookings platform for group travel for the wellness space which is largely retreats and destination trainings and other out of studio experiences. I am the Director of Development for Wellness Travel and as a previous yoga instructor, this position is a perfect marriage of the things I love; travel and yoga.

Erica: Would you say WeTravel is a payment processing platform for only group travel or is it open to other events?

Jen: There is no travel required in terms of an event being a good fit for the platform. Basically, it is a payment system for anything which an organization or an individual teacher needs to collect funds for; sometimes in payment plans, amount due, etc. We have a customizable checkout form to collect as little or as much information needed from customers. To clarify, it wouldn’t be a replacement for something like your Mind Body Online platform, but more so for those one off events that are maybe more logistically complicated.

Erica: What would be the benefit for a studio or teacher to use WeTravel instead of other payment platforms available?

Jen: For different people, they find the value in different ways. That being said, I think our two most important value propositions are; our cost and there is no setup, monthly, recurring or hidden fees. The cost is 1% of the funds transacted. We have the ability to process payments through bank transfers or the client can decide to absorb credit card fees or even pass those along. There are wonderful reports where you can track who owes you money, you can send your customers messages through the site and so many other features to help make this a smooth process.

Erica: I see on your website there is a link to retreatcenterdirectory.com. Can you tell me more about that?

Jen: Our main business is WeTravel, however retreatcenterdirectory.com is the sister site. This was built last spring and we launched at the end of summer last year. Basically as We Travel, we had tons of contacts with retreat leaders, yoga teachers or other healers and coaches offering retreats as well as contacts at the retreat locations. All of this information had previously just been stored in a database. Our team members decided it would be great to get all of this information online. The site is meant to be very interactive, we have Yelp style reviews, and you can find retreat leaders as well as the retreat centers available to book all around the globe.

Erica: What a great way to get this information into the hands of people that need it the most!

Jen: It really is. It is also worth noting that we do not monetize retreatcenterdirectory.com in any way. This is just a site with the information needed to help bring our community together. It’s free to create a listing for a retreat center and it’s free to retreat leaders to find those centers.

Erica: Thank you Jen for taking the time to talk to us about WeTravel. There are many of our readers who could benefit from this!