London & Mumbai, compared & contrasted for travellers

We’ve seen numerous social networks for travellers in recent years, including KLM’s location-specific Club China and Club Africa for connecting people who do business in those parts of the world. Taking a slightly different tack is British Airways’ Metrotwin, which focuses on comparing and contrasting city “twins” instead. New York and London are the cities paired on the main Metrotwin site, which provides recommendations for the best neighbourhoods, businesses, attractions and places to visit on both sides of the pond. Rather than connecting travellers, it strives to be more of a social utility for time-starved, novelty-seeking urbanites living in or travelling between the two cities. Same goes for Metrotwin Mumbai, a like-minded arm of the effort that pairs London and Mumbai instead. The site explains: “Do you know where to find the Breach Candy of London? What about the Tate Modern of Mumbai? Metrotwin makes these cross-references useful by asking people like you to suggest Mumbai and London ‘twins’ for neighbourhoods, businesses, attractions, places and people.” Rather than reviewing any and every cafe in those cities, then, it focuses on comparable “best of” destinations, drawing from local online communities and bloggers—who, incidentally, get rewarded for their content with British Airways miles. Now in beta, Metrotwin puts an interesting spin on travel review sites by focusing on equivalent attractions in very different cities. That’s how people often learn about new things, after all—by comparing them with what they already know—so the approach makes intuitive sense. One to emulate for travellers in your part of the world, or to apply to a different product category? Spotted by: Louisa Redshaw Image credits: Deepa and obo-bobolina