Virtual Wanderer

Inspiration

We know that the current crisis will have an impact on the economy with many sectors which will be impacted in different ways. We chose to focus on the tourism and travel industry, an industry that is anticipated to face many hardships in the future. This includes the vulnerability of the small and medium-sized businesses at every level which depend on this industry but also the countless jobs that this ecosystem drives. In this context, the World Travel and Tourism Council estimates a job reduction of 12% to 14% and a time of recovery that could take up to 10 months for the industry to retake. We can also imagine that this pandemic will have an impact on households' income and savings thus preventing them from going on vacation even if the situation improves. Moreover, we can easily imagine that some people will have a certain degree of apprehension about traveling in the future. This reflection has finally led us to consider other cases in which traveling embodies a challenging experience,for instance, elderlies and people who can't physically travel.

What it does

We came up with the idea of a digital immersive travel experience that allows people to live an authentic and sustainable cultural experience from home. Since opportunities for travel might be jeopardized during and after the lockdown, our platform, Virtual Wanderer, will be an alternative way for people to still have exposure to the ultimate must-visit cities going from the most famous ones to the most enchanting yet uncovered/little-known ones. This discovery process will enable our clients, on the one hand, to discover unique places, activities, events that were specially recommended by locals within the considered city. Through their subscriptions, they are also able to contribute to the continuity of the many businesses and jobs which are at risk of collapse during this uncertain time.

Challenges we ran into

Considering the fact that we both have business backgrounds, we lack expertise when it comes to the technical aspect.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We have already created a website that gives a good illustration of how the platform will look like when it will be 100% functional and that in just one day.

What we learned

We learned about content creation, certain aspects of virtual reality, how to build a website, and many other aspects.

What's next for Virtual Wanderer

We will start using our network to come up with a list of cities and related experiences that will be featured on our platform. Both of us have original backgrounds: One of us was is Half Venezualian and half Belgium and is currently based in Switzerland, the other is Tunisian and is currently based in France. We have been brought up and have evolved in multicultural environments which we believe is an asset to launch this journey. After identifying the first cities which we feature and design a first glimpse of the journey and experience that we would like to offer on our platform, we will reach out free tour providers who can connect us with some tour guides. We will also have an open call running on our website and social media pages for local professionals based in our cities of interest so that they can send us their applications.

Built With

• wix