SharingJourneys

1.The problem that SharingJourneys solves

A few weeks after the lockdown has been ruled in several european countries, population in those countries start feeling the impact across different areas of their lives.

One of them is the change of travel plans due to the restrictions.

This has a strong impact among the economies based in services like tourism. According to Global international tourist arrivals could decline 20-30 % in 2020 UNWTO, 2020. The coronavirus outbreak has paralysed the tourism industry,(...) devastating economies that are largely dependent on tourism. The situation is particularly difficult in several EU countries that are key tourist destinations, such as Italy, Spain and France. Within the hospitality sector, which is also facing a severe crisis, small and medium-sized enterprises have been particularly badly hit.

So, we have two problems: people who are unable to travel and people who are unable to earn money due to the decrease of turism.

2.The solution SharingJourneys brings to the table

Sharing Journeys provide a solution to the "New and resilient business models challenge", for the tourism sector.

We offer people from different countries who cannot travel today, the possibility to connect to live, exciting experiences hosted by a local guide at tourist spots. And this is just one part of the story. Sharing Journeys offers a new business model for service sectors heavily affected by the lockdown and expected slow recovery in passenger transportation (air, train, etc.). Our solution aims to create value from the main assets at touristic places: knowledge of local guides, outgoing and friendly approach towards visitors, and natural, historical, artistic and cultural wealth of the places.

How do we enable this connection? We provide a platform with two actors (guest and host) and one connecting element (journey). Because crisis is fought with humanity, social support, personal relationships and fun.

The locals (tourist guide, chef, musician, artist, etc.), called "Host" in the system, upload curated "Journeys", which are prepared 30min tours or experiences that are shared with the "Guests" through the browser in a private video session where the Guest will interact in real time being able to ask, explore at his/her will and enjoy the guided tour from the Host. Sharing Journeys intends to create and nurture relationships, as based on the outcome of the Journey, the Guest will surely visit in person the place and will look for the Host to enjoy once again, have a coffee or a beer. Tours to be offered through the platform via video at an agreed time with the Guest.

Booking a Journey Guests can browse available Journeys, select date and time in calendar, and the system notifies the Host about the booking. Once confirmed by Host, the system sends a notification to both Guest and Host about the agreed Journey.

Sharing the Journey Two hours before the Journey, the system sends a reminder through the mobile and email to both participants with the details of the Journey (web address and password to login). Once both Guest and Host have logged in, the Journey starts and for 30min the Guest will enjoy a personal, customized and entertaining tour hosted by an authentic local person! This is a second to none experience, more real and exciting that browsing existing videos in the internet while giving the chance to enjoy the tour the way Guest likes the most.

Rating the Journey Once the video session is finished, the Guest receives a message from the platform to rate the Journey as well as the Host, and to pay a small amount that depends on the outcome of the experience.

Pay back for an amazing Journey As the main purpose of SharingJourneys is to enable alternative income for people at touristic places, it provides Guests the possibility to pay back a small amount of money for the Journey enjoyed. Based on a survey ran across more than 200 participants during the weekend the team explored the potential for this solution.

Based on the feedback from survey participants when asked about willingness to pay for the service:

40% would pay no more than 5EUR
35% would pay between 5EUR and 10EUR
15% would pay something between 10EUR and 15EUR

Based on that, we set a preliminary pricing for a pilot test, as follows:

didn't like it? pay nothing
just average? whatever you want between 3EUR and 5EUR
eyebrowing experience? somewhere between 5EUR and 10EUR
entertaining host and amazing journey? 15EUR, 20EUR, you decide!

Although we explored different alternatives for payments we decided to use mobile payments for the service because of the ubiquity and possibility to quickly transfer money from Guest to Host. Across Europe different mobile payment systems are already established (Swish at Sweden, Bizum at Spain, Lydia at France, Jiffy at Italy). The Guest will only need to authorize the transfer from his/her mobile once tour is over to the QR-code or mobile number of the Host.

How will we approach the market?

We already started contacting local tourist guides through associations and private contacts at Spain and Greece. After the hackathon we have a plan to reach directly through the Host survey and indirectly through tourism office at local governments, aiming to reach 500 local guides per week at each country, adding to referrals we would expect to cover 30% to 50% of tour operators and local guides after three months.

3.What you have done during the weekend

This idea started from Scratch during a previous hackathon (The Global Hack), two weeks ago. However, no big progress was achieved and the goal for EUvsVirus Hackathon has been to define, validate a test a sustainable solution. The team considers this was achieved.

Track 1: Validation: Upon hackathon start, team designed and released a survey in two languages (english+spanish). By the end of the hackathon, 224 answers were registered (avg completion rate 65%). Insights from survey responses have allowed us to define characteristics of the solution.

Track 2: Technical prototype modules. A basic set of stories for the MVP were built on a demo basis, plus file uploads to web server and started firebase config for HTTPS as started receiving errors on access to files over HTTP. Setting up Firebase to host the service

Track 3 - Video sessions. Configuration of demo platform to host the video sessions using Twilio Video API. Track 4 - Discussions with potential Hosts/Guests and mentors to validate features. Track 5 - Visuals. Logo design.

4.The solution’s impact to the crisis

Statistics of UNWTO (2020) are clear: until coronavirus crisis is neutralized, tourism will be critically hit. While SharingJourneys cannot offer solution to the hospitality subsector neither to transportation sector, it helps some actors in the tourism value chain who are reportedly lacking of income for reasons explained above.

A survey ran by the team at SharedJourneys across tourist guides indicates they are currently earning less than 20% of their usual monthly income. In some cases, they directly reported zero income during this period. 75% of the surveyed guides were willing to recommend this service.

We consider a scenario where local guides can start earning money immediately, once they upload the Journeys and Guests start booking Journeys for spring-summer. And we foresee related income scenarios, as follows:

The immediate impact in local economies as tour guides start earning some money will trickle down to a bigger portion of their communities (suppliers, entrances, etc.)
For some journeys we plan to associate add-on services that can be offered by local guides at their end. Take for example, a food lover who books a gastronomic Journey to learn a fantastic recipe of the Greek lamb directly from the local chef at a Greek town. The guest might receive upfront a box with local ingredients and two bottles of wine ordered through the local guide who ships it to the guest's postal address some days before.
- Another group of Hosts that will highly benefit from Sharing Journeys is local artists. A musician, a theater group or dancer can post their performances as Journeys, where groups of Guests can sign up to enjoy the Journeys for a small amount, as private concerts or performances through their Smart TVs, PC browsers, tablets or mobile phones.

We the Sharing Journeys team continue to work on product design based on inquiries to affected population and as said before, the main assets they offer to create value for themselves.

5.The necessities in order to continue the project

The team at SharingJourneys has strong experience in the fields of IT/Telecoms, Finance and Tourism. We are interested in having onboard the following skills to continue the project:

1 x Fullstack Developer (node.js, react native, mongodb, firebase)
1 x UX/UI Designer
1 x fintech consultant to validate mobile payments schema (with experience in european market)
1 x legal advisor to ensure legal requirements at each country are met.

In addition, we plan to develop Sharing Journeys app for the Hosts. As most of the local guides use Android-based phones we would add another resource to the team:

1 x Android developer

Another necessity is financial. Budget to cover costs associated to hosting the service and paying to the payment platforms and messaging providers will have an structure tied to the amount of Journeys completed and therefore will be calculated once final setup for pilot testing is done.

6.The value of your solution(s) after the crisis

SharingJourneys is a long-term solution. While is evident right now the solution is tremendously appealing for local economies during the crisis, it will open a new avenue for income generation among those communities who live out of tourism.

Once crisis is overcome, SharingJourneys will develop richer products that can be available to Guests all over the world so that Hosts can increase reputation, create further Journeys and promote further their destinations.

We have analyzed two scenarios where SharingJourneys will be essential after the crisis:

Medium-term: Despite expecting things returning to normal in some weeks/months (flights resumed, borders reopened, hotels receiving guests), it is clear that one part of the population won't be able or willing to travel for quite some time. Consider retired individuals or population over 65 years old. According to UNWTO statistics(2020), one in four people travelling for tourism across Europe belongs to this age group, which is the high-risk group for coronavirus contagion. Therefore, this age population might have trip possibilities cancelled for the rest of the year, perhaps longer. They would be really willing to use SharingJourneys platform as a great strategy to mitigate frustration and keep mental health by establishing social contact through the experiences of the Journeys.

On the other hand, after conversations with people from the sector, it is observed that it is expected that travel rules and tour restrictions will change to adjust to a new context for healthcare reasons. Therefore, individual cost of physical trips might increase making it more difficult to afford, with implications like shortening trips that will be reflected in reduced touring activities per individual. SharingJourneys will allow a supplementary alternative to enrich tour packages (travel agencies or tour operators might be able to include SharingJourneys to their offers, for instance, three Journeys for each physical package purchased, valid for the season).

Long-term: A Guest who normally make one four-weeks trip per year during summer can enjoy, during several months, different Journeys for a minimum amount, having the possibility to know many places, exchange and interact with a number of locals and even using the Journeys as "appetizers" to explore in reality potential destinations.