OCT 20 - STARTUP LAB ON PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

The startup lab was our opportunity to present our ideas to other students with a different academic background. The session was basically split in two parts:

1. each team member was individually presenting the idea to another student to receive feedback.
2. afterwards the original teams got together to discuss the results.

As discussed in the last post the problem we had identified was, that tourists lack sufficient local information about the cities they travel. They would like to have a more authentic experience, avoid tourist traps and know in advance, what places (except the obvious tourist attractions) are worth visiting. Also they are interested in what has to be kept in mind in terms of buying tickets and where to grasp a glance of the cultural spanish life in the city. 

An analog that pictures the situation very well, would be your enhanced experience if you have a friend in town, that knows (1) you and (2) the city and who can give you advice, help you out if you need assistance with anything and can give you advice what is important to consider when exploring the city. 

The problem seamed "plausible" to our feedback partner - a spanish media engineering student. 
He agreed, that it is difficult to get relevant insights to touristic locations but also acknowledged that with the wide range of services that was already being offered to tourists it would be difficult to make it a profitable business model. The following crucial aspects were pointed out:

• price matters: how much would customers be willing to pay for what kind of service?
• the service would have to be independent - so recommendations can fully focus on what fits the customer best.
• this however stands in conflict to revenue generation from commissions
• also, it would be essential to know the customer very well to make good suggestions (not everybody likes the same things)
• it is less about finding options: basically all sites and locations are online and rated in e.g. trip advisor already - so it is about finding the right ones for the particular customer

Summing up it can be said, that there is a good chance that the identified problem is being perceived by a significant user group, but that it might be very challenging to find a solution to the problem that fits different kind of customers, is different from the variety of existing services in the tourist industry and affordable at the same time. 

In talking about the possible solutions - or rather aspects of a possible solution, the following three components were suggested:

• an office or meeting point where travelers could get information on arrival
• Question: how is it different from regular tourist offices?
• What could be the immediate service that could be offered?
• an application for mobile phones that lists "authentic" locations and has an integrated rating system.
• Question: how would it be different from e.g. TripAdvisor?
• a telephone service to contact a personal guide
• a community of travelers that helped each others out and gave advice (local persons in their city give advice to travelers from other locations. In return they will be receiving advice once the travel themselves)
• Question: how is it different from e.g. couch surfing?

These suggestions certainly contribute to a better understanding of possible solutions to this problem. It is certainly true that many sources of information is available already. In fact, people traveling via couch surfing might already have a valid solution through the contact to their hosts - similar to people that have acquaintances in the city they travel. Our task would therefore be to find a solution for those who do not have access yet such as people, that do not like couch surfing and do not want to approach foreign people, but that would be willing to pay more to get an authentic experience even though they are staying in for example a hotel.

Problem Description

Suggested Solutions