TourWithMe

@bentossell Great questions! Thank you! :) Locals are usually very proud of their hometown/city and love to show it off and make sure visitors have a good time. By sharing with visitors their knowledge, locals can also earn extra income with flexible hours. TourWithMe provides a direct platform just to do that. We made TourWithMe because we wanted to create a smooth mobile and peer to peer authentic experience, in contrast to the traditional tourism industry. We will use our years of data science experience to deliver better content to our users and to ensure Trust & Safety of our platform.

@lukiesky @bentossell It's a weird social thought process to "rent a friend", which seems to be what paying locals to provide knowledge/tours is. But maybe I'm wrong. This comes down to incentives. As I said about AirBnB experiences (https://www.producthunt.com/tech...) -- I'm still not solidly convinced there is a middle ground that makes financial sense for people to take time out of their day to walk around with tourists all day. Tours certainly work on the high end (contexttravel.com) but the middle ground is basically to "rent" a friend for the day.

@drewmeyers @bentossell Speaking of personal experience, I travel often and the locals I have met are usually extremely friendly and happy to share their knowledge and their favorite places/things. I would do the same if time permits for visitors as well. Thanks for Airbnb and Uber, sharing economy has been widely recognized and indeed improving our day to day experience. For tours, we believe in the near future, everyone can have their private guide. :)

@lukiesky @bentossell "I would do the same if time permits for visitors as well." The key word is "if time permits". Most people have jobs, commitments, etc. I am happy to play tour guide from time to time as well if my friends are in town. And sure, if I meet a visitor at a coffee shop or restaurant or on the bus, I'm more than happy to help them with some advice -- but that's very different than playing tour guide. There needs to be a fairly large incentive for me to put aside my day, and go spend a few hours with someone I have no prior relationship with. How much will travelers pay? And how much do hosts need to get paid to do it? Do those two numbers align?

@drewmeyers @bentossell A good point on the time, that's why a tour host can specify the price just like any marketplace. It will be aligned with how much traveler pay and we offer various tours to choose from. We want to provide an environment to facilitate this process and to create the smooth experience.

@xngwng Thank you Xing! :)