This concept really resonate with me. I live in New Orleans, which gets lots of tourists. Many of them will spend their entire trip at the culturally hollow bourbon st, overpriced hotels and bars that people who live here would roll their eyes at. There's much better (& cheaper) places to eat and drink. Also, who wants to visit a city only to hang out with other tourists? Hopefully, ViaHero launches in NOLA soon.
@tdavidson I started building this because 300 million people want trip planning help from an actual human but aren't getting it, plus increasingly travel is about local experiences and not landmarks. With the growth in the collaborative economy and millennial international travel (they love local culture and experiences - 70% use Airbnb vs 3% of baby boomers), the writing was on the wall.
Most of our Heroes (local planners) are Airbnb hosts or ex-tour guides.
There's been a lot of chatter re. the power of bots and AI-inspired tools to help make travel better. In fact, I stumbled on this earlier version of a "bot-assisted" travel agent yesterday from @2pasc (https://twitter.com/daveambrose/...). However, what about good old paper itineraries when you're about to take off?
ViaHero helps you interact w. a local "Hero" to guide a more thorough travel experience. Their first market is Cuba.
Strikingly
ViaHero
Foresight
ViaHero
Polywork