How does it work? The user choses his/her tourist destination, and gets the access to different tourist stories, mostly family-based, with great potential, but lack of funds for financing their ideas. Now they can ask for support from on-line users, who are rewarded by attractive prizes: a night in the hostel opened with their help, a gourmet lunch in the restaurant they helped renovate, an organized adventure in nature, or a package of unique herbal tea. The purpose is also to create an even closer link between loyal or potential customers and local providers.

TravelStarter encourages the development of local communities and micro- and small companies. It helps local tourist providers to realize their dreams, as they can publish the project they are developing at the web platform, and the visitors of the platform can give them financial support in exchange for a prize, adequate to the amount of invested funds. Donations, and consequently prizes, in average range between five and 200 euros.

Small tourist companies often face problems connected with development and investment due to lack of financial sources; TravelStarter allows them to share their story with a large number of people at home and all over the world, and thus gain the funds necessary for achieving their goal in an alternative manner.

Eight local pilot tourist projects from Slovenia, Great Britain, France and Croatia were included in TravelStarter.

TravelStarter is the result of Slovenian creativity, knowledge and technology, and has already been introduced among innovations at the recent Innovation Forum at the Cankar Hall. Its creators are Anuška Cerovšek Beltram and Blaž Jemc, both coming from tourist industry.

A. P. J.
Translated by G. K.