One thing that became clear to us is that one of The sectors most affected by the pandemic was tourism. But it seems that little by little, it is rising from the ashes.
Today we interview John CastleCEO Cofounder of , a marketplace where you can book a local guide for free and, in a couple of hours, visit the most emblematic parts of the city. He tells us how they have come back and how their business works in this catastrophic year for tourism. Hit play!
Interview with Juan Castillo (GuruWalk)
13:50 Tell us a little about GuruWalk
I dedicated a year of my life to programming, I am an architect by training, I sneaked into telecom and computer classes as well as taking online courses. I ended the year by coordinating a conference on artificial intelligence at MIT in Boston.
I continued through the world of machine learning, but I knew that I couldn’t be a leader in large projects, I knew more about technology than other founders but I couldn’t lead them. I have closed 7 projects, I have failed many times, and still, I wanted to try one last time.
I spent a lot of time researching what project to try, I knew that I wanted to set up a Marketplace model, which would be in Spain and be able to be an international leader. In Spain we are leaders in tourism, just to start here is an advantage. He also wanted a sector that was small, that he could lead.
I saw the free paid tours and saw that there was not much competition, you could lead and grow and that was the reason for our success.
23:30 GuruWalk is a Marketplace for guides to offer their services, right?
Yes, under the pay-what-you-want model. You don’t pay anything to book, you finish the tour and if you liked it a lot you pay more, if less then less and if you didn’t like it, you can leave without any problem.
In the tourism sector there is a lot of discontent, for example in restaurants you always end up in places that are for foreigners, where they are usually bad because they do not live from recurrence, they live by maximizing what they charge and minimizing what they spend. This is extrapolated to all tourism.
Our system is that if the guide he puts a lot of effort into doing the tour and makes you enjoy getting paid for how well he does it. Those who are good, charge a lot.
24:20 How do you earn the money?
We charge the guides a fixed fee for each person. We have some stockings that can win, some charge €20 per person. In small cities where there are few guides and very little to teach, we do not charge anything, For us it is more valuable that you go to a small town and find a GuruWalk guide who can give you a tour.
With that money we do more marketing campaigns so that they have more people. We are a business with a lot of ambition to grow and dominate the sector, from what we charge the guides we barely earn. Our plan is to lead this internationally, to evangelize where it is unknown and lead this sector becoming a great player in the tourism industry.
27:30 How many guides do you have?
About 4,000 or so. We are the greatest in the world. We are in 110 countries, 800 cities and if you think of any tourist city we have it. We are everywhere, we work to maximize recurrence, if you take a tour in Rome, remember us when you go to Girona.
29:50 How did you get the guides to know you?
We have a commercial team that is in charge of looking for themIn any case, if anyone thinks of working as a free tour guide, they will find us, they will see that we are the leaders.
There is a lot of organic growth, without investing money in advertising we are in 70 countries. It was something that adds a lot of value to people who want to be guides and, on the other hand, people who are looking for free tours of the places they visit.
Mainly and SEM. This month we will invest €50,000 in people who proactively search for our product.
33:40 What team is in GuruWalk?
15 people. We have a very horizontal structure and shared leadership, people do not have a role but a mission that leads to a domain. If you are responsible for the product, you decide when, what and how it is done, having the final decision.
What we achieve is that each part of the team feels that they have ownership of the brand, We have a product person, 3 software engineering and development people, a SEM person, another from , another from communication and 3 from quality,
37:40 How is your billing and what forecast do you have?
Every year we grow a lot, every year it varies a lot. At the beginning of 2020, at the quarterly meeting we were very positive about the project and motivated, until a virus appeared that changed everything. In 2019 we billed €200,000 and in 2020 we billed €320,000 throughout the year, now we expect to bill €300,000 per month.
It’s hard to make plans, we hope There is a 70% increase in air traffic compared to 2019. People really want to travel, so road trips will also increase.
Crises are catalysts for change, they attract a future that must come, making everything faster. In the end to advance time.
43:00 What is the number of monthly reservations?
This month we want to reach 50,000, worldwide. Spain is the main one, we have many towns and cities and people have started doing internal tourism. It is where we have more reservations.
We take into account the feedback with the guides, there are 3 people who take care of it from the first day. We interview the guides and monitor how they do it since they are registered. In addition, we call them to give them advice and ask questions, we do an exhaustive follow-up, for us quality and giving the best service is important.
46:30 How do you work recurrence?
We work the brand a lot in with an entertaining and fun communication and, offer information to our users that may interest them. Following a measurement to know how much you liked, be there so that the client remembers you and has you as a reference.
The most important thing is quality, that you have a good experience with us. If they don’t have it, they won’t give you a second chance.
51:50 How do you see the evolution of tourism since Covid?
We hope to double month to month, our reservations are made at short notice. We are not good at predicting the future. Travel agencies or hotels can give better data. But although there is uncertainty, we are optimistic.
Expectations are good.
52:50 What are your challenges?
This is organic and linear, but I would like reach that everyone when you travel, the first thing you do is to do a GuruWalk because you understand that it is the ideal. There is a lot of evangelization work, to see if we are able to do it and not lose a lot of money trying.
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