In an innovative move TravelStarter has decided to aspire to be a global crowdfunding platform for travel and tourism business ventures.
The company is a two-way street. It enables everyday travellers to support local projects at their next destination and get “travel perks” (like a free place to stay or free professional photographs of their trip) in return.
Locals run campaigns to fund projects, such as opening a cafe or a hostel. The structure of their rewards, and the travel-specific mission, are the justifications for having a separate platform from today’s largest platform: Kickstarter.
Let’s say a person is going to Paris but instead of staying in a hotel room, he logs on TravelStarter.com and checks the various projects that people have in Paris.
By funding the project he gets a couple of nights of accommodation, a bike rental and a local tour guide.
TravelStarter has a secondary mission of encouraging travelers to engage in more locally instigated experiences and thus conserve a diversity of communities against the onslaught of mass market, global chains.
The bootstrapped startup is based out of Slovenia with a small team. Co-founders Anushka Cerovsek Beltram (CEO) and Blaz Jemc (COO) have tapped a part-time social media ambassador Mic Melansek and have contracted with some developers.
