Tourism Influencer

The tourism industry is a main job source for disadvantaged communities in Mexico since most people living around tourist destinations live from or work in this industry.

Given the COVID-19 outbreak, Mexico is one of the countries with largest losses in the tourism industry. Thousands of people are losing jobs and opportunities to find new jobs are low.

That is why Tourism Influencer will help people recover. This platform consists of a chatbot and e-learning app, that will provide the training required to become a content creator, or otherwise called an influencer.

The platform will show the users video tutorials, where and how to create content to show the world their way of living, the beauty of their communities, and so much more.

The users will learn to make money by becoming influencers and since the job loss situation is happening around the world, communities can support each other.

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are betting on tourism. In addition to enhancing economic growth and helping to reduce poverty, tourism has been shown to promote social inclusion and incentivize natural and cultural resource conservation.

Mexico is fifth in employment in the tourism industry. In Q4 of 2019, INEGI published that the tourism industry represented 8.9% of Mexican employment.

Tourism industry is one of the main job sources for disadvantaged communities in Mexico since most people living around tourism destinations work in that industry.

Tourism will be strongly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Latin America will lose millions of travelers. Mexico is the number one tourism destination in Latin America, number seven worldwide, which means Mexico is one of the countries with the greatest employment losses. Airlines are reducing their flights, cruise lines are suspending operations and hotels are closing. The result of this situation will cause massive job losses in the country, and for people in disadvantaged communities that live from tourism will not be easy to retain employment.

That is why, by using Tourism Influencer, people from disadvantaged communities will learn how to make money in a different way.

This platform is created for people from disadvantaged communities that live off tourism or used to work in the tourism industry and lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Tourism Influencer will provide them the tools needed to promote tourism for their communities, by training them to become worldwide influencers of their communities and showing them how to make money out of creating content for the rest of the world.

Tourism Influencer is a platform that consists of a chatbot and e-learning app, that will provide the training required to become a content creator, otherwise called an influencer.

The first approach in the app will be the concierge, which is the chatbot that will help users find out which training best fits them.

The concierge will give the users two options to begin their content creator experience:

1. Individual Influencer
2. Group of Influencers

Option 1: After selecting, the concierge will ask users a couple of questions, and depending on the user’s experience the concierge will suggest video tutorials that are the best fit.

Option 2: This option requires a minimum of ten people and maximum twenty. Each user will select the task they would like to develop and/or like to learn, and the concierge will suggest video tutorials to them.

After that, the platform will show users the best way to become an influencer, through video tutorials. There will be a wide range of tutorials, such as:

• How to create content?

• How to use platforms like Patreon or OnlyFans

• How to use social media

• Photography courses

• How to talk in public

The users will learn how to make money by showing the world their way of living, activities they do, talking about their lives, and giving tours and talking about their communities. Users will become influencers by showing the world another way of tourism and given the unemployment situation, communities can support each other.

Tourism Influencer will be piloted in Quintana Roo, Mexico, and if successful, can be scaled to all of Latin America. Any person with access to the internet can access the platform and become an influencer. People from communities have access to internet cafes and Tourism Influencer can also be in schools.

For communities that do not have internet access, last year the governor presented a project called “Internet in communities of Quintana Roo”, implemented by the Quintanarroense Institute of Innovation and Technology. Their goal is to connect 300 communities. In less than two years the first 153 communities will be connected to the network backbone. [1], [2]

The easiest way for people to create content is by using their smartphones. In 2020, 79.64 million Mexicans will have smartphones, which represents 63% of the population.

Number of smartphone users (millions) in Mexico from 2018 to 2024. [3]

Our proposed solution is innovative because:

1. It enables people to access a tourism audience anywhere in the world and earn an income online;

2. It provides a rapid way for people in disadvantaged communities that live off of tourism to learn and earn a living;

3. It offers 24/7 training to people to use existing social media platforms to earn a living;

4. It supports tourism in communities and natural areas without degradation because the tourists are remote from these sites;

5. It allows users to earn money by sharing content about their lifestyle and the cultural and natural wealth of their communities, raising awareness of the importance of sustainable development and also having the opportunity to connect with millions of travel lovers, food and gastronomy;

6. It offers a platform that allows learning from the web and any mobile device; and

7. The platform will optimize for content most liked by users and courses most valued by communities using the data it generates.

Within our team, we have people who come from Mexico and have detailed knowledge of local conditions and problems. One has over 10 years of experience working in the tourism industry. Another runs a software company in Cancun, Mexico that has created a number of tourism related applications. [1] One is the president of a Mexico-Canadian business network organization with significant social media experience.

We have not served anyone currently as we are in the early stages of designing this proposed solution. However, our initial user target is 28,000 people from Quintana Roo, Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Riviera Maya and Tulum who have lost their jobs as bartenders, cleaners, maids, cooks, maintenance technicians, etc. We project that we will expand in Mexico in the first year with a user base of 1.3 million people, and then the rest of Latin America in three years with a user base of 6 million people.

The tourism industry in Latin America may not recover to previous levels post COVID-19, and thus, we would like to support long term emerging media careers. As an online platform, we can scale up to a significant number of Latin Americans and Caribbeans with low effort. At the same time, we will bring in new economic activities, offer cultural exchange and sustainable tourism to Latin American people.

Our barriers are primarily funding as we have the technical, legal, cultural and marketing skills and experience covered.

We will apply to multiple sources of funding such as online challenges and grants. We will work to establish partnerships with organizations that can help us achieve our goals.

We will initially start in Quintana Roo, Mexico as it is the largest market in the travel industry in Latin America and we are familiar with this region. We will then enter into regions that have similar markets such as the Dominican Republic, Peru and Colombia.

This solution is proposed by the team at Envisioning Labs, an award-winning innovation consultancy that assists organizations address global challenges by designing futures and building innovations that matter. Our expertise on emerging technologies and innovation methodologies allow us to empower our clients in creating value-added assets. These assets may take the form of new products, services, experiences or business models that ensure our clients remain relevant in their industry while staying ahead of the competition. Envisioning Labs will be involved with the design and development of the proposed solution.

The solution team consists of three full-time members, and three part-time consultants.

We are a multi-disciplinary and international team of Canadians and Mexicans with experiences and knowledge in tourism, software development, emerging technologies and innovation methodologies. Some of our team members have worked in some of the most popular tourist destinations of Mexico for over 10 years, and have experienced the local problems that are exhibited there first hand. We believe our combined strengths and insights position us well in understanding and addressing the key problems connected to this challenge.

At this stage, we have not partnered with any organizations yet. However, moving forward, we would like to reach out to a number of key organizations in Mexico that are listed in the Partnership Potential section.

The initial funding from the TPrize Challenge will allow us to explore and identify a suitable business model.

We believe we can reach traction with the initial user target through the TPrize Challenge funding. We want to help people who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19.

• Hotels, restaurants and tourism companies that have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak - Hotels, restaurants and tourism companies who employ people from disadvantaged communities can promote our app to their employees, and in turn, they can advocate our solution within their own communities.
• National System for Integral Family Development (DIF) - We would like DIF to become one of our marketing channels since it has access to a large number of disadvantaged communities.
• Quintanarroense Institute of Innovation and Technology - Providing the resources, especially internet access for disadvantaged communities, to run the pilot program.
• Platforms such as Patreon and OnlyFans - Potential source of revenue by promoting their platforms to our users.