Village Experiences

Without english skills and internet access many villagers can’t participate in the online homestay marketplace. High operational costs combined with low booking revenue shares (3-5%) prevent competitors such as Airbnb from activating this supplier segment. 

We’ve developed a marketplace that creates economic opportunity for villagers and enriched cultural experiences for travelers. Our approach is high touch and high cost, which is why we take a higher booking revenue percentage. We use mobile money and an SMS-based scheduling system to manage bookings in the local language with hosts. These approaches enable us to overcome technology, access and language barriers that prevent competitive firms from breaking into this supplier segment.

Our solution will activate a new supplier network (villagers) in peer-to-peer accommodation, and at only 10 guests per month for village hosts, hosts will earn income that is 100% above the poverty line.  

We are working to create new businesses in untapped communities while equipping workers with technology and digital literacy.

Sayaboury District in Laos remains an untapped tourims destination two hours from  Luang Prabang. Through 50 stakeholder interviews with government officials, tourism agencies and villagers, we’ve determined that the village homestay model carries great appeal across the value chain. 

The OHCHR estimates that 80% of the Laos population live on less than $2.50 per day. While 85% of the population is employed by agriculture, tourism is the fastest growing industry. In 2018, the country had over 4M visitors according to the Lao National Tourism Administration. 

The World Bank published a report on the peer-to-peer accommodation market. East Asia, including Southeast Asia, has nearly 4x as many airbnb guest arrivals in 2017 than South Asia, which is second on the list for airbnb guest arrivals. 

The 3 billion people globally living on less than $2.50 per day represent a population segment restricted from accessing travel platforms due to language and technology barriers. All the while, they live culturally rich lives. The World Bank discovered a growing interest in more authentic experiences, driving demand for closer connections to host communities. 

Village Experiences is an online peer-to-peer marketplace that connects village homestays with travelers. A relevant comparison is airbnb but with an emphasis on activating village homestays for our supplier network. 

Once bookings occur through our B2B and B2C channels, we activate our sms-based communication system to transfer booking information in the local language to hosts. 

All hosts are required to use digital financial services to have payments transferred to them. This ensures financial transparency while making our village hosts bankable and digitally literate. 

Our low-tech solutions align with the technology available in the markets we target, which drives higher adoption rates and ensures widespread familiarity for the systems we use start-to-end in our technology stack. 

We are working with villagers, government and travel agencies in Sayaboury District in Laos to advance our understanding of market challenges and opportunities and develop pathways to business model validation. 

Our Operations Director is based in Sayaboury. He is fluent in the Lao language. We’ve discovered through over 50 interviews that villagers have an interest in becoming hosts because they have a desire to make more money and use the homestay experience as a tool for cultural exchange. There is validated host willingness to invest in minor infrastructure improvements to ensure higher quality homestay experiences for guests, which will drive customer retention and growth. 

We’ve established a formal relationship with the Sayaboury government to give us permission to operate. This is the second time in the District’s history where there’s been consensus to work with an international organization. 

We’ve established a formal partnership with Sakura Tours, who will assume administrative responsibilities related to government reporting in exchange for us using them for transportation and guides

Our boot-on-the-ground approach and emphasis on strategic partnerships is accelerating our understanding for host and customer needs. Our solution addresses host needs by offering language, technology solutions, while providing travelers with culturally rich homestay experiences.

Village Experiences envisions a world where all villagers can be economically empowered through sharing their cultural heritage with travelers. We serve as a catalyst for new venture creation in untapped rural communities.

This intervention gives villagers access to living wages through leveraging existing infrastructure and encouraging financial inclusion through the deployment of digital financial services. Our mission is to build the best cultural experiences, and use business to inspire and implement solutions that drive villagers out of poverty and into the digital age. 

Homestay.com, Booking.com, Airbnb, Viator and TripAdvisor all have strict technology and language requirements that challenge a villagers ability to onboard onto these platforms. In addition, these platforms often require "company documentation" in the form of incorporation and, in some cases, insurance. Even developed tourism destinations in Laos, such as Pha Tad Ke Botanical Garden, struggled to onboard themselves onto platforms such as TripAdvisor. I went through the process and it required engagement with a sales support staff who walked me through how to activate as a "supplier". 

There's no existing solution in the marketplace that is inclusive-driven, enabling the activation of individuals who don't have language, technology or legal skills to get on mainstream platforms. 

Our innovation is creating a low-tech offering and high-touch vetting process to ensure villager inclusion in this model. By using low-tech available through the ubiquitous mobile phone, we are able to bring life to a segment of the supplier network previously unable to use homestay-based tourism as a tool for economic development. 

Our core technology involves an advanced chat-bot that is operable on mobile phones and automatically translates english language booking information into the local host language. 

Emphasizing simplicity, and influenced by our engagements with over 20 prospective hosts in Laos, we've created a short list of phrases to ensure clarity in communication and booking reliability.

In addition to this tool, which is essential to managing the customer experience, our business model innovation is centered on venturing into the communities we serve to vet hosts and capture content that we can then promote on our platform. We are working to develop a technology-based solution to enable village hosts to create profiles themselves that can then be refined by our marketing team prior to activation on our web channel. This will unlock scale for the model by driving down operational costs. 

The SMS-based technology stack has been proven by https://www.backstreetacademy.com/, a bespoke activity provider in Asia focused on working with villagers. They currently do not serve the homestay market, but have proven that it technology feasible to use low-tech SMS based communication to ensure booking and customer experience reliability. 

We've conducted over 50 interviews in villages in Sayaboury District. The individuals we spoke to indicated that it was impossible for them to get on existing travel platforms due to language and technology barriers. 

Our activities include host identification, onboarding, training and activation. Hosts receive ongoing feedback through customer reviews, and automated SMS-based recommendations on how to improve their homestay experience. This ensures continuity in experience refinement that will enable customer retention and growth for hosts. 

Through onboarding and training, hosts gain competency in business operations, including customer experience, financial management, project management and digital literacy. Hosts optimize their experience and operations and ultimately acquire an average of 15-25 guests per month to become economically empowered through the homestay experience. 

Hosts will demonstrate an ability to independently manage bookings with assistance from our sms booking system, which will be measured through customer satisfaction and acquisition metrics captured by our operational team. Hosts will demonstrate a shift to long term commitment with Village Experiences, and will start to actively engage in the process of product and business development to diversify their product offerings while continuing to enhance the customer experience. 

In the long term, hosts will mentor, manage, hire and train other hosts, contributing to large scale impact and change. Hosts will diversify their revenue streams by adding additional cultural experiences to their "product suite", resulting in higher income and larger social and economic impact. 

Currently, we have 3 village hosts activated. We are actively testing with "early evangelist customers" who are providing us with user feedback so we can enhance the customer experience. 

In one year, our objective is to activate 65 hosts, driving quality throughout the process with an emphasis on optimization for customer acquisition per host. 

In five years, our projection indicates that we will have 12,000 hosts, which will be feasible through new technology integrations. 

In this next year, our goal is to create a repeatable and scaleable business model with an emphasis on quality over quantity. Our key questions are: can we identify suitable hosts? Are we able to retain these hosts? Are we able to drive customer growth for these hosts? Are we able to achieve customer retention through strong customer experience? Are we able to create a model that can be applied globally? We will also work this year to drive down operational costs as well as customer acquisition costs in order to establish strong margins (50%) that will enable profitability for the venture. 

For the next five years, our goals are to expand regionally into the countries of Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia and Indonesia as well as Nepal and India. We've started to engage with potential partners in both Thailand and Nepal to get a strong sense for regulatory environment and are using existing relationships we have in the travel industry in those countries to piece together operational plans that will enable country activation. Scaling the model through targeting high-demand destinations with high-potential supplier networks is an essential step to creating a scaleable and repeatable business model, thus why we are activating two regions that, from a data perspective, possess the highest growth rates in the peer-to-peer accommodation market. 

In the next year, legal barriers will continue to present a challenge as governments seek to "control" the host vetting process through "inspection visits". We are also working in environments where government-driven corruption can make doing business as usual challenging. We seek to overcome these challenges by working with local partnerships and establishing an ethical relationships with stakeholders across the value chain. Remote homestays, much like urban homestays, have been subject to policy challenges. In the context of the United States, each state has crafted different policies, taxes and requirements for airbnb hosts. As this model scales, governments may be inclined to revisit policies on homestays, thus creating potential complications to our operating and financial model. 

Additionally, new entrants pose a serious challenge to us in the next year and over the next five years. We currently don't see any direct competitors attempting to unlock the villager host supplier network, however small and big firms may develop an appetite to play in this market space once the model is proven. As a result of not currently having a robust IP strategy to establish strong defensibility for our venture, speed and brand equity must be prevailing qualities in order to ensure strong market share. 

We intend to craft an IP strategy that will be inclusive of digital financial services and homestay booking in the local language to establish defensibility for our venture. Additionally, we intend to scale quickly and strongly emphasize brand to achieve partnerships and customer loyalty. We will work to negotiate exclusivity with certain hosts and partners in the short term to give us 'competitive advantage'.

We will continue to collaborate with in-country governments, associations and travel agencies to navigate the regulatory environment and ensure a streamlined approach to country activation. 

Full Time Staff: 1 

Part Time Staff: 3

Dave D'Angelo

Expertise in Product Management, Sales and Marketing.

Program Lead of VentureWell's E-Team Program. 

VP of Growth at Conservation Tourism Destination in Laos. 

Sustainable Tourism Consultant for GIZ. 

Matthew Ring 

Expertise in Product Strategy, Software Development and Marketing.

Lead Product Manager at Rocketrip. Director of Search Products at Travelzoo. 

Jared Worley 

Expertise in Operations, Digital Financial Inclusion, and Low-Tech Solutions.

Partner at Kuunda Digital. 

Operations and Country Manager at Zoona Africa. 

Jozef Coremans 

Expertise in International Operations, Marketing and Sales. 

Marketing & Sales Manager at Elephant Conservation Center in Laos. 

Digital Marketing at Focus Asia. 

We are partnered with Sakura Tours, which is providing us with assistance on administrative responsibilities related to government reporting. In exchange, we use their transportation and guiding services for our experiences. 

We are partnered with the Sayaboury Government, and they've given us permission to be one of the first international organizations to operate as a tourism partner in the region. The government assists us with completing inspection visits of homes. 

We are working with Green Discovery Laos to promote our homestay experiences through the B2B distribution channel. They are one of the country's leading, international tourism agencies focused on conservation and sustainability. They are assisting us with customer acquisition. 

We are working with the Elephant Conservation Center in Sayaboury. It is the most populate elephant conservation center in Laos. They currently have accommodation capacity constraints that are lifted through working with us. They actively refer travelers to take part in our homestays while visiting the Elephant Conservation Center. 

Our customers are travelers who seek cultural immersion, social impact and human connection through village-based experiences. 

We craft experiences steeped in tradition that propel travelers into an exotic world. It’s where travelers discover purpose and inspiration. They uncover excitement in off-the-beaten path experiences and their passion for human connection and social impact drives them to embrace the village life.

The supplier network for village homestays is untapped. We are giving customers access to these experiences through B2B partners as well as our direct-to-consumer model. 

We are providing them with accommodation, meals, transportation assistance and an optional experience guide who can facilitate conversational exchange between hosts and travelers. This inclusive experience ensures travelers feel confident and safe throughout the booking process. 

We are charging $50 per homestay experience. We provide 20% of this revenue to hosts. The other 80% helps cover our operating expenses related to host identification, vetting, training and management. 

In month 4 of activation we will be profitable, with a net income of $11,415. After 12 months, we will have a net income of $45,881. 

We strive to raise $50,000 in grant funding as well as $250k as a pre-seed round to help cover operational expenses and scale up into profitability. 

When I launched my first social venture, my co-founder was an MIT alumni and we had the opportunity to engage MIT students as interns. Their compassion, curiosity and creativity inspired me. 

I've spent the last few years working at VentureWell, and leading entrepreneurship trainings on the MIT campus. I've been encouraged by the strength of the MIT's credibility and brand, and know that access into the Solve community represents a powerful networking opportunity with peers, mentors, coaches, advisors and potential funders. 

Access to this community translates into advice, feedback and connections that can accelerate our path to market and scale, and the funding will be critical to enabling our venture to achieve product market fit and early customer acquisition. 

We are seeking talented individuals with experience in software and the travel industry who can mentor us on product development, strategy implementation and fundraising. These connections will assist us with refining our approach and driving preparedness into our ability to successfully commercialize our technology and business model. 

In analyzing solve members, we've determined it would be beneficial to connect with the World Bank Group, as they have a track record of financially supporting initiatives in rural development and have funded projects such as "The Abraham Path" in the past to develop homestay networks in the middle east. We've spoken directly with the "Abraham Path" about this partnership and have a hard commitment from AP to use their homestays on our platform. 

It would also be valuable to connect with Uber, as their technology stack aligns with the user experience we intend to create through Village Experiences. Getting access to their technical and operations teams will help us foster better understanding on how to roll out and scale our operation while keeping in mind the importance of safety, ease-of-use and privacy. 

We are also interested in Vodafone Americas Foundation, as their long standing history in digital financial services aligns well with our approach of using DFS as a tool for digital literacy and payment transfer. 

Lastly, connecting with Save the Children is valuable because we've determined that NGOs have strong connections to underserved communities where there is appetite for rural economic development. This could present us with a channel for host identification and activation, and by leveraging a global partner it could fast track our efforts to scale. 

Dave D'Angelo ran the International Rescue Committee's Microenterprise Development Program and serves as a board advisor to the Innovation Lab at Church World Service. His passion for refugees drives the team's desire to find a way to create economic opportunities for this vulnerable population. 

The village homestay model is applicable to refugees and provides them a primary or secondary source of income that economically empowers them as they seek to thrive in their host communities. This prize would enable our team to set up a pilot that is specifically focused on identifying, vetting and activating homestay hosts from the refugee community. It would be a critical first step to determining how to diversify economic opportunities for refugees while providing cultural exchange that results in the world developing deeper understanding for the refugee population. 

Village Experiences is committed to supporting underserved communities. If awarded $75,000 from the Vodafone Americas Foundation, we will create a pilot focused on activating village homestays led by women. This will drive inclusive entrepreneurship among women in remote communities.  

We will also double down on using digital financial services to drive digital and financial literacy among this population. Already built in our model is the use of DFS to enable financial payment administration to hosts. We will work with Vodafone to determine other financial services and products relevant to our host communities that drive social and economic impact. 

The creation of good jobs and inclusive entrepreneurship is at the core of the Village Experiences Model. We are paving the way for market development in the tourism industry to empower villagers with the opportunity to use cultural exchange as a platform for economic development. Accessing funds through the GM Prize on Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship will enable us to activate and complete a critical pilot to prove out the operational and financial feasibility of the business model.