The three-month-long Lightning Lab Tourism accelerator is looking to build a sustainable tourism ecosystem for the land down under
Just before its tourism programme culminated in a demo day on August 20, e27 chatted with Lightning Lab, a New Zealand-based three-month, business acceleration programme.
The accelerator prides itself as the only New Zealand member of the Global Accelerator Network (GAN), an invite-only community with access to a variety of exclusive perks, including over US$1 million worth of free services, introductions to a network of investors, and access to soft landing spaces worldwide.
It was inspired by the accelerator model as developed by TechStars in the US.
One of its annual programmes is a tourism accelerator called Lightning Lab Tourism, in which ten tourism tech companies have been selected to receive access to intensive mentoring and business coaching.
“The conversation about the tourism-focussed accelerator actually had started since two years ago, considering how tourism has become New Zealand’s number one industry, contributing up to NZ$39 billion (US$25 billion) already,” said Jeffrey Ling, the accelerator’s representative.
However, the trigger for the country to facilitate such a programme is the fact that sustainability has become a crucial part of tourism industry in the country. This could be seen from stakeholders’ enthusiasm in the idea.
“Many of these stakeholders ended up becoming the programme’s sponsors because sustainable tourism is important for New Zealand,” said Ling.
Not just building economy
People tend to associate joining an accelerator with winning prize money or capturing investors’ attention. But according to Ling, this is not the case with Lightning Lab Tourism.
Ling further explained that the goal of having ten companies focussing on sustainable tourism based in New Zealand is to help the government in dispersing tourists and appreciate New Zealand as a whole.
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“We also want to let the people know that there are other tourism spots other than the popular ones and get them excited about the sustainable tourism industry,” said Ling.
In terms of its novelty, Lightning Lab Tourism also claimed that such kind of accelerator programme has never been done before, at least not as thoroughly.
“It is a little bit weird to find out that in such a mature industry there are really no dedicated accelerators for tourism. Finding and creating such an environment for tourism startups is unprecedented and thati s what we want to achieve,” said Ling.
The ten companies selected into the accelerator are two industry project teams and eight startups. Two of them are relevant enough to be developed and adjusted for Southeast Asian market.
Road Guru
Road Guru called the people that provide services on its platform Driver Guides. These Driver Guides are exactly what you imagine them to be: A driver who knows the terrain and spots in the country so well that they are able to guide you on a full-on vacation.
Co-Founded by Mitchell McLaughlin and Caleb Helm, the duo explained to e27 that when it comes to providing a better holiday experience, the approach of having a true local guide for tourist’s journey is unmatched. Combined that with the vehicle rental, travellers do not need to think about transportation or direction to places they plan to visit.
The same model, the co-founders noted, has the potential to be developed in Southeast Asian countries.
“Southeast Asia is an attractive market for tourists, especially local guides that can provide guides to give a more private travelling experience,” said McLaughlin.
Road Guru plans on tapping into the established local guides provider and travel agents in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, just as it did in New Zealand.
“To provide our service in Southeast Asia, we first need to understand how it can facilitate the tour guiding industry of the country. The last two or three years have been researching about the country for us, getting ready to expand,” the co-founders added.
Road Guru partners with electric vehicle transport companion app PowerTrip, to provide for the vehicle to explore New Zealand.
Airguides
Airguides designs trip for travellers by allowing them to follow in the footsteps of their favourite travelers. By featuring contents and reviews provided by influencers with at least 100,000 followers, Airguides envisions an experience-focussed trip supported by the tightly-knitted travellers community.
The biggest goal of Airguides is to build a community of “storytellers that share their greatest adventures and best kept secrets”. By partnering with popular travellers, Airguides hopes to be able to tap into their existing followers to be their main target market.
“You could say that we are a new style travel agent. Right now, we focus a lot on photography- and food-themed trip,” said Bibi J., one of the co-founders.
For the content creators, joining Airguides can give them another way to monetise, said Paul Rowsthorne, Co-Founder of Airguides.
Airguides has said that its mission is to answer to the possibilities of having a more personally-connected travel experience.
The other startups
Through the selection of ten companies, Lightning Lab Tourism aims to have different areas of tourism covered by the programme.
Besides the two startups that are keen to explore Southeast Asia market, the other eight participating companies are:
- Christchurch-based tour operator AMIKI seeks to expand its storytelling experiences to cater for travellers who desire deeper connections to local people and places.
- Stay Native, a social enterprise offering travellers a Māori perspective of New Zealand. It is in talks with the Ministry of Social Development and various government stakeholders about strategies to increase the number of Māori employed in the industry.
- Lichen, a volunteer tourism project supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment, Wayfare, and Squawk Squad, that explores ways for travellers to give back as they travel.
- Patch (formerly known as CHU) helps farmers who wish to diversify their land use by earning tourism revenue. The startup delivers purpose-built amenity pods to their land, creating reliable and sustainable infrastructure, as well as unique authentic experiences for New Zealand’s growing number of campervan tourists.
- Tourism Ticker, a news and information service for the tourism sector, which is launching a new data-driven market intelligence service: Ticker Insights.
- The South Project, supported by Christchurch Airport and Qrious, developed a solution to deliver visitor flow insights to regional tourism offices and operators.
All teams are working directly with tourism industry partners to implement their solutions while using market validation and product development methods used by companies such as Google, IDEO, and Tesla.
During the months of intense mentoring, every team has their own sprint coaches to take them through the accelerator’s structured curriculum.
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The curriculum features problem-solving sprint, design sprint, investment sprint, and leadership coaching session that helps the teams shift into the leadership mindset and not just focus on management issues.
“There is a lot of great stuff about New Zealand and we are opening up to the rest of the world. Not just ‘hey, come and build your startups in New Zealand’ but we invite people to come, experience, and become a part of the tourism innovation and change the business model,” Ling added.
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Image Credit: Lightning Lab
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