Withlocals is an
experiential travel
Experiential travel, also known as immersion travel, is a form of tourism in which people focus on experiencing a country, city or particular place by actively and meaningfully engaging with its history, people, culture, food and environment. It c ...
company that connects travellers to local hosts who offer private, personalised tours. Describing itself as trying to achieve "mass personalisation" rather than offering group or
package tours, Withlocals is cited as an example of the role and impact of the
sharing economy
In capitalism, the sharing economy is a socio-economic system built around the sharing of resources. It often involves a way of purchasing goods and services that differs from the traditional business model of companies hiring employees to produce ...
on tourism – particularly
culinary tourism
Culinary tourism or food tourism or gastronomy tourism is the exploration of food as the purpose of tourism. It is considered a vital component of the tourism experience. Dining out is common among tourists and "food is believed to rank alongsid ...
– and the
consumer trends for "authenticity" and "experiences".
History
Founded in 2013 by brothers Marijn and Willem Maas in
Eindhoven
Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,[startup accelerator
Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. While traditional business incubators are often g ...]
Greenhouse group. it obtained $500,000
seed funding
Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...
from Digital Equity group and a grant from the
Horizon 2020
The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the Europea ...
program. It began operations by specifically targeting a market for sharing
home cooked dinners across seven countries in Southeast Asia. It later received
Series A funding
A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...
of €3.5 million ($4.3M) in 2017, at which time it reported to offer 1,200 tour options with 900 local hosts in 24 cities – having changed focus to personalised tour guides. In 2019 it secured Series B funding of a further €8 million at which time it was active in 30 cities. Both rounds were supported by Dutch investment company
INKEF Capital and the latter by
Keen Venture Partners. A priority of the latest round of investment is to improve the
Software localisation
In computing, internationalization and localization ( American) or internationalisation and localisation (British English), often abbreviated i18n and L10n, are means of adapting computer software to different languages, regional peculiarities an ...
and range of tours offered in languages other than English. As of mid-2019, Withlocals has more than 50 employees.
Cities
File:Sharing a drink in Lisbon.jpg, Lisbon
File:Koi pond in Kyoto.jpg, Kyoto
File:Home dinner - Bali.jpg, Bali
File:Walking tour in Athens.jpg, Athens
File:Tastings Denpasar - Bali.jpg, Denpasar
As of mid-2019 the Withlocals platform has hosts offering tours in the following cities:
External links
Official websiteOfficial website for team building
References
{{Sharing economy
Dutch travel websites
Travel and holiday companies of the Netherlands
Peer-to-peer
Sharing economy
Dutch companies established in 2013