Members of AIRTH and the Tourism 4.0 consortium founded the TourismFromZero initiative shortly after the pandemic came into our lives. It is an initiative inspired by the challenges of the COVID -19 pandemic of 2020 and the problems of over-tourism in recent years. They created a survey aimed at tourism staff, tourism students, academics, locals or anyone who would like to share ideas, thoughts, solutions or challenges created by the pandemic. To date, the initiative has received more than 900 responses, insights and ideas from around the world.
Among the ideas on how to restart tourism, one came from the students of the pilot R&D study program UP FTS sTOUdio Turistica (now FromZero coordinators) with a common focus on local experiences offered “from scratch”. These students, with the help of their TourismFromZero mentors, created the LocalsFromZero marketplace.
The LocalsFromZero Marketplace focuses on supporting small and unique providers who preserve traditions, crafts, festivals and ceremonies in their local communities. We are looking for experience providers who do not yet have a standardized, “mass market” tourism offering. We are looking for locals, their clubs, charities, associations and anyone else who is not normally found in standardized travel packages. To achieve this, we have developed a new model with the so-called Scouts.
LocalsFromZero scouts are the link between experience providers and tourists and are experts in tourism, their local environment and (digital) marketing. LFZ Scouts help local experience providers to become more visible on the regional tourism map. They take care of reservations, administration and everything else that the local provider is not (yet) qualified for or lacks.
The LocalsFromZero marketplace has now evolved and partnered with Fairbnb.coop, with whom we are working towards community-driven tourism.
