Spanish SME seeks company to acquire and exploit an online trip planner platform through a financial agreement or a joint venture

Tourism is one of the most impacted sectors in the COVID-19 pandemic. A dramatic decrease in the number of flights, mobility restrictions imposed at all geographic levels or reduction of business trips are some of the main consequences of the pandemic that has hit so hard this sector. The beginning of the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 is bringing in great expectations about tourism increasing again its numbers for the coming years in major cities worldwide. Foreseeing this tourisms’ recovery, a Basque company has developed an online trip planner ready to be used when tourism obtains profitable rates and normality is recovered. This trip planner has the following features: • It organizes visits. Users are only required to select the city to visit between those available in the platform, defining the arrival and departure dates. The application evaluates what to see and do on those dates and its algorithm displays the information in order based on profiles of interests (culture, architecture, leisure, gastronomy...), opening and closing times, time required to enjoy the activity and distance between them. The agenda generated can be further customised by indicating the hotel and if an appointment or meeting is planned at destination. The trip can also be customised once it has been created and access it via web with an off-line mode. • Enables visualization and easy trip management. The app displays the information on a map, indicating name and location of the recommended activities and their time estimation. Clicking on the tabs shows more information (description, photo, timetable, useful and contact information, queue-free ticket purchase...). To prioritise or exclude activities from the itinerary, select the edit option, find the activity to modify using the filter and press and hold it to change its priority. Save the changes and the platform will rearrange the activities to optimise the sightseeing route. • Intelligent Platform. In addition to being able to customise the values of interest manually, the platform updates them every time an activity is rated positively or negatively. In doing so, the system will learn, providing even better recommendations the next time such services will be rendered. • Other options. The platform can also be used as a conventional guide. There is a "Cities" option where static standardised information can be obtained about all the points of interest and activities offered by the cities. Visualising them in list mode or by proximity to where the visitor is located. The solution has also partnered with international websites to offer the best hotels and hostels at very competitive prices. Reservations can also be made from the corresponding menu option. The company is specialized in innovative designs and solutions, winning numerous awards throughout the years. Examples of their designs are a 95% recyclable chair or the design of wall chargers for electric vehicles. The Basque SME is looking for partners, preferably with experience in the tourism sector as the company has little knowledge about tourism business models, interested in exploiting the platform in terms of a financial agreement or a joint venture agreement. Both types of collaborations seek to continue with the development of the platform and to obtain the capacity to exploit it, as the company itself has not got the resources for that. The difference in how the company envisages both types of cooperation is that in the joint venture agreement the company gets involved with the partner in the next steps to commercialise the platform while in the financial agreement, the interested entity acquires the platform and the Basque SME does not get involved in the next steps. It may be a great opportunity for touristic companies when the sector recovers from this pandemia.