Guide to the Azores ...Welcome!
After a long delay, due to the Covid pandemic, we are thrilled to launch Guide to the Azores, the only marketplace and comprehensive guide to this beautiful archipelago which we call our home. Join us!
By Sigfrido and Valeria
What is Guide to the Azores?
Guide to the Azores aims at connecting local guides, hosts and tourism operators to potential customers all over the world who wish to visit this beautiful archipelago
The main goal of this platform is to create a marketplace for tourism and tourist services to benefit the local economy
Why a marketplace?
Small business have a limited amount of time and money to spend on marketing, whilst big tour operators have plenty of both. We know for a fact that the vast majority of potential customers rely on the internet to find and choose where to sleep, what to do and how to go around, once they have choosen a place to spend their vacation.
We also know for a fact, given our experience as internet and cloud service provider, the chance of being chosen rely on being in the first 5 spots on search engines like Google. In fact, if an Alojamento Local is not appearing on the first page of Google, the chance of being picked are close to 0.
Of course, small business owner know very well this, so their logical next move is to add their listings on big online websites like booking.com, tripadvisor, airbnb etc.. accepting substantial commissions exchange for visibility. Now, this poses another question: where is this money going? The answer is simple: outside of the Azores
Our Goal
Guide to the Azores has the bold goal of becoming the “booking.com” of the Azores, but with a key added value: to propose to the final customer not only the single listing of an accomodation, an experience or an activity, but the aggregation of these into packaged tours provided exclusively by verified local owners and operators.
We are certainly aware that try to compete with giants like booking, airbnb etc.. seems impossible and preposterous but, after researching and studying other successful experience in this niche marketplace, we have spotted in those huge leaders of the world tourist industry two substantial weaknesses:
• Local presence:
Bookings, Airbnb, Tripadvisor and all the others are operating worldwide, thus they don’t know (and they don’t care to find out) the specificities of an archipelago like the Azores, where moving from island to island can be sometimes difficult, where choosing out of many many possibilities of activities and guided tours is complicated. Only people that actually live here all year long have the knowledge to sort out this difficulties and to organize things in a way that will result in a satisfactory experience for the visitor.
• Organizing capacity:
None of the mentioned listing website have combined solutions, like mentioned in the previous point. There are of course hundreds of other small agencies around the world proposing organized tours but again, they all lack the local knowledge and most of the time are reselling packages from bigger agencies. Once again a substantial part of the money spent by the tourist goes outside of the Azores, instead of benefiting the local economy.
Launching the beta platform
We are currently working with a group of selected local guides and operators to test the platform limits and issues. Since we are based in Faial, we decided to start from here, and then gradually extend the presence to the neighbour Ilhas do Triangulo (Pico and São Jorge) first, and then the rest of the archipelago.
Those who will register on the platform will be able to submit their listings (accomodation, activities, transport etc) and contribute with stories, images, experiences to the blogging part of Guide to the Azores, making it unique and relevant.
During the test period (at least six months) all the possible revenue generated by contacts through the platform will be commission free.
As we are not a non-profit organization, after the test period there will be commissions but it will be of course significantly lower than the competition.
We look forward to have you on board!
If you want to join you can drop us a line to us@guidetotheazores.pt
or register directly clicking the link below.
