The Booking Booster program, which helps scale up established sustainable tourism companies across the world, recently announced its second cohort. The program is a three-week accelerator in Amsterdam, with hands-on mentoring and lectures, that culminates in a final pitch day and a chance to win up to €500M.
Of the companies chosen this year, three are operating in Latin America, using the US$2.3 trillion travel industry to induce positive change in the region. Here are the Booking Booster scale-ups working in Latin America:
Keteka: Keteka is an online marketplace of unique, off-the-beaten path activities with a focus on indigenous communities that are instantly bookable online. Keteka operates in Central and South America, and Antarctica, and has previously received investment from Magma Partners.
Hotel con Corazón: Hotel Con Corazón Granada is a 15-room boutique hotel in Nicaragua which opened in 2008 with the aim of investing all of its profits in education projects for underprivileged children. They currently support the education of 250 children and have plans to expand to the rest of the world.
Wheel the World: Wheel the World is tackling the challenge of accessibility and inclusivity in tourism within the adventure travel sector for people with disabilities. Most of their current expeditions are in Chile and include trekking Torres del Paine and scuba diving in Easter Island, all fully-accessible to people of different abilities.
The other innovative scale-ups chosen to participate were: Community Homestay Network (Nepal), Global Himalayan Expedition (India), Hivesters (Thailand), Kitro (Switzerland), Reflow (Netherlands), Sakha Consulting Wings (India), and Tastemakers (USA; operating in Africa).
