In this age in which so much of our lives is on demand, personalized or bespoke, the travel business can say it was ahead of the curve by necessity. Whether it’s travel agents or travelers putting together itineraries, vacation bookings have always been about going where a travelers wants to go when he or she wants to go there.
Once on the ground in a new city or foreign country, the tourist can then pick which activities on the ground they want to experience. A London-based travel service, Touriocity, pushes the bespoke travel experience a step further by specializing the expert guided walking tours available in a multitude of cities.
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Here’s how the service works: Let’s say a family, small group or even an individual visits London. We’ll pick that since it’s the company CEO and Founder Alex Grant’s home base. Travelers already have a selection of preset walking tours covering everything from Jack the Ripper to Shakespeare, but they run at set times on set topics. Touriocity allows travelers to put together a walking tour on topics that fit their interests at times that work for all involved.
The service taps into a database of hundreds of guides based in cities around the world. In London, Eleanor M. Jackson might get the call. She took me around town and can fill you in on Harry Potter, art history, literary greats and other topics.
For payment, Touriocity allows the guide to charge standard rates and takes 15% to make the connection — very similar to the Uber model.
Grant’s team is in the process of adding cities and guides all the time. What was his most unusual guide request?
“We had a Mormon group from the U.S. request a Latter Day Saints tour of Rome,” he says. “It was a shorter tour, but we pulled it together.”
