Summer Well Spent | Duara Travels

For our second post of the new blog series, we’re going to have another accelerator alumnus tell us about their journey during and after the accelerator!

What is Duara Travels?

Duara Travels is a company that connects travelers with rural village life in Africa, Asia and Latin America. At www.duaratravels.com you can browse, book and pay your stay in a local village. During your trip you stay in a local home, cook and eat with your host family and take part in daily activities. By doing this, you also benefit the host family and the village economically.

How’s the company doing? What has happened since 2016?

We have been growing sales steadily. Although volumes are still small in a financial sense, we have sold nearly 700 nights and received excellent feedback from both travelers and host villages. 2018 has been the best year for us so far. We have expanded into several more markets and currently we have villages active in 7 countries.

Let’s have a few words about the accelerator program. How was your Summer of Startups experience?

It was a great way to build a network in the startup ecosystem in the Helsinki region. Duara falls somewhere between a tech startup and a development cooperation project, which meant that some of the aspects of the program were not entirely relevant for us. The best part was definitely meeting a lot of interesting people.

Great! What are the next steps for Duara Travels?

Next up is increasing volumes with the existing destinations. We are working on Duara part-time and with a small budget, so we are expecting it to have a fairly moderate growth curve. Each and every village experience we provide to our customers and hosts is valuable and that is why we do what we do.

Read more and book your next holiday at www.duaratravels.com!

Looking to boost your startup and spend the summer like Duara Travels did? Check out accelerator.kiuas.us!