Search, book, enjoy !

JB
4 min readJan 13, 2017

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We are creating a platform allowing travellers from all around the globe to find and book Parisian experiences proposed by Parisian welcomers.

Simple as that.
(In theory…)

We want those experiences to be as diverse as the Parisians and the travellers, because we love diversity. Whatever your passions are, you will find someone in Paris that has the same !

So, the first important thing is : your profile.
You surely can relate : you can’t build trust online if you don’t explain who you are, what you like and what you do. Individual profiles will be the base of Welcom’, we believe it’s very important.

Once your profile is set up, you can start searching for experiences.
(Of course, you only need to set up a profile once you’ve decided to book with us !)

Search
We — the Welcom’ team — are used to websites that put us in contact with other people (we use them too).
And we believe that organisation in advance is key (nothing more annonying than sending a lot of messages and getting no answers or negative answers), so we’re setting up the most relevent research criteria for you to find the perfect experience(s), on the right date, for you and your friends.
Once you’ve chosen an experience, it’s time to book it.

Book
We’re also setting up a simple booking process : once you’ve chosen the date and the number of travellers, you just add a kind message to the welcomer, and you send it. She/he will read it, accept the booking, and contact your for the details.
We hope you won’t hesitate to have a chat with them, we Parisians have a lot of tips to give on our city.

Enjoy !
When the day of the experience has come, well… Enjoy ! And please, always remember that your welcomer is just a traveller like you, not a professionnal. Consider him/her as a “friend of friend”, and simply chat together.
After, you’ll be able to give a feedback to each other, in order to build trust into the community.

Feedbacks.
Trust is improved when travellers and welcomers can read the public feedbacks on their experiences, it’s obvious. So we added it to the platform.
But we also think about direct feedback, in front of a coffee or a glass of wine !

Another important thing is freedom.
We want to give the welcomers the freedom to propose whatever they want as an experience. A discovery walk in Montmartre, a French Revolution tour, a picnic along Canal Saint Martin, a barcrawl in Oberkampf… The possibilities are potentially infinite.
Another aspect of freedom : the welcomers will be the one deciding on the price of their experience (from free to… we don’t know). Why charge ?
Two reasons :
1) In four months, I proposed Parisian experiences (for free) to more than 50 travellers. Even if they agreed, 40% of them never showed up, with no messages. Let Kath, a Brazilian traveller, say it :

“When we pay something, even if it’s a small amount, we value it. If I pay for an experience, I’m sure I want to do it, and I’ll be at the meeting point. And it’s a way to thank the welcomer.”

2) Because it’s a way for the welcomer to save money for his/her next travel !
That’s also a part of the diversity we’re searching for.

Last thing : only travellers, no professionnals.
We will deny access to the Welcom’ community to professionnals, touristic guides, and generally all the people living on tourists’ money.
We want to stay between travellers, sharing the same values, meeting and sharing with each others.

We prefer quality over quantity for the community.

Our ambition : shifting Paris from the most touristic city on Earth to the most welcoming city on Earth

Everything is here.

We keep working on our website for travellers, by travellers.

Would you like to be one of the first members of our community ?
You can register on our new page : www.welcom.city
By doing so, before the opening of the site, you’ll receive our newsletter. (But don’t worry, we don’t spam, we don’t sell email addresses.)

From South Pigalle with love,

JB, Julien and Yohann

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JB

Green mind and acts. Collapse enthousiast. Also, sharing, running. Curiosity is an universal energy.