The Rutopía company is an online platform that also opens up to collaborate with issuing travel agencies
- The company promotes rural tourism that benefits the communities of Latin America
- Travelers stay in host family homes or in community-owned cabins
- Rutopía wants to promote “sustainable tourism and environmental protection”
A Mexican startup, Rutopía, has developed an online travel marketing platform that defines itself as “the Airbnb of ecotourism”. Actually it is much more, it aims to promote a type of rural tourism that benefits the indigenous communities of Latin America. The company is also open to collaborating with issuing travel agencies in other countries.
“In Rutopía, what interests us most is the coexistence of travelers with the hosts and those communities can make their culture and nature known,” explains the founder of the company and CEO, Emiliano Iturriaga.
In this way, travelers stay “at the home of host families” or stay in communities that have community-owned cabins for travelers. “We work with community-owned projects,” says the founder of Rutopía.
sustainable tourism
The startup was created two years ago and since then its promoters have been working with dozens of indigenous communities to create the online travel platform.
Thus, Iturriaga explains, the objective is “to promote rural tourism in indigenous communities to promote sustainable tourism and environmental protection ”.
“In Mexico, approximately 3.5 billion dollars are generated annually from tourism in natural areas. However, less than 5% of this income comes to the inhabitants, who are mostly indigenous, ”says Iturriaga.
Emiliano Iturriaga, CEO of Rutopía.
“We would love to have allies in Spain,” says the CEO of Rutopía
Rutopía is also open to collaborating with issuing travel agencies specialized in responsible and solidarity tourism. “We would love to have allies in Spain and we have different proposals,” says Iturriaga.
The company will also present its project in the Hult Prize 2019 contest, where initiatives to solve social problems are awarded, which will be failed on September 14 in New York, at the UN headquarters.
Rutopía has been selected from more than 20,000 projects worldwide, along with five other companies from Bangladesh, Guatemala, Canada, Uganda, and Palestine.
Source: hosteltur.com
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