Local Alike, a Thai online travel company, plans to use the prize money from Booking.com to develop and sustain community-based tourism in Thailand, creating jobs for locals and helping the economy.
The company is one of 10 finalists among 700 startups from 102 countries participating in Booking.com's booster programme, which focuses on helping startups develop sustainable tourism.
Local Alike has joined the three-week booster programme in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to present its final work to Booking.com's executive panel in a bid to win the 20-million-baht first prize. Other finalists will get funding awards starting from 4 million baht.
Local Alike's founder and chief executive Somsak Boonkham said the programme's objective will complement Local Alike's vision, which wants to promote community tourism among foreign tourists.
The company has been working closely with 70 local community partners, helping to generate profits of more than 15 million baht for locals since it started its operations.
He hopes to have more than 100 community partners to create tourism sustainability in terms of job creation and self-dependence among local villagers.
"We wish to help drive the Thai economy and help Thailand solve local issues such as poor waste management and infrastructure," Mr Somsak said.
He said Local Alike will use the programme's award money to help develop Thailand's community-based tourism as much as possible as it wants the country to be known as an international attraction.
The strength of Local Alike is its development sustainability through community-based tourism, which he believes is what Booking.com is looking for from the finalists.
Gillan Tans, Booking.com's chief executive, said its mission is to empower people to experience more of the world.
Through Booking.com booster programme, it wants to help ventures in sustainable tourism accelerate their growth in order to maximise the impact they can have globally.
"By sharing our expertise and working together with these outstanding startups, we can explore and learn how best to protect the destinations we love so much, so that our great-great-grandchildren can continue to enjoy them for years to come," Ms Tans said.
Mr Somsak said local and sustainable experiences are two different things. A local experience is whatever we can offer from local communities but a sustainable experience will mainly focus on social practices and environmental concerns along with improving the country's economy.
Local Alike has four business models that Mr Somsak believes will lead to sustainable tourism and the funding will be used to enhance each model's potential.
The first one is consulting, which educates locals who have assets ready for the tourism market and generating real profits. Local Alike also works with local companies to help them develop community-based tourism projects.
The second model is the Local Alike Tour Programme, which is its core business. It develops inventive travel programmes that match customer needs while partnering with locals to help them enhance their hospitality skills.
The third one is called Market Place, which is basically an online market place (www.localalike.com), that aims to connect travellers around the world to book activities, tours, accommodations listed by locals themselves, as well as Local Alike's curated programmes. Mr Somsak said he wants Market Place to be the centre of tourism in the Indochina region by the end of the year.
"We want to be a leading social and tourism company that displays how sustainable tourism should be treated in Asean by using Local Alike's business models," he said.
The final model, Local Alike Development Fund, is an essential tool to support and improve the quality of life in each community the company works with.
As much as 80% of Local Alike's revenue comes from domestic and international corporate customers, with the rest coming from free independent travellers, whose revenue contribution it is hoping to increase.