Last night, I was sitting with friends at a coffeehouse called Second Cup sipping a decaf maple latte, when I got an idea for a company I want to launch.
It will be called UGo-IStay, and I have already grabbed the domain name ugo-istay.com.
This morning, I hired a company called 24-Hour Apps. I couldn't decide if we want to be on the Android or the iOS platform, so I asked the designers to give us both versions by this evening, with a lean, modern interface, the latest mapping technologies and three-click booking algorithms.
Let me tell you a bit about this new company. There are bright people everywhere, extremely bright people, who would love to show folks around their city or town for extra income. I'm not looking for local tour guides. The Ugo Home Guides, as they will be called (or HGs for short), will treat every client like an arriving family friend.
Our HGs will offer a variety of services. They will meet guests at the airport or train station with a hand-lettered sign. They will drive guests to their accommodations in their own car, and the room rates will be far less expensive than hotels.
In fact, guests will actually stay in the HG's apartment or house. Based on the services selected on the website, the HG can be available evenings and weekends to lead local sightseeing tours and to introduce guests to their friends. Clients can choose the level of local socialization they would like.
Our rates will be far less than prevailing rates for airport transfers, certified guides and the better-known tourist hotels. Far less.
Let me explore the concept by asking a few somewhat rhetorical questions:
• Why is it necessary to have a travel agent book an arrival or departure transfer when a local resident with a car can provide the exact same service for a quarter of the cost?
• Why do we assume that travelers would rather stay in a room used by thousands of strangers, one after another, in a large building filled with other tourists, when they could instead be using a spare bedroom or a sofa bed in a home for a tenth of the cost? In Paris, five-star hotels now charge upward of $1,000 a night. Ugo-Istay will have Paris accommodations for $100 and less.
• What is more authentic than staying with a local and being driven around by a nonprofessional in an authentic local car instead of some limousine?
• Do most tourists really want to pay significant fees to be led around a strange country by a certified guide who speaks nine languages? Our HGs can take tourists to the same places, but it is far cheaper, for example, to just walk through the Taj Mahal with a local. And you might get to meet the HG's family and friends.
So, you might ask, how will I find these Home Guides? There's actually an app for that, showing photos of their digs and a bit about themselves. I expect 10,000 applications before dinner this evening.
Every user will rate his or her travel experience. Drivers or accommodations that receive consistent ratings of less than three stars will be dropped, assuring quality control.
Perhaps you're skeptical. Maybe you think that booking Home Guides on our app won't work. It could be you're thinking about your country club clients and well-to-dos who still think it is necessary to hire drivers and guides and to stay in fancy hotels.
The truth is, much of the scenario I describe here is already a reality. You've no doubt read some of the coverage Travel Weekly has devoted to this super trend of part-time, uncertified, unlicensed, travel service performers.
Uber, for example, is a highly successful app that summons a car to your doorstep within minutes. Airbnb lists tens of thousands of accommodations worldwide that can easily be booked online or on its app. Typically, Airbnb offers a room in someone's home for a fraction of the cost of a typical hotel stay in the same city.
Numerous cities and municipalities in the U.S. are working to force Uber and Airbnb to comply with local laws and to pay taxes. The taxi and limo firms and hoteliers argue that these new startups should be held to the same safety standards and pay the same taxes that they do.
The answers to my questions relate to consumer protection. If we really launched Ugo-Istay.com, who would inspect the homes of our guides? Who would certify that the cars they were using were properly insured, inspected and licensed to carry guests? Who is going to do background checks?
Imagine for a moment that the shared economy was allowed to spread to the dining industry. Someone's French relatives arrive in the States and conclude that they can sell takeout French cuisine from their small apartment kitchen using online ordering. They would substantially undercut the pricing of your favorite French restaurant.
But who would be inspecting their food preparation space? Who would provide their health certificate or ensure that food was stored and cooked at proper temperatures? And why, we might all ask, should they be allowed to bypass virtually all of the consumer protections that cover restaurants while also avoiding commercial taxes?
And that, of course, is the point of conflict. The sharing economy, in which unregulated amateurs compete with real hotels, real guides and real transfer services, has been playing on a severely uneven field and dodging taxes that help support schools or maintain the bridges and roads that make their business model possible. That's what has municipalities really angry, and it's why some pundits insist that the future of these business models is in doubt.
But I am not at all sure about that. My reading of Uber and Airbnb points to likely compromises that will still leave each of them thriving. This is far bigger than many travel practitioners care to believe. Uber was valued at $17 billion in June. Airbnb is said to be worth $10 billion.
In 2009, Airbnb was going bust. But the idea caught on via social media, and to date, more than 10 million people have booked accommodations through the company -- 10 million bookings travel agents didn't get.
Ugo-Istay.com is, of course, a figment of my imagination. But I sincerely believe that someone will eventually take this concept of people seeking part-time "I'll show you my city like a native" work to create a global database of authentic experiences. (Take a look at Context Travel, a successful adaptation of this concept that produces scholar-led local touring.)
The idea is very real, the technology already in place, and I have little doubt there is a ready and willing workforce that can be managed on the basis of consumer feedback and ratings. Interviews can be done via Skype, potential guides can do video selfies showing their skills in tour narration and management.
I have a very hard time believing that my daughter will experience travel as an adult in the same context and within the same parameters within which most of us are currently operating our businesses.
Could it be that we have a generation coming that will seek far more intense, more frequent and far less expensive worldwide travel experiences than their parents did? Given the average American's pathetic lack of knowledge about the world around them, is this really such a bad thing?
Senior Contributing Editor Richard Bruce Turen was named a Superstar Generalist in Conde Nast Traveler's most recent list of Top Travel Specialists. He is the owner of luxury vacation firm Churchill & Turen and also owns and edits TravelTruth.com. Contact him at rturen@travelweekly.com.