Startup Interview with GuruWalk, the “pay-what-you-want” walking tours platform

GuruWalk founder Juan Castillo is changing the way travellers can find, experience and review walking tours around the world.

Juan Castillo, a member of the Valencia Travel Massive chapter and co-founder of GuruWalk, takes time out to talk to us about his latest travel startup and how you can be involved.

How did you get into the travel industry?

I started in the travel industry by planning some fun trips to Ibiza for college people while I was doing my degree. It was a fun and easy job for making a few bucks while those years. After that, I have started almost a dozen of startups, and about two years ago I started my research on the biggest opportunity for the international travel industry, and that’s how GuruWalk was born.

How would you explain GuruWalk to the travel community?

GuruWalk is a marketplace for walking tours paid just with tips. This is a very popular trend in Europe, and now it’s spreading like wildfire to locations around the world.

What is unique about your service?

Most of the tours on the platform are only available on GuruWalk. Anyone eager to share their knowledge with travelers can do it, which generate very original and personal tours. Moreover, the rating and reviews given by travelers can only be found on our platform as well, and add value to the community.

Everyone can become a tour guide with GuruWalk for free, and start earning some extra income while having fun showing their city to the travelers.

How is your startup changing the future of travel?

GuruWalk encourages anyone, official guides but people like you and me, to share a passion in the form of a tour and earn extra money from their passion. It results in very unique and creative tours all around the globe. Travelers can now experience lots of different approaches in the same city. Eventually, all these guruwalks participate in tourism democratization as they are based on tips.

What’s another travel company you admire and why?

Our inspiration has always been Airbnb, they have lead a community of people sharing values and ideas, and have helped them to do something they wanted to do: share their home, culture and stories with other people, while making some money and helping them to pay their rent.

 Follow Juan on Travel Massive to connect with them and learn more.