The 4th edition of the Tourism Explorers program, organized by Turismo de Portugal and Fábrica de Startups, arrived in São Miguel for the first time, through NONAGON - Science and Technology Park of São Miguel and InUAc - University Incubator, as partner entities.

This edition, took place simultaneously in 12 cities in the country, featured teams in São Miguel who, during several bootcamp days, worked on ideas aimed at improving the customer experience, competitiveness through digital means and combating the seasonality of geographical dispersion.

After an initial phase of Ideation, which ran from October 21st to 23rd, the Acceleration phase ended yesterday with 6 teams competing, where the business models were tested and validated.

Play Azores, Guest and Company, To Guest, Kids in Azores, Azores Wellness and Explore Azores, were the teams to pitch to a jury composed by Carlos Picanço from Futurismo, Catarina Ferreira do Louvre Micaelense and Roberto Medeiros from Atlantic Bikes.

To Guest, a project that allows tourist lodges to offer a memorable hospitality service through their own mobile application, was the local project that won the Tourism Explorers program which will represent the Azores in the national competition between cities.

Launched in 2017, Tourism Explorers has already involved more than 730 entrepreneurs, spread across 17 cities, and has contributed to the development of more than 290 startups. And, according to the most recent Impact Report, 60% of the startups that participated in this program remain active (but in different phases), 23% received some type of investment (43% say they received private investment) and 13% managed to internationalize its business (with the largest concentration being on Spain and Brazil).