Vanwoow: motorhomes as a tool for rural development
Rethinking the countryside with the coherence of our grandparents and the tools of the 21st century: that is the work they are carrying out Auxi Piñero, Ana Galindo and Manuel and Javier Guisado . They are the creators of wow , the first collaborative platform for responsible tourism against rural depopulation that can serve as an alternative to mass tourism and the problems caused to the sector by the appearance of the Covid19.
CAMPERIZED TOURISM AND DEPOPULATION
It all started in the summer of 2017. It was high season and the four members of wow They were on a motorhome trip through the province of Teruel. as they crossed villages and landscapes , the four travelers realized that all the places they passed were empty of tourism, something that, as explains Piñero to Traveler.es , "it collides with what usually happens in the group of motorhomes, that we complain that in high season they do not welcome us or that there is no place to settle". During their trip they discovered that in many of the towns they visited there were numerous activities with great tourist potential . This was the germ of the idea that, months later, would revolutionize their lives.
Manu, Auxi and Simón, from the vanwood team
After returning from Teruel, the four travelers sat down to capture on paper all the thoughts that had arisen , they wanted to be sure that this was something feasible and not just an entelechy fruit of the vacation euphoria . They let their idea incubate for a few weeks and, when they saw what hatched, they launched headfirst and without a parachute on a new trip, this time for 5 months through various regions of Spain. His goal was clear: check the feasibility of a project to create a collaborative community to connect micro-villages and motorhomes and that would allow visibility of places in which to live unique experiences and overnight stays in the rural world.
This is how he was born vanwoow, a comprehensive cooperative system which, as Piñero explains, "in turn brings together three types of cooperatives : one of worked , formed by the four of us; one of user partners , formed by travelers in a motorhome; and a third of collaborating partners , formed by the producers and inhabitants of towns that offer experiences".
To carry out your project, vanwoow team launched a Drip campaign –successfully completed in February 2020– under the slogan "A journey to rescue 5,600 small towns from oblivion" . The accumulated money would be used to develop the technical part of the application and be able to undertake a long-term trip with their camper to contact the municipalities of Spain that are likely to participate in the platform.
This direct contact with the micro-villages is, according to their creators, one of the fundamental parts of the project and is part of what they call "strategic advice phase" . In it, the four travelers meet with inhabitants and institutions to find out their impressions and capabilities and, if needed, carry out different workshops such as digital empowerment either copywriting . The ultimate goal of this phase is the creation of experiences carried out by the locals and, above all, the adaptation of the municipalities for itinerant tourism, one of the main problems that exist in Spain in the face of the recent boom in tourism. itinerant tourism –which reached peak rental and registration figures during the summer of 2019 and caused a knock-on effect for Camplify, the leading campervan rental company in Australia and UK – due to the lack of adequate facilities for motorhomes.
The caravan has returned to never leave
For vanwoow it is essential that the adequacy of the municipalities do not focus on the mere creation of parking areas. As Manu Guisado explains, what is sought is that " the overnight area is in the town , to integrate and have the experience within it. We do not want the motorhome zone to be a service area, but rather another space in the town that serves as a residence for itinerant visitors, thus facilitating a more inclusive type of tourism".
According to Guisado himself, by the end of the campaign, the team had already reached agreements with twenty-three towns to adapt their space, some of them managed through the application for subsidies. Everything seemed to be going from strength to strength for the team that, at the end of February, was fully prepared to hit the road.
And then the virus appeared.
Vanwoow: motorhomes as a tool for rural development
COVID-19: SLOWDOWN AND RECALCULATION OF THE ROUTE
The appearance of Covid19 was a sudden stop for the vanwoow team . With everything ready to go on a trip, they encountered a pandemic that prevented any type of movement and personal contact.
Although at the beginning of the quarantine they even considered closing the project, the weeks of confinement helped them to be pragmatic and focus on polishing aspects of it. The main tasks that were set as an objective were to implement a location map of overnight stays and experiences and to launch various questions to the community -currently made up of 505 members, between travelers and guests, and 12,000 non-member users – about their needs . Based on the results of that survey, they made several modifications, such as the one that arose as a result of the request of some local producers to offer punctual meetings in groups of up to 10 people instead of offering an experience consistently throughout the year.
Vanwoow Caravan-Friendly Overnight Map
After the period of confinement, the team realized that the new situation, although marked by insecurity , had left a very favorable climate for the development of a type of inland and proximity tourism . This has been reflected in the growing interest that has arisen from various municipalities that have contacted the team directly to join the project. According to Piñero, the institutions have seen that, apart from being a type of tourism on the rise, It is a format that allows compliance with sanitary hygiene standards.
An example of this interest has been the last action carried out at the end of June 2020 -already established the New Normal - on the Catalan region of Urgell , where they have come to an agreement with 17 micro-villages to carry out a tourism plan. As Guisado explains, in total and since the beginning of its journey, 14 municipalities already have adaptation to tourism for motorhomes and eight are about to do so imminently.
In a caravan to the Spain of the small towns
2020 is being a year of challenges . We have to face a health crisis that has torpedoed the economic waterline of many sectors, especially tourism. Added to this are other crises that have been dragging on for some time, such as the abandonment of rural areas or the disproportionate growth of a type of mass, concentrated and unsustainable tourism.
The main mission must be to look for alternative and innovative solutions that are capable of improving, point by point, all these problems without stepping on each other. The itinerant tourism perhaps it is not the definitive solution for this, perhaps neither is the project proposed by vanwoow, but, without a doubt, both are measures capable of diversifying and giving new life options to a sector that, for better or for worse, has become one of the economic foundations of Spain and is now reeling at the slightest threat of viral outbreaks.