The diversity of natural, cultural, historical and leisure attractions has increasingly inspired tourism in Cape Verde, where on this path the startup was born Tourist Travel Talk (TT Talk), to enhance and provide tools to local tour operators, which reflect Cape Verde's cultural, gastronomic, environmental and heritage diversity, in addition to leveraging the country's digital marketing.
Founded by the young Wilkar Graça, TT TALK was one of the innovative projects that represented Cape Verde in the last edition of the WebSummit, which also has as its background the objective of creating immersive experiences between tourists and local communities.
"We have a problem with marketing, exposure and digital promotion of what our offers are. Because what happens is that, in Cape Verde, international operators ended up perceiving an enormous potential around sun and beach. They ended up installing their bases on the islands of Sal and Boa-Vista. Cape Verde has mass tourism, around sun and beach, and also packages that do not allow the wealth generated around tourism to reach the communities”, said Wilkar Graça in an interview with the magazine BantuMen.
"The TT Talk platform is practically a social network that will allow tourists to connect with Cape Verde, interact with tour operators, who will be authorized to make their services available for better promotion and constantly communicate in real time, in a continuous way and that also allows the socialization”, reported the Founder.
In recent times, tourism platforms in Cape Verde have promoted their offers in a dispersed manner on different social networks, and where TT TALK concentrates the offers of local operators in a single online space, which, in addition to providing “the possibility for local communities to benefit economically and socially from the tourism potential that Cape Verde has, also has the purpose of reducing the disadvantages, compared to international operators, and consequently, reducing regional asymmetries. Because islands like Sal and Boa-Vista, for example, end up being saturated. And this not only brings riches, but problems at a social level.”, underlines.
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Regarding the presence of the startup at the Web Summit, Wilkar Graça points out that it was not just about getting investments, but mainly to find people, entities and organizations that want to form partnerships, nationally and internationally, that can boost the implementation of TT Talk in your country.
"Startups are made up of people who also have to improve their vision, from talking to people like you, journalists. Acquire experiences, get to know the reality at an international level and understand the aspects that I should use to improve my performance and that of the startup. In addition, we also have the possibility to participate in other events [around the Web Summit] and networking, which is very important nowadays”, he reiterated.
"In 2019, at the stage when the idea came to me, I was talking to my IT teacher, as it was a solution linked to the technology area, to see how it could help. A few months later, he sent me this contest, which I entered, and since then I've been developing the startup. Today, we are in a marketing phase, hence the issue of partnerships. We already have the platform ready, we have networking with potential partners, at the level of local tour operators and we also create experiences for travelers“, said Wilker who never had a computer component in high school.
It was at university, when he entered the Management course, that he had his first contact with this universe. After a year as a student, the opportunity arose to participate in a contest, organized by the government of Cape Verde, through the Cape Verde Digital.
"It is necessary to have the necessary tools, the necessary conditions, the right people, at the right time, and we will be able to do the rest. But obviously, many things need to be developed in Cape Verde, but I think we are on a good path. Betting on education, opportunity and trying to enhance internal communication. This contest, for example, did not reach everyone. It never arrives. We have to leverage, so that information reaches everywhere and to the right people. That is, to young people like me who, for example, from a teacher, managed to obtain the information”, Finished.
