Imagine taking a walk through ancient Roman ruins, exploring Tierra del Fuego National Park in Argentina and creating cocktails in Vietnam — all from the comfort of home.
Virtual travel marketplace Beeyonder launched its platform on Dec. 14 to make those experiences possible. With Beeyonder, virtual travelers can attend live or pre-recorded excursions around the world.
“The goal is to provide people that can't travel or are limited in their ability to travel with international experiences, especially to places that they didn't think they might ever get to go to, and bring the world to them as opposed to them going other places,” Beeyonder founder and CEO Brittany Palmer said.
Founded in May, Beeyonder aims to provide travel opportunities to people with disabilities, those who can’t take trips due to financial constraints and, of course, individuals who can’t travel due to global pandemics. (Those happen sometimes, it seems.)
Palmer, who is a bilateral amputee, knows firsthand how challenging it can be for people with disabilities to travel.
“Even though my disability doesn't really prevent me from traveling, I do have some joint issues with my knees, so when I do travel, I have to be really mindful of how much I walk,” Palmer said. “I know that there are certain things that I might not really get to do ever, like hiking the Alps. I started to think about other situations in which I would do virtual travel.”
Then, in 2013, Palmer’s husband had a brain aneurysm that landed him in the hospital for two weeks. It took him months to fully recover. During that time, Palmer kept thinking about her virtual travel idea. If her husband could have enriching, remote experiences — say, taking a virtual walking tour of Zagreb, Croatia — that would be much better than “sitting in a hospital room watching TV all day,” she said.
As an online marketplace, Beeyonder provides a platform for tour operators and guides to list and manage their own virtual experiences. Beeyonder also lists experiences from other companies through affiliate partnerships. These virtual experiences include walking tours, culinary classes, guided meditations and museum visits. During live experiences, virtual travelers can speak directly to the tour guides, adding an interactive element to the excursion.
Once an experience is purchased, Beeyonder receives a commission percentage from its affiliates. The company also takes a 15 percent commission on the purchase of all experiences through its website.
Quality control is something Palmer takes seriously. Beeyonder reviews and vets each virtual experience provider.
“I've spoken to all of the providers that are on the site, I know what they're looking to offer, we asked them questions when they registered, and all of the experiences are reviewed to make sure that everything looks okay, that they have everything that they need to conduct an experience properly, and of course, that they have the proper knowledge base to do what they're doing,” Palmer said.
Currently, the startup offers both group and private experiences. For group experiences, the price ranges from $10 to $30 per person. The price is typically around $100 for private excursions. Some experiences, like attending a $250-per-person fossil tour in South Africa, are more expensive due to production costs.
Palmer is aware that although Beeyonder is entering a relatively new market, she is still up against major players. Airbnb began offering online experiences on its platform in April, near the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. And in September, Amazon launched Amazon Explore in beta mode. Amazon Explore currently offers 86 experiences across 16 countries, but users can only test out the platform through an invitation.
Still, Palmer isn’t fazed. She points out that Amazon only offers private tours, which prevents users from different households from sharing the experience and can be cost-prohibitive. Plus, Beeyonder is firmly dedicated to its original mission: providing travel opportunities to people with disabilities.
“I know how much I love traveling, and I would be really devastated if something happened that didn't allow me to travel anymore and I had no way of seeing those places,” Palmer said. “I understand that YouTube and a lot of other places provide small glimpses into things, but a lot of them are pre-recorded. You don't get to talk to the locals; there's no interaction... I just want to make sure that people get to see the places that they want to see.”
Emma Campbell is a contributing writer for BostInno.
