Álvaro Silberstein, Wheel the World | Enabling Accessible Travel With Technology [Ep. 68]

The audio and video are in Spanish. These notes are a translation.

What do you do when you want to go on a trip and do some tourism? Simple: you Google the destination, you go to an online travel agency, you search and evaluate places, and finally you buy. Unfortunately, the experience is not that simple for millions of people with disabilities in the world, who have to make sure that the lodging and the tourist activities have the necessary accessibility infrastructure.

In today’s episode, we spoke with Álvaro Silberstein, CEO and cofounder of Wheel the World, the online platform that lets people with disabilities globally book accessible tourism, including lodging and activities.

We talked about how Wheel The World uses technology to aggregate the supply of tourism and the demand from people with disabilities, and in this way they are enabling an accessible tourism market. We also talked about how to create a brand your users identify with.

To date, Wheel The World has made it possible for thousands of people to travel, and has raised more than 4 million dollars from funds such as Chile Global Ventures, Dadneo, and Plug & Play.

Thanks to Camilo Navarro and Yoel Waisberg of Wheel The World, and Cristobal Silva of Kayyak Ventures for their question recommendations.

What You Can Learn Today

• The accessibility problems in the tourism industry
• The market size of the tourism sector
• How to create a brand your users love

If you like the podcast, the easiest way to help us is by leaving a review with ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It takes less than 1 minute and helps us convince the hardest guests to land, such as David Vélez, CEO and founder of Nubank, whom we would love to interview.

Youtube Timestamps*

About Álvaro and Wheel the World

• [1:33] - How did Álvaro get into the world of startups?
  • His family is quite entrepreneurial.
  • When he graduated, he worked 2 years in consulting.
  • Then he worked at several startups until he decided to start a company.
• [2:35] - What is Wheel the World?
  • It is the booking.com for people who need accessible tourism.
  • More than 1800 people have used Wheel the World to do tourism in more than 80 destinations around the world
  • 80% of users are from the United States
  • The Wheel the World team is 40 people from 13 nationalities

How Wheel the World Is Enabling Accessible Tourism

• [3:51] - Accessibility problems in tourism
  • Álvaro has had a disability since he was 18, so he understands the problem well
  • Many lodging options claim to be accessible, even when they are not
• [6:36] - Wheel the World’s underserved market
  • The tourism industry has no idea how inaccessible its services are
  • In Europe and North America, tourism is more accessible than in other parts of the world
  • Hotels want to be more accessible, but they do not know how
  • They digitize the accessibility information of hotels and other tourist attractions
  • Their system makes recommendations based on each user’s needs
  • They grant a seal to those tourist attractions that meet high accessibility standards
• [13:33] - Supply of accessible options
  • They have evaluators worldwide to approve that a hotel is accessible
  • They created an Accessibility Mapping System
  • Evaluators train with an online course so they can map options effectively
• [16:13] - Market size of accessible tourism
  • One billion people in the world have disabilities and have problems when traveling
  • Those one billion people have at least one companion or caregiver
  • Around 30% of the world’s population needs sustainable options
  • Accessible tourism is a very large market, even if it does not look like it
  • In money terms, it is a market larger than China’s GDP
• [21:26] - How did Wheel the World survive the pandemic?
  • They had to refund USD $30 thousand for canceled bookings
  • Right before the pandemic they raised their seed round
  • The team had to lower their salaries and cut their expenses to the maximum
  • Starting in May 2021, they began to grow again
  • In 2021 they sold three times what they sold in 2019
• [25:01] - The vision and culture of Wheel the World
  • They have hired people who are moved by the company’s mission
  • 20% of the team has a disability
  • Building their engineering team was complicated because of the tourism situation
  • They work remotely, and they are currently hiring

**How to Create a Brand Everyone Loves

• [28:18] - How was the Wheel the World brand developed?
  • They set out to create a pro-disability movement
  • They transformed “charity” into empowerment
  • They created a lot of motivating and inspiring content
• [31:24] - How was Wheel the World born?
  • Together with Camilo, his partner, they organized a trip to Torres del Paine
  • They created a project to finance the expenses
  • When they came back from the trip, their story went viral
  • They started offering this service to people who asked for support to take the same trip
  • The Wheel the World logo represents Torres del Paine
• [35:12] - How did Mark Zuckerberg come to talk about Wheel the World?
  • They took part in a Facebook acceleration program
  • The program helped 100 communities with a presence on Facebook to grow
  • Facebook chose Wheel the World to make a video and show it to its board of directors
  • Mark Zuckerberg showed it in a meeting with employees
• [37:19] - Competition and attracting customers
  • Booking.com is the second best customer of Google Ads
  • In the short term, they are betting on Google Ads and it is working for them
  • They created a fairly attractive referral program
  • They have made partnerships with well-known brands
  • They are attending many disability events in the United States

Tweet Round

• [42:04] -
  • Recommended book: Team Topologies, by Matthew Skelton
  • Changes in the Latin American startup ecosystem: that products are created not only for Latin America, but for the whole world
  • Founder to interview: Jaime Arrieta, of Buk

Episode Mentions

You can find Álvaro on Twitter and LinkedIn

Recommended book: Team Topologies, by Matthew Skelton

Founder to interview: Jaime Arrieta, of Buk

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