Do those things even make sense together? Yes, definitely!

For the first time in history, own Crypto tokenomics allows us to financially incentivize travelers to crowdsource Businesses discovery on the global scale.

This means that we’re facing an opportunity to find and onboard Rural communities with local providers, expand market offering massively and support economically Rural residents. Bellow, are the answers to the questions: What, why and how?

Problem

1. High speed urbanisation
   The primary driver of Urbanization is unemployment

“Rural areas are failing to provide opportunity and are losing their young people, which leads to major consequences at the local, national and global level. It can erode national economies, political stability, and food security,”
warned IFAD’s president Gilbert F. Houngbo at a recent conference for African Union and European Union agriculture ministers in Rome.

Today, there are over 1.2 billion young people between the ages of 15 and 24. The majority of youth live in rural areas of the low and middle- income countries. If a few opportunities are available, they are likely to migrate overseas or to urban centers. This trend may lead us to inequality in urban areas, where wealthy communities co-exist alongside with slums and informal settlements.

1. Traditional crafts are disappearing
   Heritage Craft Association campaign says traditional artisanship is in danger of extinction without support.

“Craft skills today are in the same position that historic buildings were a hundred years ago. We recognise the importance of old buildings as part of our heritage, and it’s time for us to join the rest of the world and recognise that these living cultural traditions are just as important and need safeguarding too.”
Globalization leads us to mechanization and robotization. From one angle of view, it’s great and efficient, however, from the other side, incubation leads Humanity to creativity extinction. As we can assert robots are not creative entities. Humanity needs to support creativity as it drives human evolution. Thus, it’s critical to support local crafters economically.

We can also see a vital interest from the societies. For example, a group of students once worked with a social enterprise to comb the city for local artisans dispersed across the territory. They turned their stories into short films that depict their craftsmanship. These ten short films struck a chord: within a few months of being posted on Facebook, they generated over 10,000 likes.

1. Unfulfilled demand for a rural tourism
   Travelers are getting more and more keen to have rural experiences that are only offered in the luxury travel segment. So far, finding and turning rural residents into experience providers is possible only via Travel agencies and luxury vacation bundles. The shifting trend towards rural tourism arised a new unfulfilled opportunity.

An interesting case study revealed that almost a quarter of Irish small and medium-sized companies are entirely offline, despite half of them acknowledging that an online presence is essential for generating business awareness, according to a new report by the IE Domain Registry (IEDR) https://www.independent.ie/business/small-business/latest-news/consumers-unhappy-because-almost-one-in-four-smes-is-offline-35804457.html

Mission and goals

Columbery team takes as a mission to redistribute the wealth of the travel industry from the concentrated urban population to more marginalized rural communities.
We aim to build a bridge between rural communities and travelers; and, by that to increase local businesses growth at least by 15%.

We believe that Columbery solution can positively impact on [Sustainable Development Goals:] (https://www.globalgiving.org/sdg/)

• 8 Good Jobs and Economic Growth

• 9 Innovation and Infrastructure

Solution

By understanding the 2 crucial behaviour traits of the travelers, gamification factor and financial incentivisation, Columbery creates an opportunity to bridge the newly created gap.

For travelers solution sounds like:

Earn by exploring beyond, spend in the city centers.

Gamified in-app, User Experience aims to promote small and medium businesses discovery that are located outside of touristic beaten passes. Columbery encourages travelers to explore beyond tourist centers with a double reward.

“Instead of receiving a couple of dollars worth in Columb tokens — travelers may leave city centers and go rural to find local businesses and earn twice as much.”
The ultimate goal of Columbery platform is attracting travelers to visit rural regions and to experience authentic life in the rural communities.

As a platform, Columbery sees 2 crucial steps to make it real:

1. The first step Columbery has to make it really is: incentivizing travelers financially to explore remote spots and invite unique unknown businesses.
2. The second step is: Onboarding invited businesses to create real experiences for travelers. Thus, every traveler would be able to purchase experiences like: «Eco-retreat, with a volunteering experience and dining in a rural commune». This is just an example. The whole scope of opportunities can go far beyond our imagination.
   Columbery believes that, in the future, only crowdsourcing efforts may allow everyone to experience things that were unaffordable or hidden before.

The biggest benefit of this solution is definitely an economical support and fight aiming at reducing the unemployment rate for Rural residents. By bringing businesses to life in the regions where they currently descending, Columbery creates an opportunity to redistribute the wealth and eliminate an inequality in urban areas.

We truly hope that one day our mission will get real.