The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

One of the first entities to seek capital in The Bahamas via crowdfunding says it has created “tourist-tech” via technology that co-ordinates the visitor experience in-country.

Marcian Cash, chief executive of Bahamas Myfi, told the inaugural Arawak X Ecosystem Virtual Conference that he has produced the “world’s first travel companion and destination specific companion” based on technology.

“We use geolocation services, Wi-Fi, but we also use augmented reality and that is what kind of ties our platform together,” he explained. “We are designed to bring consumers and vendors together in an ecosystem that is so easy to use, so interesting and so immersive.

“Our platform has many different profit centres, including not only advertising and commission, but self-guided tours, virtualisation services, Wi-Fi and data, merchandise sales and, above all, a universal payment gateway.”

Bahamas Myfi’s “Groove Tourism” marketplace, Mr Cash said, provides a modern solution to problems that have plagued vendors and tourists.

“Based on the insights that we have gathered over a period of years, we did a whole lot of research and we felt what tourists were feeling in our marketplace and around the Caribbean as well,” he added: “With technology we were able to answer those needs and we invite you to come and experience growth.”

Bahamas Myfi is about “democratising” the tourism industry through giving more opportunities for people to participate in the industry. “We have a back-end system that we call a productivity suite, which we pretty much give away for free,” Mr Cash said.

“We have these tools that will allow smaller businesses - and even larger businesses - to reach tourists in a way with reactionary advertising, because our platform is online and it is immediate and it is always running.

“One of the things we found is that a lot of companies, let’s say they are doing tours and they will go out with half a boat. They are not able to say, two hours before the trip, that they only have half of a boat, and even if they were able to say it, how would they say it.”

Calling these details something the Groove Tourism marketplace was designed to capture because it is “so rich”, Mr Cash added that advertisers would jump at the opportunity to have such information on tourist habits and interests.

He said: “One of the reasons why we came up with this platform is we realised that this space is owned by international companies, and these international companies are not vested in the Bahamian market.

“They’re not vested in any of the local markets, and because they’re not vested, they have no interest in really trying to showcase all of those things that tourists actually want. What tourists want is a locally0-curated experience. They want to have a friend in The Bahamas, they want to have somebody who can take them around, and that is what our platform tries to do.”

Specialised tours are something the Ministry of Tourism has been trying to develop as a way to diversify the tourism sector. Mr Cash said: “Because our technology is so smart we’re able to do things like bundle transportation along with it, so we can take disparate parts of a tour and bundle them together without the two separate vendors.”