ENCOURAGING THE ECONOMY
OF RURAL AREAS
LOOKING FOR OPPORTUNITIES
Sometimes you have to look where no one has before, to bet on different and risky ideas and let yourself be surprised by the possible outcome of combining various concepts.
This project is the result of bringing together underpopulated Spain, virtual reality and a bank.
There is a thriving urban Spain, which has prospered at all levels, largely thanks to the manpower, talent and resources received for decades from most rural areas, Underpopulated Spain, which today lacks the necessary investment and assistance prescribed by the Constitution and is now raising its voice to demand equality and social justice and stop its spiral to total emptiness.
One of the objectives we set ourselves as a challenge is to repopulate the Spain that is becoming underpopulated, especially in those areas seriously hit by a rural exodus.
Learning to enhance the natural attractions of remote areas in order to compete with more consolidated holiday destinations, gives visibility to small towns, generates employment, recovers traditions, stimulates the local economy and boosts broadband internet connection: these are the challenges we face.
Jeff Gothelf defines Lean UX as «the practice of bringing light to the true nature of our work, faster and with less emphasis on the deliverables, and more focus on the experience being designed». One of the major advantages of using Lean UX is that this methodology cuts production times and reduces the risk of a product failure.
After carefully analyzing the Lean Canvas that my colleague and I developed, we saw that the way to economically stimulate rural areas was to take young people from the city to the country. How? Through personalized travel experiences, where the tourist is connected to the rural world.
Our idea is for young people to enjoy craft workshops, local cuisine, adventure sports experiences, original accommodation, or guided routes through underpopulated Spain. In this way, through tourism and the generation of traveler experience, we can encourage small business projects locally.
The key to differentiate us from all other competitors is virtual reality. Users can enjoy the 360º virtual reality trip from home, live the experience first-hand and thus feel like making the trip in person. This is how the business idea VR My Ground was born and I present it to you as a landing page.
Another thing that sets us apart from our competitors is our travel mood. Distance will be travelled in vans customized by urban art stars, in small groups of between 8 and 15 people and always of the same age. Travel guides will be local people with expert knowledge of the area to be explored. Groups will be arranged from among all people contacted, so people with an adventurous spirit may travel together even if they have no travelling companions.
The proposal is in line with the objectives !
We launched the landing page as a real MVP and measured the objectives we set at the beginning of the project using KPIs. We only advertised at no cost through social networks and tested the page visits with metrics for a week to see if the business could be viable.
The project is attractive. The results of Google Analytics generated 652 visits to the landing. We got 25 leads through our newsletter subscriptions. Through the heat maps generated by Hotjar we saw that potential users were very interested in offers and virtual reality videos. We also received positive feedback on site design through Hotjar’s Incoming Feedback.
The objective of this approach was to generate validated knowledge about our product, generating greater user value and thus creating a market opportunity.