Walking Tours Incubator in Lower Manhattan Goes Beyond Cliched Excursions
Photo Caption: Seaport District Entrance on Fulton. Source: Alliance for Downtown New York
Skift Take
Scaling a walking tour experience in a famous city like New York isn't only about competing for the masses. It might sound counterintuitive, but five entrepreneurs chosen by the Alliance for Downtown New York will have to do the exact opposite to stand out.
There are plenty of walking tours to Lower Manhattan. From Ground Zero Memorial Walking tours to Wall Street and Financial District tours, there's a broad selection to book among online travel marketplaces like Viator and GetYourGuide.
Yet, the Alliance of Downtown New York believes the walking tours space in New York City is the ideal creative fodder for its walking tours incubator grants to bring a fresh focus to its parts unknown.
"In places like Manhattan, there's a glut of standard walking tour companies, and so many ways beyond tours for travelers to spend their time and money," said TripSchool CEO Mitch Bach, one of the program's mentors.
"Developing new walking tours that stand out from the herd, they would need to explore routes that go far beyond the march up Broadway, touch the Bull, see the church tours that currently exist, breathing some fresh air into the current tour landscape," added Bach.
Considering that 45 percent of the 12.1 million unique visitors to Lower Manhattan in 2022 were domestic visitors, with overall visitor numbers up 59 percent from 2021, there are plenty of locals looking to immerse themselves beyond the headliner experiences of Lower Manhattan. Alliance for Downtown New York data further shows that visitor numbers are still down 29 percent from the 17.1 million that visited in 2019.
As a result, the Alliance for Downtown New York is in the final stages of its Walking Tour Incubator Grant Program. Five walking tour businesses have been selected to receive up to $12,500 — $7,500 now, with a possible additional installment of $5,000 in a year, as a fully operational tour experience.
The selected entrepreneurs, who would fit the bill to develop compelling and original walking tour experiences, are set to enter the two-month program in preparation for launch in the summer of 2023 as they work towards designing an experience that can be sustained in Lower Manhattan.
Bringing Diversity to Lower ManhattanDiversity in product is important, too, said Nikki Padilla, co-founder of the Global Guide Alliance, another of the program's mentors.
"The
