Author: MEANINGFUL TRAVEL PH
ABSTRACT
Ann Marie Cunanan started Meaningful Travels PH to bring impactful experiences and help serve communities. When the pandemic hit, the social enterprise had to stop their travel and experience packages. The team had to quickly pivot to continue supporting their communities and started The Local Goodness PH. The new venture brought the communities access to market, by helping them sell Tumeric-Ginger Tea, Kalinga Ground Coffee, and Palapa, a favorite condiment in Maranao Cooking. The team banked on digitization and used tools like Wave and Shopify to increase productivity and improve operations in their mission to bring together people, planet, and prosperity.
Where it all started
Ann Marie Cunananan was a corporate girl whose heart was in empowering communities. She often volunteered and worked with NGOs and foundations. After almost a decade in the corporate world, she decided to go back to her roots and her passion. She initially wanted to volunteer, then someone advised her to utilize her business knowledge and start a social enterprise.
She started on her journey when she was awarded the Australia Awards which granted her a scholarship to study social entrepreneurship. In 2012, she left corporate life to venture into a social enterprise and never looked back. “I figured I already had the business development side down pat; I could use my further learnings to help empower local communities,” shared Cunanan.
She used the business plan she developed for her post-graduate studies and got to work. Meaningful Travels PH was born to marry her passions for traveling, engaging with local communities, and doing volunteer work. Meaningful Travels PH grew to become known as a travel platform that let tourists immerse in communities, make connections with locals, and learn lasting lessons about their culture—an opportunity for tourists to travel not just for the ‘gram, but for a purpose.
Initially she catered to international clients--with the idea to marry volunteering and traveling. She quickly pivoted to the local market when it proved too difficult to promote in a different market as she was based in the Philippines. She found out how big the local market was in exploring our own cultures within the Philippines. The company got a lot of clients who were Filipinos looking for impactful and meaningful experiences.
Meaningful Travels PH started with trip packages in mountain areas. When demand grew, they added day trips. As part of her passion to preserve culture and local heritage, Cunanan started an experience that would teach Filipinos about the Muslim Filipinos through cultural exchange. She wanted to promote understanding through immersion and deep conversation.
The pandemic and travel ban
Meaningful Travels PH was doing really well. Their multiple impact experiences including the Muslim immersion brought positive impact not only to the travelers but also to the communities. But in April 2020, the coronavirus pandemic hit. The government imposed travel restrictions for all domestic and international travel. This heavily impacted Meaningful Travels PH. They had to stop all operations.
The team was devastated, they lost their business and their communities needed help. With the travel ban, they could not continue with their outreach voluntourism plans. They needed to come up with a new business plan. “Instead of people traveling to the communities, why not let the goods travel to the people. We cannot bring people to the mountains so why not bring a piece of the mountains here?” thought Ann Marie, as the idea for The Local Goodness PH started to form.
Thankfully, the team was able to secure grants and funding to keep the business going despite the stopped operations. These came in the form of government help, both from the Philippines and Australian embassy. Initially, it was extremely difficult. But reflecting back on the challenges they faced, the team treated it as a blessing in disguise. They were forced to adapt because of the pandemic and created a stronger and more resilient business model. Personally, the difficult time taught Ann Marie to be more resourceful and to be flexible, learning lessons and leadership skills.
Inclusive progress and growth
The team talked about how technology made life easier for everyone, especially during a critical time like this. However, one sector was severely overlooked--the local producers. The farmers did not have access to technology which deprived them of access to the mark and a direct link to consumers. They needed to rely on middle-men traders who took a significant cut of the profit.
This sad reality led the Meaningful Travels PH team to help solve this problem. The idea was to build inclusive economies by doing business with MSMEs (micro and small enterprises, especially in the rural areas. “The idea for The Local Goodness was a bi-product from our travels with Meaningful Travels PH. In our immersion to rural communities, we met farmers who served us their coffee and ginger teas, freshly harvested from their farms in the highlands,” Cunanan said.
The team understood that helping the community market their own produce required a separate platform--one that worked with the farmers and ensured the wellbeing of all. And so the team got to work and started The Local Goodness PH. Their partner communities were very happy and got excited with each order. In the past, the farmers had to sell house to house, but since the Local Goodness partnership, they were able to focus on farming thus increasing their yield and meeting demand. The Local Goodness PH would take care of all the selling and marketing.
The end consumers, on the other hard, were happy to support local farm produce at great quality. From consumers, they expanded their consumer base to corporations, who bought into their vision and appreciated quality produce from local farmers.
Pivoting to digital products
Shifting from a travel company into an e-commerce platform was no easy feat. The team had to use digital tools to help the transition. First was their online communications. To be able to coordinate with the team properly and reduce any miscommunication, they set internal guidelines on how best to communicate with each other. They utilized online video conferencing platforms like Zoom and Google Workplace to supplement chats over Viber. “Using Google Drive and Google Sheets was great, everything was in one place and easily accessible to everyone,” shared Cunanan.
It was not an easy journey but through teamwork and dedication, they had their business up and running. For business operations, Cunanan saw the value in automating repetitive tasks. There was immense value in maximizing the limited time and resources they had. They kept a small team of 4 running the business and made sure that all tasks were value-adding.
For their online shop, they opted to use an online e-commerce platform to get them started right away. Building a website from scratch would be difficult and take a lot of time. The team saw the advantages of using built-in solutions or Software-as-a-service (SAAS) packaged solutions. Shopify provided everything they needed to start the business and immediately start selling. Using this tool did not require any design skills or technical skills and provided a user-friendly interface. This took care of the back end, so the team focused on sales and marketing. Cunanan’s expertise in the retail segment came in handy when building the brand and marketing of The Local Goodness PH. Using solutions like Shopify allowed her to sell more and grow the business, which helped the community in return.
Although Shopify provided the e-commerce solution and a point-of-sale system, the team needed a more specialized invoicing tool. Initially, they used QuickBooks to receive payments but later looked for a more cost-effective solution. They researched and took the time to understand the implications of switching to a different tool, fully aware of the integration needs and impact on operations. Finally, they chose Wave, an invoicing and online payments tool. This solution facilitated the payments from their customers for a smoother customer experience and more efficient operations for the team. As they recognized the rise in e-wallet and online payments, they started accepting payments with GCash as well.
In choosing which tools to automate, The Local Goodness looked at their entire business and decided which areas to focus on and which ones to automate and outsource to existing pre-packaged solutions in the market.
The path forward
As the team remained hopeful for a better 2021, the planned initiatives would help bring inclusive growth, not just for people in the city but also through the communities. They planned to bring along partners that would help rural communities be digitally ready and empower them to do business online. The goal was to bring tools that would amplify internet connection in the community. “It doesn’t stop with us, we also want to train our community partners to empower them and bring them with us into our digital journey,” said Cunanan regarding their 2021 plans.
Throughout the difficult year that was 2020, the team at Meaningful Travels has kept true to their mission of helping their communities. Despite the setbacks and challenges caused by the pandemic, the team was able to pivot and look for ways to help the community. And as 2021 rolled in, they focused on continuing their work for the community.
Tie back to GMB
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