DGtalguide is a quick and easy way to create comprehensive tours, including route maps, content, detailed schedules, and automatic booking of additional services such as restaurant reservations, lodging, museum tickets or car rentals.
Tour operators — package your experience and knowledge of the local area and your business partners’ services into a convenient digital product for the new generation of travelers.
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Hi, I’m Andrey, founder of DGtalguide — we automate tour operations end-to-end for modern travel companies and modern travelers.
Before launching DGtalguide, I founded Motoragazzi — one of Italy’s largest scooter rental and guided tour companies. That’s where I first faced the challenge: on any given day, clients wanted to take different tours, but we had only two guides — including me. To manage demand, we created fixed tour calendars, but that reduced flexibility and profit. Hiring more guides increased costs and lowered service quality.
That’s when the idea struck me: what if we replaced the guide with digital platform and mobile app? One that:
• sells tours online through the website and mobile app
• books partner services (rentals, wineries, restaurants, museums, hotels),
• navigates the client along the route and manages tour timing,
• delivers storytelling in any format (text, audio, photo, video, PDF),
• confirms service usage with partners and tracks transactions,
...so that the sale, organization, and guiding of the tour are fully automated.
In 2019, we launched the first version of the platform and app — and it worked. Costs dropped, sales rose, and we attracted younger travelers who value flexibility, affordability, digital tools, and independent experiences.
In 2022, with the arrival of my co-founder and CTO Alexei Stoliartchouk, we entered a new stage. We invested about $350,000 of personal funds, registered the company in the U.S., and rebuilt the entire platform from scratch. In 2023, first external tour operators joined. In 2024, we started scaling across the travel industry.
Today, DGtalguide is a powerful B2B2C platform used by local tour operators to sell and conduct thousands of tours.
It supports scooter, bike, walking, car tours and more — and offers white-label solutions.
What makes DGtalguide unique?
• Full automation of tour logistics, bookings, and storytelling.
• Instant online sales without human involvement.
• Real-time tour tracking and accountability across all parties.
• Scalable and customizable for any type of tour.
If this sparked any questions or ideas — I’d love to hear them. Let’s talk and see if DGtalguide can bring value to your work.
Explore a demo tour in 5 languages:
dgtalguide.com/tours/following-the-azure-river-bike-tour-start-at-peschiera-del-garda-276
Hi Andrey, thanks for sharing DGtalguide with the Travel Massive community.
The explainer video is really helpful — I like how the app keeps you on schedule!
What was the biggest challenge in building your platform and getting early adoption? And what are some new features that you're planning to implement this year?
Hi Ian,
Thanks for your interest and your questions.
We didn’t face any major challenges building the platform, since I’ve spent many years working in the event and tourism industry. We have an incredibly efficient team of engineers and designers, so everything I’d been carrying in my head for years quickly turned into algorithms, interfaces, and code.
However, getting early adopters on board was a real challenge...
Our platform doesn’t just automate certain processes within a tour operator’s business—it changes the business model itself. The travel industry is quite conservative, especially when it comes to radically new ways of doing things. Explaining what DGtalguide is feels like trying to sell microwaves in the late 1950s—people just can’t grasp the idea of heat without fire... :)
My job involves talking to tour operators every day and answering the same questions over and over again:
– What do you mean there’s no need for tour guides anymore?
– That’s right, you don’t need them. A mobile app can fully replace the guide.
– But who’s going to call and email the partners to book hotels, restaurant tables, or wine tastings?
– No one will call. The platform handles it all automatically.
– But we’ve always sold package tours…
– You don’t need packages anymore. Your client can build their own tour from the parts they want and pay for it online, instantly.
And so on...
Our experience with Motoragazzi—a tour operator in Italy that I founded—has been a huge help in dealing with new clients. Since 2019 (when the first version of DGtalguide was launched), Motoragazzi has been offering all its tours exclusively in an app-guided format and sells thousands of them every year. I just tell clients: “If this works for my business, it’ll work for yours too!”
Since 2024, other tour operators have started using DGtalguide and are now acting as our ambassadors. For example, Itinera Bike in Verona, BikeAndGo on the Venetian coast, and others. They help promote the very idea of app-guided tours by proving that it works and supports business growth.
I won’t sugarcoat it—marketing the product is a tough and expensive job. That’s why we’re actively looking for investors right now.
Our roadmap for new platform features is planned out for the next couple of years. We release new app versions at least once a month.
Currently, we’re working on integrating AI into the tour content creation process. The first feature, which will be launched very soon, is automatic translation of tour content into different languages. This way, a tour operator who creates a tour in English, for example, will be able to sell it to tourists from any country with language versions generated instantly.
One more very important thing…
Before creating DGtalguide, I spent months searching for a platform that could meet my needs. But I couldn’t find anything truly suitable for a tour operator. There are probably hundreds of platforms out there that present themselves as “self-guided tour platforms.” But in reality, almost all of them do the same thing — they offer travelers a route and some content.
A professional tour operator simply can’t use these platforms for their business, because the route and content are just a small part of what makes up a “tour.”
Over time, I realized what the real issue was. Most of these platforms were created by people with strong experience as travelers — but likely with no background as tour operators. They had no clear idea of what features a company needs when it actually organizes and sells tours.
Let me give you an example. Here’s a simple question I’d like to ask the members of Travel Massive:
What EXACTLY does a tour operator sell?
What is their CORE product or service? What are clients really paying for?
How would you describe it in a single word?
I’d be genuinely curious to hear your thoughts, colleagues.
This app is quite mind-blowing -- I'm sure it's a big part of the future of tourism. Plus, Andrey is a really bright mind who knows what he is doing. Good luck!
This is interesting. I am founder of TUBUDD - an app to book a local guide, buddy, interpreter, translators in many different languages. I am totally for the life of traveling with the locals as it is more interesting to get to know someone new and get shown the hidden places only locals know or just simply having a local friend and I believe in human touch, rather than self guided. However, this can also help my local buddy to show the travelers the route or directions and them going together. So it is quite interesting. Will try to use it and let you know. Keep going, Andrey! Love the insight!
Hi Annie,
I totally agree with you—no question about it. You can only truly discover a country with a local guide—someone who’s either lived there for years or was born and raised in that country, city, or neighborhood.
But let’s be honest: a huge number of travelers today simply don’t want that so-called “human touch.” In fact, many go out of their way to avoid it. They don’t like making phone calls. They’re not into group tours. And they definitely don’t want to spend hours or days with a guide they’ve never met. This is especially true of the newer generation of tourists. For them, gadgets have replaced human interaction.
On top of that, post-COVID tourism has become much more cost-conscious. People are watching their budgets. And hiring a guide means paying for a highly educated person, often fluent in multiple languages and with the charisma of a showman. Naturally, that’s not going to come cheap, right?
I’ve heard the complaints—people saying DGtalguide is taking work away from guides. But honestly, it’s the complete opposite. We’re creating opportunities for local guides and tour operators to actually grow their businesses. One guide can only do one tour at a time. How do you scale that? With our platform, they can sell all their tours every single day, to as many people as they want.
And let’s not worry—those who are looking for that personal, human connection will still choose live guides.
There’s another big point here. So many tour operators and guides still think their main product is content or storytelling. But that’s not really the case anymore. Take my tour company, Motoragazzi, for example: we’ve cut content down to the bare minimum. I know my clients aren’t coming for stories—they’re coming for the experience.
And I’m fully aware that I’m no Anthony Bourdain—I just can't create content that tourists will want to read/watch in the middle of a street during their tour. :)
Yeah I do agree with you in a way. And I also think the more people use digital guides now and think this way now, the more expensive and valuable my local guides will be in the next few years. We filter and vet for the best ones, not whatever. And thing might be easy in Europe as everything is there and infustrure wise it is ready for years. But for countries in SEA, where I am based, it is probably way cheaper and easier and more fun to book a local buddy. Seems like you are starting out in Italy, i think it is perfect for Europe, everytime i go to Europe, I always rent a car or bike and just discover the city myself so it makes sense sthat way.
Yes, people do use mobile guides, but all the platforms currently on the market—and I say this with confidence, having researched the topic extensively—are really platforms for EXCURSIONS, not full TOURS. In other words, they focus on selling content: routes and storytelling.
From what I’ve seen, these platforms are struggling to make money, and most of them are operating at a loss. And now, with the rise of AI, content has become almost free—which creates an entirely new and serious challenge for their business model. Need a tour of Mexico City hosted by Salma Hayek? No problem—AI can generate that kind of video in seconds, and it’ll cost next to nothing. :)
Our platform is built for something entirely different. It ORGANIZES the tour itself. For example, a guided excursion can be just one part of the overall tour—a premium add-on that the traveler can choose to book. That’s why we don’t see DGtalguide as a replacement for guides—but as a business tool that supports them.
Your app is very cool, and I imagine many people will use it for convenience. Seems like the demo bike tour you shared with us has a lot of value. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Erin!
Thousands of travelers are ALREADY USING the platform, buying tours created, managed, sold and conducted through it.