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The Xunta’s startup accelerator has registered 40% more applications than last year.

The second edition of the tourism startup accelerator Turislab launched by the Xunta has aroused great interest among young entrepreneurs in the sector. This is demonstrated by the fact that the number of projects aspiring to benefit from the support and encouragement of this training and mentoring programme has increased by 41% compared to the 2011 edition, with a total of 117 candidates on this occasion. “The work carried out since the initiative was launched a year ago and the first success stories featuring startups already accelerated in the first promotion of innovative tourism talent were key to improving the initial records,” the Xunta de Galicia points out.

Now it is time to make a first selection among those 117 applicants and choose the 15 startups (plus another 5 as alternates) that will be part of the first module of the Pre-Academy and that after a training period will make a presentation of their project to try to get one of the ten places in the Academy Phase of the Accelerator.

The names of these 15 pre-selected candidates will be made public on 28 March and three days later the Pre-Academy phase will begin, which will last until 6 May, the day of the Demoday, when they will have to present the proposals with which they will opt to move on to the central phase of the Accelerator.

As last year, the ten finalists will have 6 months to shape and accelerate their initiative, and will compete for the final prizes, which are endowed with a total amount of 80,000 euros. They will also opt to the possibility of benefiting from promotional activities and participation in fairs and other events of the sector by the hand of Galicia Tourism Agency.

The selection of the best projects will be carried out by members of a committee made up of prominent professionals from different areas of the world of tourism and on which the Galicia Tourism Cluster will also be represented.