Pilgrim Travel is a startup from A Coruña which specialises in bringing digital transformation to the Camino de Santiago. It works as a marketplace that brings together the most comprehensive range of services and travel programmes that exist to make the Camino, regardless of the means of transport (on foot, by bike, on horseback...), the route, preferences or needs of the person travelling.

Roberto Fraga, founder and CEO of the company, is, first and foremost, a passionate fan of the Camino. Back in 2002, he had an incident during one of the legs, which is what sparked the idea for Pilgrim: "It was raining and I went into the place where a local neighbour kept his tractor. Suddenly, a dog came out and bit me. It was 50 minutes before the ambulance arrived, while I was trying to get my bearings and explain where I was," he recalls. "If this happens to me as a local from Vilalba, what will happen to a Korean or a German when it comes to finding their way or accessing basic services?

It wouldn't be until 2016 that everything began to take shape, together with the Universidade da Coruña. The main challenge: to be able, starting from scratch, to bring together such a fragmented sector, in which small guesthouses, hostels, hotels, restaurants, bicycle rental companies, pharmacies, etc. come together. "In the area of technological research we set up a group to try to document all the tourist resources, patrimonial, social, economic, etc., linked to the Camino de Santiago with the aim of bringing them to a digital platform in which to offer a mix of informative and recreational content, such as stages, resources, natural areas, etc., with a more transactional part, in which people could book hotels, plan the trip or hire services," he explains.

In this way, Pilgrim makes available to the user the whole network of accommodation and services of the Camino de Santiago through an interactive travel planner that anyone, without any knowledge of the Camino, can use to design a fully customised route.

As for the success of the initiative, the figures speak for themselves. Each year, they have 5 million unique users on the web and manage around 25,000 pilgrims. If I had to define the typical client of the platform, Roberto is clear that it is usually "a foreign person, accustomed to travel and who likes to enjoy new experiences. Looking for a different Camino to enjoy all the layers of value that has around it: typical Galician accommodation such as rural houses, pazos or boutique hotels, gastronomy...", he explains.

Therefore, they are clear that they must continue to explore linking the Camino with other experiences, such as the so-called roots tourism, in this case of the Galician diaspora, the spa offer, the world of wine... "It is a key strategy to delocalise the Xacobeo effect and make the experience seasonal throughout the year, contributing to continue generating value and the tractor effect in rural Galicia," concludes the CEO of Pilgrim.