Supporting local micro-businesses in rural tourism

a fictional storytelling project

A few months ago, I traveled to a village known as Temnica in the Karst region of Slovenia for a tourism residency. We immersed in the local culture, connected with the locals, and formed lifelong friendships. The theme was sustainable tourism and there were opportunities to help improve local micro-businesses. I loved immersing in the culture so deeply and it inspired a project that is only coming together now.

Imagine connecting stories inspired a place to the products produced by the locals.

1. Creating a brand through fictional storytelling about a place. The story is fictional but inspired by the ancestry, feelings and family of the place.

2. The storytelling is through a text-adventure game that can be played on the browser.

3. The artwork used inside the game is also converted into NFTs.

4. Collaborating with the locals for their products and services.

5. Licensing our brand to these locals.

6. Locals sell their products and services leveraging this brand.

7. Digital nomads, etc. immerse in the local culture of the place through the game, buy the products from the locals and get NFT collectibles.

How will we tell the story of the place / create this brand?

For telling the story I am creating a text-adventure game with a fictional narrative that tourists and digital nomads could immerse in.

To get the visuals for the story, I was exploring public domain images and generative art.

The artwork would be used in the storytelling and also converted into NFTs/collectibles.

Browsing pictures has also been helpful in forming the general story arch and the characters for the game.

What products/services would the locals sell?

In Temnica, we helped a local who owned the accommodation that we were staying at. We visited his vineyard, helped bottle and label the wine that he made. He gifted us a bottle of the wine. The first product could be this wine.

Some wineries have already released their NFT-labelled wines.

Imagining digital nomads drinking amazing wine while collecting a collectible or NFTs from these stories.

Has this been done before?

Not in this context, afaik after an hour of research.

However, many brands already do it in a different context. Many industries capitalize on the brands of books and TV series.

What is different about this idea?

We focus exclusively on products produced locally by the locals in rural areas like the location of the tourism residency that I participated in. And collaborating with local tourism destinations for their products and services.

The stories also, though fictional, are about the ancestry, feelings and family of the places.

What will the text-adventure game look like?

I haven’t yet figured out completely what the narrative of the game will be. I think a very very short text-adventure game (with multiple endings, like all text-adventure games) and background music and photo collages could be nice.