• Throughout the whole supply chain, there's still a lot of room for progress in terms of sustainability and circularity in the cycling industry. To give you an idea: a local bike shop owner told us that he's, much to his own frustration, yearly collecting ten to twelve tons of trash per year. Despite a few efforts like Schwalbe's tube recycling program, very few manufacturers or whole-sellers provide incentives to reduce waste to bike shop owners.
• Although most cyclists don't know where their bicycles are made, a very large majority of the frames are made in Taiwan and Vietnam, and transported by container ships across the Suez Canal (see how that works out!). This video instructively shows how it works to build a traditional bike brand.
• The handful of Belgian frame builders are almost entirely focusing on the production of tailor-made bicycles, due to higher labour costs.
• The willingness to pay for a bicycle has tremendously increased with the advent of the electric bicycle. This is a positive development for the cycling industry since long-lasting products, made from more sustainable materials, are simply more expensive. On a side note, it's worth mentioning that bike shop owners struggle to show customers the total cost of ownership. Cheaper bicycles might look tempting at first, but they could cost much more over the product's lifetime. Therefore, it's promising to see many new bicycle offerings coming up including maintenance and repair services.
• The increasing prices and profit margins in the cycling industry brought in new investor groups, which weren't used to investing in bicycle brands before. This means both electrical and non-electrical market segments are getting more competitive and leaning towards a red ocean.
• Overall, to be competitive in a red ocean, bicycle brands strongly adhere to classical economic theory and practices in which economies of scale play a decisive role. Profitability depends on a brand's production and sales volumes. As there are limited options to differentiate one brand from another, it's a story of marginal gains on a product-technical level and it's hard to create a significant impact.

Therefore, we decided to take a step back and reflect upon this question: since we want to empower slow travellers on their journey towards sustainability and circularity, why don't we simply start creating more value for our incredible Welcome To My Garden community? Why do something with marginal positive impact when there's something you can do with tremendous positive impact?

• First of all, we need to maintain our platform so that it keeps on working like it does today.
• Moreover, we'd like to implement some new features (such as a search function, filters on the map and a report button) which were developed last year, but still require more testing.
• Last year we already welcomed Natuurpunt, Open Knowledge Belgium and Staycation BXL (VGC) as partners for Welcome To My Garden. We'd love to get more partners on board who want to support us on our mission and spread the word about Welcome To My Garden.

• The slow travel season is coming up! Therefore, we're going to organize a few inspirational and practical workshops that make enthusiasts get started with slow traveling and empower slow travellers on their journey.
• We're in the early days of making Welcome To My Garden signs which hosts can hang on their fence or front doors to indicate that they're part of the community. Besides that, we are looking into meaningful ways that slow travellers can thank their host. How cool would it be if travellers could give organic Welcome To My Garden seeds to their hosts?
• Over the long term, we also want to explore how we can encourage cities and municipalities to get involved with Welcome To My Garden. Ideally, we’d like to add an extra data layer with shelters for slow travellers in public spaces.

• The future of Welcome To My Garden isn't just community-driven, but also community-owned. Our platform creates value for and thanks to the community. Therefore, it should also be in the hands of our community. The idea of making it a platform cooperative sounds promising and we're currently learning what this would exactly imply.

• Our WTMG Slack is open to everyone. Each month we're organising a monthly community call to get new volunteers on board and discuss updates. Join our Slack via this link.
• We're looking for more partners who want to join us on our mission to make slow traveling the new normal. All suggestions, ideas and requests are welcome at support[@]welcometomygarden.org.
• Everyone can see where money for Welcome To My Garden comes from and where it goes. We accept donations and sponsorships, celebrate our supporters, pay expenses, and keep everyone up to date — all in one place: https://opencollective.com/welcometomygarden.
• Our community also loves to interact on our Facebook page - join the discussions: https://www.facebook.com/Welcome2mygarden.