Success stories

New entrepreneur:
Martina Canducci (Portugal)
Age: 32
Company name: (Start-up)
Sector of activity: Hotel, restaurant, tourism, travel services and wellness

Host entrepreneur:
Carlo Cascione (Italy)
Age: 38
Company name: Salento Bici Tour (10 years of experience)
Sector of activity: Hotel, restaurant, tourism, travel services and wellness

Originally from Italy, Martina, a 32-year-old Italian lady, spent her last few years in Portugal where she had fallen in love with the country’s landscape and cultural traditions. Her motivation since then was to start a business related to culture and environment and to begin with, she started working in a cultural association in Porto to get experience in the sector.

 

Seeing the city significantly changing in just few years due to the mass tourism and gentrification, she started reading and travelling around to look for some good practices related to sustainable tourism which led her to discover Bici Tour, an association in Salento which was created by two friends in southern Italy, to promotes cycling tourism.

 

Bici Tour, was the business model Marina wanted to learn from. She thus applied with Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs to be able to get and exchange at Bici Tour with Carlo Cascione. With ten years of experience as entrepreneur, Carlo has the expertise in the field that Maryna was looking for.

 

During the exchange at the host company, Martina had worked closely with Carlo, and was involved in all the activities carried out by the company. She was involved in the preparation phase and logistics of the tours organised as well as assisted clients during the self-guided tours providing assistance and luggage transportation. But this was not all, Martina also took part in the day-tour experiences with locals, guided tours and cooking classes with the tourists.

Spending time abroad with an experienced entrepreneur has reinforced Matina’s willingness and confidence to start her own business in the sustainable tourism field. Her experience at Salento Bici Tour has provided her with the guidance she needed to feel more comfortable with her future business as she had been taught the key marketing and negotiations strategies to use with clients and partners: hotels, restaurants, transfer services and tour operators.

 

Martina wants to launch her own business in Portugal and collaborating with Carlo definitely had positive impact on her willingness to start-up. The four-month spent with Carlo have helped her acquire the necessary tools to launch her own business and she also knows that she can count on Carlo’s support and advice.

For more information, please contact the local contact points involved in the exchange:

New entrepreneur's contact point:
Anje Association nacional de jovens empresarios (Porto, Portugal)

Host entrepreneur's contact point:
UNISCO Network per lo Sviluppo Locale (Bari, Italy)

« Back to the overview