From skiing to “busca un chollo” and many hotels

They say that the city Rios It is one of the business ecosystems that should not be missed. Southern Catalonia is pushing the entrepreneurship accelerator, apart from the media cosmetics company Fresh cosmeticsThere is also Travel for youThe company name is probably not known to many, but it is recognized by the brands it gathers around it: esquiades.com, buscaunchollo.com, amimir.com Oh Jump2spain.comA project born in 2001 in an apartment in Tarragona. Rafael Fuertes When the internet was “another world” and the connection speed was very slow. A lot of effort, from “really cutting the stone”, a lot of skiing, trips, end of year parties, and… An adventure that led them to open offices in their “competitor” Reus for years, and they have 135 employees. It’s the effect Find a deal They don’t seem to be doing too badly.

One of the successes of Reusenca Viajes para ti is the elimination of seasonality and the four lines of business.

If we go to pams, Viajes para ti is a travel agency specialized in online sales. During their daily operations, they organize thousands of trips for clients from all over the world, especially from Catalonia, Spain and Andorra. They started as a small travel agency specialized in skiing and have expanded their business model while adhering to Seasonal removalwhich economist Oriol Amat recently covered in depth. For example, toy companies make 65% of their sales during the Christmas and Kings campaign, while ice cream parlors make theirs during the three summer months. Something similar happened to Fuertes during the start of Viajes para ti, especially during the winter with snow sports. From there, three new off-season business lines were born with cheap travel, accommodations around the world and much more.

A team with “roots” in southern Catalonia

CEO Travel for you, Rafael FuertesThe project started 23 years ago with what is known as “guerrilla marketing”, as they did not have YouTube or social media. Used to Publications and posters and distributed them to universities. It was a constant word of mouth. With the development of the Internet, he also expanded his business and after three years he was able to sign the first worker and after some time, nine people to complete the team. Skating was very seasonal, so they later came up with a portal under the name buscaunchollo.com They offer public trips at a price with deals. flash And they launched themselves to compete with her. Groups Oh He should Which was born at the same time. Things weren’t so bad for them, because during its first year of life, buscaunchollo.com made 500,000 euros in sales. It was the “icing” on the cake.

More information: Tourism begins a record summer

The business venture continued to expand, and when they moved to Reus they changed their offices up to three times to increase their size. Curiously, this is a team that mostly lives in the area, as he explains: Nacho ValenaCMO travel for you, for Via CompanyThe average age of the employees is 28, and a third of the company is made up of computer scientists. The rest is made up of a “very strong” customer service team that is available 24 hours a day to users who need it, a product and commercial team, and a quality and marketing department, among others. A few years ago, they ventured into a hotel search engine called Omier.com To compete with giants like Booking and Expedia.

One of the leading features of Viajes para ti: self-financing and payment to suppliers in less than five days

The numbers? According to Valina, in 2023 they managed 300,000 trips between all brands and 200,000 parts of buscaunchollo.com, 40,000 ski trips and 60,000 hotel reservations for sleep. Among the lessons learned from Viajes para ti is that with online business “there is no secret”, but there must be “consistency, effort and a lot of dedication”. Among the future plans there is one to bet on even more internationalization. Finally, a reason to be “proud”: they have self-financed everything since day one and paid all suppliers in less than five days. An extraordinary milestone in the city of Reus where many success stories are emerging. And Viajes para ti is a great example.