New tool for my website and my clients: Witur itineraries!

Some time ago I was introduced to Witur a website and also an Ipod/Iphone application (I mentioned it in an older post), but I didn't really started using it until very recently.

I've already created a few itineraries that will be linked from my website, so I can provide my clients and website visitors a more detailed idea of what they can expect to see during the tour they book with me. I find it is an interesting tool that adds up to my current offer including my Picassa Albums and my Youtube videos.

Please check them out! I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments!

Only official tourguides

Lately you can see in the main tourist sites and monuments a sign saying only tourguides licensed by the Catalan Government are allowed to give explanations as tourguides there.

In Spain, each Autonomous Community (region) organizes exams to grant licenses to anyone wanting to work as a tourguide. To enter the exam you need to have completed a higher university degree, then pass a multiple-choice test an oral exam proving your specialised knowledge on local history, heritage, culture and tradition, as well as some group dynamics and psycology, economics and politics. In Catalonia you also need to prove you can express yourself in both Spanish and Catalan, and then there are additional language exams for people wishing to work for foreign tourists.

I passed my exam in 2000, and I've worked as an official tourguide of Catalonia ever since. My license is a symbol of my quality and proffessionalism, and I sport my yellow badge somewhere visible always during my tours (I call it "my uniform"!)

With this card, I can explain in any tourist site and I can even skip the lines in most of them when my group is smaller than 10 people (very useful for my private tours!)

Me and my official guide license, with the Forester girls during a tour in the Boqueria Market.

My website inspired a new gadget for Beoglobe online guide listing!

As a free-lance tourguide, my website is my main advertising tool. However, I also advertise in proffessional profiles in several online tourguide listings.

I was just contacted by one of them, Beoglobe.com, to let me know that they loved the introductory videos I have in Foreverbarcelona.com, and decided to "copy" my idea to improve the service they offer to the guides advertising with them. So my website has inspired them! And now any Beoglobe tourguide can send them a video so the website administrators upload it on their profile.

I'm happy to be "inspiring"!
Here is the translation of the letter they sent me (original in French here):

Hello Marta,

We are always looking to improve beoglobe.com offering new possibilities.
The most recent one affects you directly, as we chose your site to illustrate it: it's about video uploading.
We found yours were particularly convenient, as they allow potential clients to "get to know" the guide better, assessing their language skills.

Feel free to check the result on your profiles:
http://www.beoglobe.com/p/guide-fr-617-espagne-Barcelone-Anglophone-Francophone-Hispanophone.html
http://www.beoglobe.com/p/guia-es-617-espana-Barcelona-Ingles-Frances-Espanol.html
http://www.beoglobe.com/p/guide-en-617-spain-Barcelona-English-French-Spanish.html

Do you like it?

For beoglobe.com safety reasons, only beoglobe.com administrators can add or remove videos right now.

Have a nice day
Xavier Fabre

I found it in my files and wanted to share it

Hi!

Many of you know that I started being a tourguide as a protocol guide in the Sagrada Familia church. One of the tours I gave there in 2001 (soooooooo long ago, now!), was for the then Japanese first vice-minister of finances and the Barcelona consul. They sent a fax thanking the Administration for how they had been welcomed, and they also mentioned me and the tour I gave them. I was given a copy of the fax, and here it is (sorry if the image is a bit blurry):

"Dear Gentlemen,

I'm glad to contact you to express in behalf of his Excellency Mr. Masatoshi WAKABAYASHI, First Vice-Minister of Finances of Japan, his companions and myself, our most sincere gratitude for how we were received yesterday, when we visited the Church of the Sagrada Familia.

Please extend also our gratitude to the excellent tourguide Marta Laurent for her kindness to us during the visit as well as for the interesting explanations she offered us about the building process of the temple, its historical evolution and the works of the world-wide famous architect Antoni Gaudí.

I sincerely appreciate your consideration towards us and I send you my best regards,

Hiroyuki Hiramatsu
General Consul of Japan
Barcelona, May 29th 2001"

A tour under the snow storm!

Barcelona is a place where we rarely get snow, however... once in a while, let's say, every 10-20 years, we get a big storm that collapses everything. And that's what we had yesterday, when I was on a tour with the Stein family!

Luckily we had a private minivan with the best driver in town, Ramon, from TaxiVipBarcelona. And also luckily, the Stein are NewYorkers who are used to bad weather and we still managed to get a feel of what the city has to offer and we also stopped for some hot coffee and tapas when we saw the storm wouldn't give us many more alternatives...

Here are the pictures I took during the tour. I couldn't believe how much snow it was falling! I might have seen it just a couple of times in Barcelona in my whole lifetime! After the tour, I saw kids riding sleds down the streets in the neighbourhoods!



Highways and roads got closed until this morning, trains stopped running (actually my grandmother and aunt had to stop in a nearby town station until around midgnight some buses where sent to take passengers back to Barcelona!), the border with France was closed, and many towns didn't have neither electricity nor phone lines due to fallen trees...
Anyway, this morning things started going back to normal as the sun was now shinying and services were restablished. The forecast doesn't expect any more snow for the next days.

Letter from Marisa Misron, from Kuala Lumpur

Marisa was visiting Barcelona for the first time and asked me to give her a 6h tour to get a good orientation of the city, that she'd continue to explore on her own during the rest of her stay in town.

The day was a bit rainy, but we managed to cover so many things I couldn't even believe it. And we were moving just using public transportation! We took one taxi, then the bus, the subway and we walked.

I gave her lots of recomendations and ideas of things to do. We got along really well, she is a charming woman. Here is the letter she is sending me on her last day in town:

"Hi Marta

It´s my last night in Barcelona and I´m sad to be leaving. I´ve managed to go to so many places, my legs and back are hurting from so much walking. But it´s all good. :)

I went to Montjuic - it was beautiful and the weather was perfect. I took your advice and took the train to Paral-lel and I´m glad I did, because after the castle, it was all a downhill walk, thank God! Suffice to say, I think I lost some weight after all that walking.

I also visited Casa Mila and Palau de Musica Catalana, both definitely money well spent. I ate the chocolate cake at Bubo - sinful! So I felt guilty and walked along the waterfront, and then walked to the Colom and up La Rambla. Took a side trip to Palau Guell but didn´t go in. I had a late breakfast at the market (had the fritata the omelette and potato - is that how you spelled it? It was yummy).

Tomorrow is souvenir shopping time in the morning before I fly back to London in the afternoon.

Thank you again for being such a great guide! I hope to come back again soon and visit your lovely city again. And I will again stay at the hotel Denit. I´m so lucky for a first time visitor to encounter you and the hotel. :)

Much love,

Marisa

Tàpies Foundation finally reopened after 2 years of works

The Tàpies Foundation, a museum created by the local contemporary artist Antoni Tàpies to promote his works as well as to spread contemporary art in Barcelona, has finally reopened after 2 years of being closed for repair works.

This week-end they will have open-doors and offer guided tours to show their renovated venue. Don't miss it!

http://www.fundaciotapies.org

(in the picture, detail of the sculpture "Cloud and chair" that crowns the headquarters of the Tàpies Foundation, in Aragó street between Passeig de Gràcia and Rambla Catalunya).