II Congreso Europeo de Turismo Rural, "Reinventarse para crear destino".

Se celebra mañana en Mangirón (Madrid), el II Congreso Europeo de Turismo Rural, "Reinventarse para crear destino".
Si no puedes asistir en persona al congreso no te preocupes, podrás verlo online desde la web de COETUR.
Aquí tienes los horarios del programa:

Miércoles 30 de septiembre
9:00 Bienvenida y acreditación
09:30 Inauguración institucional
- Belén Martínez Díaz, Subdirectora General de Desarrollo y Sostenibilidad Turística de la Dirección General de Turismo de la Comunidad de Madrid
- Marta Blanco Quesada, Directora General de Turespaña
- Ángel Martínez Herrero, Presidente del Grupo de Acción Local Sierra Norte (GALSINMA) y Presidente de la Mancomunidad del Valle del Lozoya (MVNL)
10:00 Presentación Observatorio del Turismo Rural
- Enric López, Director Master Universitario “E-tourism” (CETT-UB)
- Ana Alonso, Directora de Comunicación de EscapadaRural.com
10:45 El turismo en la región de Madrid. Nuevas estrategias
- Belén Martínez Díaz, Subdirectora General de Desarrollo y Sostenibilidad Turística de la Dirección General de Turismo de la Comunidad de Madrid
11:15 Coffee break
11:30 El turismo rural, una perspectiva internacional
- Klaus Ehrlich, Secretario General de Eurogites
entrevistado por Pedro Madera "Gente viajera" (Onda Cero)
12:00 Los partners estratégicos del sector
- Aránzazu Urbina, Técnico de la Dirección General de Turismo de la Comunidad de Madrid
- Gustavo Nash, Representante de la Asociación de Turismo Sierra de Madrid (ATUSIMA)
- Miguel Ángel Jara, Gerente de la Asociación de Desarrollo Sierra de Guadarrama (ADESGAM)
- Ana Patricia Zapardiel, Directora de Proyectos de la Sociedad Estatal para la Gestión de la Innovación y las Tecnologías Turísticas (SEGITTUR)
moderado por Antonio Gonzalo, propietario de Ecoturismo Monte Holiday
13:15 Reinvención del marketing turístico
- Rafael Chamorro Marín, Subdirector General de Marketing Exterior del Turismo en Turespaña
14:00 Comida
15:30 Plataformas de mensajería instantánea para generar negocio en turismo rural
- Tirso Maldonado, Evangelist Manager en Witcamp
16:30 Las Asociaciones, ¿qué se puede esperar de ellas y qué esperan ellas de sus asociados?
- Ventura García, Vicepresidente de la Asociación Española de Turismo Rural (ASETUR)
- Francisco Parra, Presidente de la Asociación de Profesionales del Turismo Rural (AUTURAL)
- Luis Chico Luque, Presidente de la Asociación de Empresarios de Turismo Rural de Valladolid y la Federación de Asociaciones Castellano y Leonesa de Turismo Rural (ACALTUR)
- Adriano Berdasco, Presidente de la Federación Asturiana de Turismo Rural (FASTUR)
moderado por Jesús del Tío, propietario de las casas rurales Aguas Frías y Entre Valles
17:30 Coffee break
17:45 Empresarios reinventados
- Morelia Bueno, propietaria de la casa rural La Calma
- Chema Ramón, propietario del Hotel Rural La Casa del Río
- Carmen Suárez Rull, propietaria de la casa rural Luces del Poniente
- Miguel Ángel Paños Martín, gerente explotación del Agroturismo Calixto
moderado por Rodrigo Martín Jiménez, gerente y propietario de casas rurales Navaluenga.net y Airsofttotal
19:00 Entrega de premios
Entrega de los II Premios de EscapadaRural.com

Jueves 1 de octubre
09:00 Reinventa tu negocio. Microponencias de 20 minutos
- “Estrategias de comercialización para mejorar el ROI”, Anna Cano (consultora de comunicación)
- “Reputación online”, Rafa González (Socio Director de Vivential Value)
- “Turismo Activo y alojamientos rurales: un tándem de éxito”, José Carlos de Santiago (Presidente de la Asociación Nacional de Empresas de Turismo Activo, ANETA)
- “Fotografía rural para no fotógrafos”, Aníbal Trejo (anibaltrejo.com)
10:30 Coffee break
10:45 ¿Qué podemos aprender del mercado francés?
- Anahilia Stredel-Laurent, Directora de Gîtes de France Pyrénées-Orientales
- Gabriela Rodríguez, Responsable de las Iniciativas de Desarrollo de la Cooperación Transfronteriza de Gîtes de France
11:30 Embajadores de destinos
- Francisco Jerez, Responsable del Producto rural y de Naturaleza en el Área de Producto del Instituto de Turismo de la Región de Murcia
- Juan Ángel Martínez, Gestor alojamiento Hostal Rural Miralmundo
- José Miguel “Sele” Redondo, blog elrincondesele.com
- Rafael Nasarre, Jefe de Servicios de Promoción Turística de Turismo de Aragón
moderado por José María de Juan, Socio Director de Koan Consulting
13:00 Clausura y conclusiones
- Ana Alonso, Directora de Comunicación de EscapadRural.com
- Ángel Martínez, Presidente del Grupo de Acción Local Sierra Norte (GALSINMA) y Presidente de la Mancomunidad del Valle del Lozoya (MVNL)
http://www.coetur.com/…

Cortijo Las Monjas at the 5th European Congress on Rural Tourism, october 2014, Alpbach, Tyrol

 
Here it is a video with the presentation i made for the 5th European Congress on Rural Tourism. This event takes place every two years and is organised by the EuroGites-European Federation of Rural Tourism. In October 2014, together with its national partner Austrian Farm Holidays in Alpbach, Tyrol. www.europeanrtcongress.org

They asked me for a presentation where i could give to the colleagues from other countries in rural tourism an impression how rural tourism works in the very South of Europe from my experience as an owner/manager of a rural accomodation.

I thought that could be nice to share this presentation and explain you a bit, with this video, about our story. My name is Almudena and toguether with my family we run Cortijo Las Monjas.

Sometimes, originally a rural accommodation is not build for tourism, and this is our case, Cortijo Las Monjas was restored in 2002 as a family tourism business to complement the olive farming of 14 has.

In fact more than 300 years ago the farmhouse belonged to the nuns, this is why this house is called Cortijo de Las Monjas (Cortijo is the word in Andalusia for deisgn a Farmhouse and Monjas is Spanish for Nuns) the Nuns were not living here, we found a rental agreement from the year 1709, where appear that the nuns just own the land and the house and the farmers could live there in exchange for work on the landand they could pay them with food and some money.

Around 100 years ago my family arrived to this place first like workers and later like owners.
My mother and her brother and sister were born here and they were living here till the 60, when they get married and then all of them went to look for a better life at the city. The Cortijo was abandoned and started to be more a ruin that a house

Around the 80´s, for differents reasons my parents took care of the Cortijo and the land, they worked so hard to get the house inhabited again. They drove every weekend 3 hours one wayand 3 hours way back to work at the house, in the field, picking olives and other fruits.

My brother Nacho and me, were already there too, we spent every holiday at the Cortijo, our best memories from our chilhood are here, and not everything was work... (almost :-D )

The Cortijo was like the holiday house for the family and other friends from the city who wanted to spend a weekend at the countryside, this was maybe like the start of the rural tourism in Andalusia, but nobody called it like that, was more like “nos vamos al campo” this means “let’s go to the countryside”, my father sometimes says, life changed into the other way around, when he was a child his parents took him to see how looks the City, now parents take the children to the countryside because they even don’t know how a sheep looks like.

In 2000, the house was needed of a big reform, and we decided to renovate the place and to change it into a rural accommodation, like a complement for the olive production. My father was the promotor, he was thinking on it for a long time, and with his experience like a constructor he made the plans and the whole family helped to create it.

When people arrive, they always take some time to enjoy the view and many people find there is a magical atmosphere in and around the Cortijo. Both the authenticity and the beautiful surroundings makes Cortijo las Monjas a very special place to stay.

Also what made the rural tourism diferent, is us, we are living there and the treatment we can give to our guests is much more familiar than in a hotel, the are not a number room, the are call by their name.
The can experience how life is at our place, they can taste the diferents local products, the food for our garden and if they want the can join us in the diferents activities.

I am an active member of differents associations, working for the development of the region from the conservation of natural and cultural heritage. We colaborate with this organizations and we also organice here and in the area differents events, always trying to keep the traditions.

Over the past years, we have develop and diversify our offer, weedings, small MICE events, open-air celebrations are also possible. We organized different kind of courses and workshops, about olive oil, wine, aromatics and medicinal plants...etc.

In Andalusia the climate is very suitable for offering other outdoor activities almost the whole year round. A lot of people don’t realise the best time to visit the area is off season and even in winter it can be very comfortable wheater. Hiking, ciclyng, horse riding, cayoing, speleology are other activities you can practice here.

Next to all the romance, it is real hard work to keep everything running, but we just love what we do and where we live, this is why we will go on, giving the chance to the people to discover our region and our little paradise, and having the reward to make people happy for being here.

Hope you liked our story and i hope to see you soon!
Almudena