BLOGTROTTERS: WHAT’S THE STORY?

As guests of Discover Greece – an interactive digital platform for “community building and social media campaigns” related to Greek tourism, a group of “Digital Influencer’s” (and me) went to Athens to attend a “Blogtrotters” workshop. If you’re planning a trip to Greece this summer, read on because there is lots of advice about a new way to be a tourist there.

So, what’s the story?

Here is Becki the solo backpacker:-

An incredibly enlightening and enjoyable day we had during our workshop ably assisted by a fantastic group, including three bloggers from Germany where we each had a few minutes to tell our story to the group. The location was a trendy loft room and it felt warm and inviting for all of us to share our stories:-

Backpacker Becki
Black dots white spots
Off the Path
Planet Backpack
Rosie Scribble
Travel with Kat
Thepastamaster

Despite the group being of mixed ages and niche interests we all had a great time together – in fact it was better as everyone was taking photos of different things during our tours – food, architecture, the sky, people, facilities for kids, men on the beach (oh sorry that might have been just me) but the great thing was we all agreed that Athens has an awful lot to offer as a city break with a beach component.

The concept behind the day was that we and everyone else become part of a new initiative and a single inspiring story. Athens is one of Europe’s liviliest outgoing and interesting cities and the most modern ancient metropolis of Europe. Previously considered a stop over – for the islands – but this is the first year they have really focused on Athens as a cool destination where young people are meeting in the squares post the crisis to discuss the next big thing…

Last year Greece had 18m tourists and this year already they have had 19m plus 2m cruising passengers so they are set for a bumper year. Discover Greece is promoting it differently, looking at telling personal stories of Greek experiences and offering destinations that are not as well known to the world as Santorini and Mykonos.

Here we all are networking busily away:-

In our little bubble:-

We were introduced to many exciting new start up companies:-

DOPIOS

340 locations
81 countries
1500 experiences

Visitors experiencing a new way of travelling
A platform that empowers individuals to connect with others who match their travel style for a unique and personalised travel experience. To connect the two sides and let locals offer a personalised travel experience covering any needs the traveler might have and something real that generates a new type of story.

They can offer trip planning, one to one advice, experiences and concierge services – therefore it’s a friendly welcoming experience as soon as the visitor arrives – fishing/running/yoga/food/everything and anything.

Benefits
Personalisation
Zero research
Authentic traveling
Connecting offline
Maximise experience
Access any location

It also benefits the locals as they connect and make money – so it’s a no brainer really

ATHENS INSIDERS

5 founders with one common passion that has brought them together – road trips – whereby they seek to discover what lies beneath the surface of a destination – whenever they travel they try to meet locals and understand their way of life – which in their eyes made them feel like a better sort of traveller in order to understand the world around them.

Then they realised they could offer the same in their home town and Athens Gourmet was born.

It is always difficult to be discovered and they looked about to see what type of tourist services offered in Athens – lots of cultural ones, but they felt there was a lack of fresh new ideas and felt it was better to not follow the crowd. So they put together some new and original tours;

Flavours and food visits to market
Experiential and away from normal path
Walking tours, some excursions,
Walking Meze
Ideas/ to create authentic a fully customised experience

INCREDIBLUE

Essentially boat rentals made easy

Connecting travellers directly to boat owners. Before you had to go through a broker/agent and it was all very old fashioned, so they decided to change that and they found verified boat owners and got them to communicate directly with the tourists.

MUSEUM OF GREEK GASTRONOMY

Konstantinos Matsourdelis is the Founder and CEO and what an enterprising young man he is.

His story started when he met a team of young people who all exchanged ideas and dreams for the future and took decision to come back to Greece and start someting that normally the state would do – so it’s a huge project and they weren’t really sure where to start and what the goal was, but a year later have achieved a lot – they have even found a building in central Athens and the museum is due to open very soon now.

Their vision to collect, preserve and exhibit the culinary wealth of Greece by creating an all round experience for the visitor – new and engaging experiences involving the visitor at the centre. As a growing market, gastronomy should be an all round experience with knowledge and entertainment with cooking courses and “social gastronomy” – getting everyone talking.

TOURISMART

A new hotel management system
Your hotel on the go – whereby you order and book via your smart phone, providing a bridge between hotels and customers.

Why not book your trip via the Discover Greece Website via Skyskanner?

So what’s Next? Watch this space:-

We were guests of Discover Greece for a four night stay at the Pallas Athena and flown out by Aegean Airlines