Interview with Bianca Iafelice, CEO of Trawellit
October 25, 2021
Interview with Bianca Iafelice, CEO of Trawellit, an integrated system that cherishes Italy’s historic, cultural, enogastronomic and natural heritage.
Italy is universally renowned for its marvelous art, natural scenery, culture and enogastronomic products. But since many of us tend to forget about this, a group of young people from Foggia came up with Trawellit, an online and offline integrated system that aims at transforming the way we enjoy Italy’s land by overcoming any linguistic, social and spatial barrier.
How does Trawellit work?
Trawellit is a system for touristic and cultural promotion that can interactively help connect tourists with tour guides, agencies and businesses. Trawellit’s main strength is the app that allows tourists to consult the museums’ multi-language interactive maps and brochures. Moreover, on the website users can book their tour guide and look for new exciting experiences to have in Puglia.
A more “traditional” route is also available, with offline communication channels that offer guided tours and experiences that directly engage the tourist.
Who is Trawellit targeted to?
Trawellit is also addressed toward tour guides, local businesses and municipalities. Tour guides are provided with Trawellit’s expertise in finding new clients, businesses’ locations become easily reperible thanks to Trawellit, and municipalities can enjoy Trawellit’s digital services – for instance, personalized apps.
Let’s hear more about it from Trawellit CEO Bianca Iafelice!
Hi Bianca, nice to meet you, and thank you for your time. Trawellit sure is lots of things: can you tell us more about it?
Hi, of course! Trawellit is like that because culture in Italy needs a solid system of services. From digitization (apps and websites) to communication (online and offline), from the promotion of hidden gems (with guided tours and experiences) to fruition (with multi-language options for foreign tourists). In order to solve the issues linked to tourism in our country, we need to renovate the state of things.
How and when was the idea of Trawellit born?
It was 2017, when my co-founder and art historian Paolo won Startup Weekend Foggia’s 3rd edition. He came up with a project about an app that could make culture more accessible: it included interactive maps of the museums’ interior, descriptions of each item, audio-guides and information available in Italian, English and French. This innovative app was especially appreciated for the guided tour booking system and for the promotion of local businesses’ products and services. We then managed to get a first loan (PIN – Pugliesi Innovativi), and we proceeded to build our innovative start-up by January 31 in 2020.
How long did it take for the project to take shape?
In a matter of 5 months we officially took off as a business. We partnered with Institutions, Organisations and Associations that shared our goals. This was the hardest part.
How’s the market responding so far?
Very well. The pandemic boosted the digitization process, we’ve been asked a lot to create services such as apps, websites and communication tools. Although the situation is still unstable and the restrictions are severe, we worked around it by providing digital solutions, like virtual tours in cultural places and cultural treasure hunts, that will grant social distancing. Also, last year we had a catalogue of activities for virtual school, with labs and virtual tours. We’ll propose it again this year.
“Trawellit”: looks like it refers to some interesting concept, doesn’t it?
Yes, since we want to offer a 360° travel experience, we merged together “travel”, “well” and “Italy”. We want tourists to learn about our country’s unique marvels in the best way possible: slowly, to make our guests deeply fall in love with them, and to make them come back again.
How did you launch your project? Was a crowdfunding campaign involved?
In 2018, we initially sought help from private sponsors. But since not many trusted digital yet, we had to finance the project ourselves. Our first commission was from Comune di Apricena, famous for “Madre Pietra”, for which we created an app for the “Museo della Scultura”. Then, in 2019, we took part as a team in a financing event promoted by Regione Puglia: “PIN – Pugliesi Innovativi”. We won, and we were able to register as an innovative start-up company. In December 2020 we won another financing event held by Invitalia, and we were picked among many other start-ups from the south: this was the “Bravo Innovation Hub + Turismo + Cultura”.
Fun fact: do you book your favorite guides on Trawellit as well?
Sure! We have a network of countless guides spread on the land, and they’re all available on our site. This makes it easier for us, too. Apart from guided tours and engaging experiences (Vita da Pescatore, Vita da Romano, Vita da Brigante…), we also offer a catalogue for schools with online and at-school activities.
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