 All in a day's work for Lifestyle Barcelona Josephine Anagor is a partner in Lifestyle Barcelona, a leading event company in Barcelona. 
What's the company mission? Our mission is to give residents and visitors to Barcelona the opportunity to experience something unique and fun! We have over 200 exciting experiences and activities in and around Barcelona. What kinds of activity do you offer? Many our of clients choose what we call a “once in a lifetime” experience. By this we mean something, that you would not normally expect to do like find yourself behind the wheel of a Formula 1 race car or Ferrari. Or perhaps you prefer Bridge Jumping, Rock climbing, making "Castellers" human towers, piloting a helicopter or soaring through the skies of Catalonia in a hot air balloon?
And for those who prefer something “slower and lower?” They can choose from a range of activities. How about Seductive Cooking, Chocolate Massages, and we have Gastronomic experiences and Romantic Packages. We always have lots of experiences to choose from and that’s why our clients keep coming back. They know that we can always find something new for them.
How did the business start?
Tony, the director of Lifestyle Barcelona, came up with the idea in 2003, when he had a couple from the UK staying with him in Barcelona. Not for a weekend, but for a full fortnight. This was a couple that he knew very well indeed from the UK and he wanted to show them the best possible time in Barcelona. For the first 3 days Tony was the World Champion of tour guides. His visitors had a fabulous time and experienced many great sights and sounds of Barcelona. By the 4th day, however Tony’s melting pot of ideas was beginning to dry up at an alarming rate! This was not the first time his visitors were in Barcelona, so the Playas, Ramblas and Tapas were nothing new them. In short they were a bit Gaudi-ed out, Over-Rambled, beach-burnt and generally ready for something new.
The problem was Tony had little new to offer. And worse still, he had no idea who to call for suggestions or where to go to for ideas. The rest of the visit was a real challenge. By day 10 Tony admits, even though he considers himself a dynamic and creative person, that he was stumped for ideas and had to resort to scrabble, cinema visits and old photo albums! He just managed to keep his visitors entertained until the end of their stay on day14, but one more day and Tony would have bought the origami Sagrada Familia kit!
After his visitors had gone back to the UK, Tony got to thinking, that he was probably not the only person, who been in this dilemma, when visitors stayed longer than 3 days. He set up an Experiences Company that offers vistiors and locals in Barcelona numerous different ways to enjoy this amazing city of Barcelona.
Tony soon realised that this was not a one-man job and teamed up the first of what would be a team of 4 partners eventually. The first partner was Krissi from Iceland, who is responsible for creating all the amazing and diverse experiences in and around Barcelona that Lifestyle Barcelonas offers today. Then came Raquel from Catalunya. She takes care of the books. Jo herself joined Lifestyle Barcelona as the fourth partner four years ago. Jo is responsible for sales and bookings. Jo tells us, the couple who came over to stay with Tony in 2003 - were his mum and dad! And they are Jo’s mum and dad too! Tony is her big brother. So there are four partners in Lifestyle Barcelona. They calls it a half a family busines and half a “friendly” business!

" Look me Hearties! A captain can't lead AND paddle at the same time! " Tony demonstrates leadership skills in a Pyrenees rafting moment!
Your job sounds fantastic? It is, but really the testing is quite demanding work and very important to us. We cannot ask our clients to try an experience, unless we know that it really is fun, and if we know how it actually feels. What we are really selling is feelings, emotions and memories, so we need to know what our clients will feel, when they try an experience at Lifestyle Barcelona. Another important aspect of testing the experiences ourselves is that we develop a very close relationship with our suppliers. They become our friends and this special relationship of trust and friendship is crucial. If we trust our suppliers our clients can sense it and will trust us in turn. Trust is a huge part of what we sell too. Especially in the more adventure based activities. You need a lot of trust, if you are going to step out of an aeroplane, believe me!
Who are the clients? We have a great mix of companies, tourists and sometimes private groups of friends or organizations. Many companies book activities to go with their own sales incentives, conferences, Off site meetings, jollies etc. We try to give them an experience to suit every profile of client and we have set ourselves a bit of a challenge at Lifestyle Barcelona, that we cannot offer the same company the same activity more than once!! That goal keeps us on our toes!

That was fantastic Jo, er.. but my hair was black before I got into that Formula 1 car?
And tourists too. We make it very easy for tourists to try these experiences even if they are only in Barcelona for a couple of days. Booking with us is a one-click experience and much easier than organising it all yourself. And more and more we are looking at the Spanish market and not just the overseas markets. Very early on we realised that we were ignoring a fantastic market right here under our noses. Our Spanish clients loved our website so much, that we not only translated the site into Spanish, but we have now created a totally separate website for them: called www.muchomadsqueunregalo.com (much more than a gift) This site is dedicated to Gift Experiences and covers the whole of Spain. Is your company green? Well it's funny you ask that, Jo says. Yes we are a green company. We send “green company emails” on environmentally friendly issues regularly. We nominate a green chico or chica each month to depose of the plastic water bottles that we collect and the paper that we have re-used.

Website: http://www.lifestylebarcelona.com Office: Lifestyle Experiences Group SL Calle Balmes 184, 1º 3ª 08006 Barcelona SPAIN Office hours: Monday - Friday 9:00 - 19:00 Registered Travel Agency GC1490 Or contact them: Phone: +34 932 702 048 Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
|